My Experience at Philadelphia’s Digital Summit

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend Philadelphia’s Digital Summit with my internship in LMC’s Marketing Department. With over 1,400 attendees and 45 different speakers packed into The Convention Center for this two-day conference, the atmosphere itself was an experience. Over the course of a what could have been a normal workday in my cubicle in Wayne, Pa., I was exposed to passionate speakers who shared insights on digital marketing trends and best practices.

Tamsen Webster, a professional “Idea Whisperer”, spoke about how simply paying more attention to human nature can drive innovative marketing practices. No one wants to be told what they want--people want to come to their own conclusions. So why do we spend time trying to tell people they what they should or shouldn’t believe in? People want to be persuaded by their own reasoning, and once you want something, it's hard to “unwant it”.

Marketer’s jobs should be to open peoples’ minds so that they can explore their personal desires on their own and organically come to conclusions about what they want. When people find something that they believe in--their decision is made almost subconsciously, they want it.

In 2019, our attention spans are shrinking and our expectations are high. Leigh George, founder of a strategic branding agency based in Washington, D.C., spoke about evolving marketing trends in our current digital age.

“The challenge is not reaching customers, it’s avoiding bad experiences,” said George.

The value-add of content is more likely to affect people’s decisions--not how much content is thrown in their face. Any organization can have 5 social media accounts, but if they frequently post content that is not engaging--who’s attention are they really grabbing? They’re posts become similar to white noise and you begin to not notice them and you are not engaged.

Being customer-centric by focusing on creating content that engages people while helping consumers find their passions, is the key to influential digital marketing practices.

George uses the ever-so-relatable example of Amazon to highlight how this one platform alone is not killing retailers--bad customer service is. The E-commerce experience with Amazon is beyond just the transaction--it’s actively staying ahead of understanding consumer behavior.

Consumers today value a brand’s association with experiences and their day-to-day lifestyle, instead of simply just considering “how good is this product/service,” when deciding which brand to use. People want the brands they choose to use to help support their identity, values, wellness and relationships through experiences.

Eric Shutt of SummitX calls it “The Experience Era”, a time where companies should be focusing on how their company culture creates experiences not only for their consumers, but for their employees. What cultural tension does your company resolve? What experience do you create? How does digital power these experiences? Companies should strive to create experiences with digital--not just pull more people into their screens for even longer periods of time.