Power Digital LeadGen Day Recap

Before I get into this.. WOW!! What a day. I want to personally thank all of our attendees who made time in their busy schedules for our day of learning and collaboration. This event wouldn’t have been the success it was if it weren’t for each and every one of you. Sincerely, thank you.

I also want to thank everyone involved in organizing the event, especially Ms. Amanda Windsor! So much effort and thought was put in end-to-end. Proud to be a part of this team.

The first (annual?) LeadGen Day was a resounding success! We were lucky enough to gather some of the most innovative, influential minds in San Diego for a day of collaborative learning.

I had the opportunity to be the designated “sideline reporter” for the event.. Which means my job was to talk to as many people as I could about their experience in life and at the event. It even gave me the opportunity to kickstart my career as a journalist by formally interviewing a few attendees.

I got to say “off the record” more than once.. and actually mean it! Get at me, bucket list.

Jokes aside, the event was a blast. And I get to relive it all by bringing all that knowledge, all that experience right here to you!

But..

I’m going to be honest – I had no idea what to expect heading into this event.

Walking in just before 8am to meet the rest of the team preparing morning of, I immediately felt the nervous energy of the squad.

Not bad nervous, by any means. Good nervous. Great nervous, if that’s a thing.

Understandable, too. This is the first time we’ve ever attempted something like this, let alone pulled it off.

The entire core LeadGen Day team handled it like pros. They transformed that nervous energy into excitement and injected it into every person that walked through that door.

Before we knew it, the networking flurry had begun. Quick introductions were being given in between sips of coffee, business cards were being doled out like candy on halloween. The best kind of madness.

And it was just barely 8:45am.

After the initial buzz had settled down, we all gathered in the main room of the event for the Kickoff and Keynote presentations.

We had a packed agenda: 5 different keynotes who discussed everything from the latest trends and tools in digital lead generation, the anatomy of a marketing funnel, sales team management tips from one of THE best in the business, and my personal favorite: how the numbers (through accounting) can help optimize your sales and marketing efforts.

Power Digital’s own Drew Goodmanson kicked the day off, priming audience for a day of funnel-focused learning. One of the first slides in his presentation was the results of a pre-event survey that we had sent to our attendees, which was aimed at giving us insight into each of the business at LeadGen Day.

One of the more surprising answers was about what lead generation metrics our attendees regularly track and optimize.. Over half of the attendees answered “none!” Not entirely unexpected for a group that’s attending a conference on how to take lead generation to the next level, but it does go to show how much structure and strategy can propel a business forward.

Drew also talked through PDMs transition from marketing for companies to marketing to customers. Instead of pushing the brand, we cultivate demand.

He wrapped up his presentation with an analogy that’s famous within the walls of Power Digital – sell the moat, not the shovel. Don’t sell the product (shovel), and don’t sell the function (digging a hole), sell the dream that the product can bring to fruition (the protection and security that comes with having a moat around your castle).

I’ll be diving into the other keynote speakers, discussions, and takeaways in my next post. Stay tuned!

After all of the knowledge that was dropped in the keynote came the ‘Networking Power Hour’ (disclaimer: not what we actually called it, I’m just lame) powered by some incredible catering by Eco Caters [link] – sponsor, attendee, and PDM client.

Lunch was hosted in our ‘Vendor Village’ in which representatives from Google, Facebook, and Salesforce had set up booths so that our energetic group could fire away with questions.

We also had a few of our clients set-up booths promoting their products. Shoutout to Bouquet Bar, Rush Cycle and EcoCaters!

This was my time to shine. My entire (two hour) journalism career had brought me to this point. I wasn’t about to let all that hard work go to waste. The networking flurry started up again.

I had the opportunity to hear some amazing stories from quite a few people.

The former SEC college football player with an engineering degree turned sports content marketer that had a brief stint as the founder of an action sports media company.

The mid-20s upstart that founded a company based on the idea that any industry can be disrupted, even the US electricity market. And it’s gaining some real momentum.

Even the young hustler, looking to up their marketing game to start a freelancing business outside of his 9-5.

I’ll be highlighting these incredible people (and a few more) in my 3rd post of the Lead Gen Series – coming out soon!

The last couple of hours of the day was all about the attendees. We broke everyone out into groups to further discuss what was covered in the keynotes and to dive deeper into their unique businesses and individual lead generation initiatives, with the sessions facilitated by PDM leadership.

We ran everyone through our LeadGen Day Workbook [Download link? Email CTA?], and talked through how the Marketing Funnel concept could apply to their own businesses.

I wasn’t as involved in this part, so I reached out to each of our breakout session leaders to give a few of the best stories and top takeaways that their group had.

On personas and funnels:

“Biggest takeaway was a gained understanding that to find success, one must understand the personas at play and the varied types of content that resonate with them at different stages of the funnel”

On the marketing funnel infographic:

“They knew it all existed, but didn’t have a clear vision for how specific they should be getting for personas/content”

On the LeadGen Workbook:

“The workbook was received very well, particularly the persona builder. We did not spend a ton of time on the funnel graphic and mostly speaking to real-world examples on how to build out the economic buyer sheet.”

As Grayson LaFrenz, Power Digital’s co-founder and CEO, covered in his presentation: sales and marketing have collided. The old methods are dying out and giving way to the digital age. The game is changing more rapidly than ever, and it’s not slowing down.

Marketing and sales are now more intelligent than ever. Teams all over the world are leveraging business data to market to exactly who they want to sell to with exactly the message they want to see. If you aren’t doing this, you’re falling behind.

PDM LeadGen day is the first of many efforts to get our clients and network ahead of the curve. If this is something you’re interested in learning more about, there’s much more to come!

I threw out a bunch of thank you’s at the start of this post, so it’s only fitting that I end on one. I know I speak for all of PDM when I give the biggest THANK YOU to each and every one of our attendees. No event gets ANY traction without an engaged audience, and you were exactly that.

If you have any questions about Lead Gen Day (or lead gen for that matter) don’t hesitate to get in touch – here to help!