You won’t want to miss these amazing opportunities.
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Nothing beats a great marketing conference. Whether you’ll be speaking or attending, marketing conferences offer tons of amazing opportunities.
If you want to learn tons of new things that will help grow your business in 2017, then you should plan to attend a marketing conference. Plus, you can meet or reconnect with lots of super smart people at conferences-people who can help you in your career.
There is no shortage of marketing conferences you could attend in 2017. So how do you separate the OK conferences (the donkeys) from the truly great (the unicorns)?
Simple. Keep reading! Here are 19 marketing conferences you shouldn’t miss out on in 2017.
SEODay
SEODay is a large event dedicated to addressing future challenges and priorities for anyone involved in SEO. This conference attracts speakers from around the world and attendees from Norway, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. SEODay takes place Jan. 19 in Denmark.
SearchLove
If you’ve got two days and want to learn all you can about search, analytics, and digital marketing, Distilled’s SearchLove may be the destination for you. You can listen to must-see speakers like Will Critchlow, Mike King (one of the 12 brilliant marketing entrepreneurs you need to watch this year), and Rand Fishkin. Oh and I’ll be there, too! Search Loves takes place Feb. 23-24 in San Diego; June 5-6 in Boston; and October 16-17 in London.
Pubcon
The sessions at Pubcon are great-Brett Tabke and his team do a phenomenal job of booking excellent speakers. But the networking? Amazing! Because Pubcon has been around so long, it attracts some of the industry’s best and brightest SEO pros-people you won’t find at any other search industry events. Pubcon has two events. One is a smaller show in cooperation with SFIMA in Fort Lauderdale Feb. 21-22. The other is the Super Bowl-sized conference (last year featured a mind-boggling 10 tracks!), which will return to Las Vegas November 6-9.
C3 (Conductor)
Conductor puts on the C3 marketing conference, which focuses on providing insights about attracting customers and revenue through organic channels. C3 2017 will feature speakers from many large brands, including Google, the New York Times, FedEx, and NBCUniversal. The event takes place March 1-2 in New York City.
Engage Conference
The artist formerly known as SearchFest is now Engage Conference, put on by the awesome not-for-profit team at SEMpdex (for a third of the cost of some other conferences-good deal). Portland will be the place to be March 9 if you want to see keynotes from the Portland Trail Blazers’ Matthew Gardner and uber mobile expert Cindy Krum. Plus stay for the after party featuring karaoke, bowling, and darts.
Traffic and Conversion Summit (and Digital Marketer)
Billed as the largest conversion conference in North America, Traffic & Conversion Summit is put on by the DigitalMarketer team. In addition to multiple tracks and great networking, you’ll see speakers including Mari Smith, Bonin Bough, and Dennis Yu. Traffic & Conversion Summit takes place March 10-12 in San Diego.
InOrbit
InOrbit will returns with 20 impressive international online marketing experts. Topics will range from conversion optimization to mind-blowing SEO insights. Attendees from Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Italy will head to Ljubljana, Slovenia for this conference March 10-11.
SMX (Search Marketing Expo & Conference Series)
SMX is the leading conference for search marketers – and one of my personal favorites to speak at every year. Danny Sullivan, the leading SEO industry expert, and the team that puts out Search Engine Land and Marketing Land program this conference series. SMX events are always insanely informative and provide all the latest strategies, tactics, and tools that search pros need to know but their networking events and opportunities are usually also super fun (last year some lucky SMX West attendees visited the Googleplex for an exclusive event). What’s also great about SMX shows is that you’ll hear from top executives from Google and Microsoft that you won’t find at most other industry shows. In addition to its U.S. shows in San Jose (March), Seattle (June), and New York City (October), SMX will run shows in Munich, London, Paris, and Israel in 2017.
Social Media Marketing World
This is the can’t-miss show for about 4,000 marketers who are passionate everything social media. Social Media Marketing World is presented by Social Media Examiner and takes place in San Diego March 22-24. Major social media influencers speaking at Social Media Marketing World this year will be Guy Kawasaki, Scott Monty, Jay Bear, Ann Handley, and the brilliant Jon Loomer.
Next10x: Mastering Mobile Digital Marketing
This is a new event, but I’m expecting Next10x to be a great one. I’ve known Eric Enge, the CEO of Stone Temple, for eight years now and I’m confident he and his team will pull off an incredible event. If you’re in the New England area and learn about and master all things mobile marketing, then be sure to attend Next10X in Boston on April 5.
Content Marketing Conference
Expect content marketing tactics, hacks, and techniques at the third annual Content Marketing Conference. I’ll be speaking there, along with content experts like Arnie Kuenn, Chad Pollitt, and Neal Schaffer. The Content Marketing Conference takes place April 11-13 in Boston.
HeroConf
HeroConf rightfully calls itself the world’s largest PPC event. This year, PPC marketers will head to Los Angeles April 18 to 20 to hear from a lineup of awesome PPC experts like Brad Geddes, Maddie Cary, and Elizabeth Marsten (and me!) plus interesting keynotes from Purna Virji of Bing Ads and Jason Dailey of Facebook.
SEJ Summit
SEJ Summit, which is hosted by the Search Engine Journal editorial team, will return in 2017. This “no fluff” event promises to cover all things SEO, all the time, when it takes place May 11 in Chicago. Last year’s show in New York was excellent, and I’m sure this will be another great investment for search marketers who want to learn and network.
MNSearch Summit
Even though MNSearch Summit may be considered a regional show, it attracts top-level speakers every year. Because it’s a smaller show, it has a more intimate feel, which makes networking great here. This one-day event covers all things digital marketing and takes place June 23.
MozCon
Taking place July 17 to 19, MozCon should once again be a must-attend event. Expect to see the Wizard of Moz Rand Fishkin keynoting, plus a great lineup of speakers with high-quality presentations packed full of insights and takeaways. Plus, expect lots of high-quality networking events.
I can’t wait for Sept. 25-28 in my hometown, Boston. That’s the date of HubSpot’s Inbound 2017 conference. This is one of the largest events dedicated to digital marketing, attracting more than 10,000 attendees every year (so expect amazing networking opportunities here). Last year Inbound featured awesome keynotes from Gary Vaynerchuk, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Serena Williams, and Reshma Saujani and I can’t wait to see which fantastic speakers HubSpot co-founders Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan will give us this year.
Marketing Profs’ B2B Marketing Forum
This event brings together B2B leaders and innovators to talk B2B marketing-everything from conversion optimization, to content, to social media, and to SEO. Highlights of past keynotes include Ann Handley, John Maeda, and Andrew Davis. The B2B Marketing Forum also promises creative networking and creative networking. Boston will be home to the B2B Marketing Forum Oct 3-6.
State of Search
Every October, Dallas is home to two days of digital marketing awesomeness. The State of Search Conference, programmed by the Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association, bills itself the premiere digital marketing conference in the South-and for good reason. We already know that Dr. Peter J. Meyers, Bill Hunt, and Duane Forrester are lined up as keynotes. State of Search gets bigger and better every year, so check it out October 9-10 in Dallas.
Marketing Festival
Marketing Festival is insanely good! You’ll enjoy amazing presentations, workshops, concerts, and parties. Oh, and did I mention it’s in the Czech Republic? No date is set yet for 2017, but Marketing Festival has taken place during Q4 the last few years – and a great way to round out a year of awesome marketing conferences.
