Since 2011, Prospa has provided the funding that’s propelled thousands of Australian small businesses – small business is at the heart of everything Prospa does.

But Prospa’s not alone in this focus. More than 97% of businesses in Australia are classified as small, and their owners and leaders are a valuable audience segment – small business content marketing is a crowded space.

Small business owners and leaders are a valuable audience segment, making small business content marketing a crowded space.

In this session, Mahlab Founder and Chair Bobbi Mahlab AM and Prospa Head of Marketing Deborah Kytic will share insights into the content marketing strategy that helps Prospa gain and maintain the attention of its most valuable audience segments.

Join this session to see:

• The path Prospa took to map business objectives back to marketing metrics, then to content strategy and execution
• How Prospa identified its most valuable audience segments
• The process that ensures an audience-first approach
• How to create content that stands out, drives engagement and delivers results

Michelle has spent the last 18 months elevating the CMO role and perception of marketing within the business. For the first time Marketing has become a bridge across all functions with “a big seat” at the executive leadership team,  has for the first time a seat at the Sales Executive Leadership Team, and a seat at the Finance/IT/Operations Leadership Team.

During this CMO/CFO fireside chat, Michelle will share how she collaborates with all C-suite stakeholders with a focus on the CMO/CFO relationship.

Ben will share how to win over and speak the language of the CFO.

• The CMO/CFO – One of the most worthwhile relationships to invest in
• How you have to speak their language and understand the gaps
• Ben’s perspective on how the marketing conversation and relationship changed
• Practical recommendations to other marketers
• Agreeing on metrics and reporting that matter to the CFO, CEO and Board

FIRESIDE CHAT: FROM CEO ADMA TO B2B CMO AT IBM  – BRINGING A CEO MINDSET INTO THE CMO ROLE

“Marketing’s seat at the leadership table is earned – not given” – Jodie Sangster

During this fireside chat, Jodie will share how having led a successful turnaround as CEO of ADMA, her transition to the CMO role at IBM came with the need to adapt to a company with 108 years of tradition and hierarchy baked in.

In this session she’ll share:

• Lessons learned from the transition from CEO to CMO
• How to break down the silos when you’re a functional leader
• Practical tips for linking the marketing function with the business strategy
• How her experience as an entrepreneurial leader at ADMA has helped in her CMO role

THE IMPACT OF AI ON MARKETING – THE BRAND TRUST DILEMMA

Rated CMO #26 back in 2016 while Head of Marketing, South Pacific at HP, Darren relocated to the USA in 2017 to lead HP’s world wide marketing team for the office printing solutions. Back in Australia he’s heading up the global marketing function at Technologyone, Australia’s largest enterprise software company and a top 150 listed company (ASX:TNE).

The hype got this one right: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI & ML) have indeed had an outsized impact on the marketing function. While we now have the ability to hyper-target an audience, as humans we rely on complex algorithms to cope with the immense volumes of data involved.

With brand trust at an all-time low, marketers have a responsibility to ensure the use of customer data is both correct and moral. We need to have an ethical lens towards the machines and take control of the data conversation. This means triangulating with sales and customer service – the other custodians of data – and finding a holistic solution to this problem.

In this keynote speech, Darren will take us on a journey of how we got here, as well as share his insights on what today’s B2B marketers need to do to regain trust and the ethical imperative we now face.

With the increase in working from home, and the reduced ability to travel or hold meetings, the past 12 months have seen a shift in how B2B marketers reach their desired audiences and effectively communicate with them. This ‘new normal’ calls for a new way of approaching B2B marketing, one that throws into question the status quo. Explore the best ways to communicate with your audience with the unveiling of world-first ground-breaking research that shows how to put your customers and accounts in a receptive state of mind and increase the impact of your marketing efforts. We will cover:

• How B2B marketers can get the most out of their marketing and advertising investment
• Why the perception that all “old-school” advertising channels are ineffective is incorrect
• The role news media can play in increasing or retaining share​ with clients/customers
• The brands that are already harnessing the power of news media platforms

WHY FUNNELS ARE F%@D – GETTING MARKETING INVESTMENT RIGHT

During Andy’s 2019 Forum presentation on budgeting he concluded by stating that marketers’ drug of choice – the funnel – is a broken idea.

B2B customers don’t purchase in linear ways or logically but are driven by emotional buying patterns which is why B2B marketers need to find a way of flowing more budget into brand investments.

During this session he’ll explain the need to build brand above sales activation and the need to allocate (maybe not 60% of the budget – he called that ludicrous) of your marketing budget to brand.