Space Between Take on the USA
We jetset for a speaking tour of America
Space Between were thrilled to tour the USA on the speaking circuit in June. Our Director of Technology (Marcus Cooke) and Director of Marketing (yours truly) spent two weeks on the road, with stops in Los Angeles and Chicago. We kicked off the tour in Santa Monica at the Loews Beach Hotel - a perfect location right in front of the famous Venice Beach. Day one saw Marcus on stage, discussing all things Website Optimization in the hour long keynote masterclass. DigiMarCon is the largest conference series in the world for digital marketing - so it was an absolute honour to have been invited to attend, speak and exhibit in this beautiful corner of the world.
But before we get any further into the details, let's start from the start. We didn't just get invited to speak in the USA, we got offered the global CRO partnership. The partnership line-up is big-time. To give you an idea of who we were rubbing shoulders with, our fellow event partners included Facebook, Google, Warner Bros Entertainment, Cisco, The University of Southern California, & Sage. Names I think we all know and recognise. So we wanted to make the best impact. Prior to departure, we did a little refresh of our own branding, and had our new event kit and uniform were on show in both US locations. To a very positive response we might add.
Hosted by Jeff Turnbow in LA and Kenneth Kinney in Chicago, Marcus opened with an incredible piece on "Making Websites Great Again", where he covered the new topic in the field of neuromarketing - biometrics. Always an attention-grabber, the biometrics lead to the wider discussion around conversion rate optimization, and how businesses can harness user research findings, to significant business benefit. On the second day of the California Conference, also known as #DigiMarConWest, I took to the stage as part of the expert panel, discussing Digital Trends alongside the lovely Liora of Clutter. This covered the topic areas of Automation, Programmatic Marketing, AI, AR and VR, Data Privacy and Video Trends. When we opened up to questions from the audience, there was much interest around GDPR, and how AI and Voice Search will impact eCommerce business.
Next stop Chicago! After packing up the event kit and relocating to the lovely city of Chicago, we were ready for #DigiMarConMidwest. Here, we had another two full days of exhibiting ahead, as well as another keynote masterclass for Marcus, and expert panel for me. In addition, we secured three speaking slots on American podcasts. Yes, THREE. One of these was recorded live in the conference podcast studio, and streamed live to listeners.The other two were recorded in the studio and later released on their respective channels. The first was called A Shark's Perspective, and has seen guests including Neil Patel, Guy Kawasaki and Rand Fishkin grace their mics in the past. The final interview was with Connection Loop, recorded in Chicago and broadcast in California.
To top it all off, we were also in touch with some pretty major companies out there in the States. The first, Guess Jeans in California, and the second, Forbes #1 Business (yup, better than Amazon, Apple, Microsoft....and EVERYBODY else), Walmart. We are absolutely gobsmacked to have opened conversations with these two business giants, and even more excited to be in continued eCommerce talks with them. We will make further announcements in this space in future!
The USA Tour was a busy and fruitful one. It was incredibly inspiring to be such a hands-on part of this huge conference series. It was fantastic to meet such wonderful people and businesses, and to challenge ourselves with discussions and opportunities beyond the borders of Europe and the UK. We are very excited about our global journey, and we want to take you with us. Make sure you are following us on our social channels so yuo don't miss out on any of our upcoming announcements.
PS. Keep an eye out for us in London and Amsterdam over the coming weeks!
About the Author
Shelley Grierson is a Digital Marketing enthusiast, based in the UK. Shelley is Director of Marketing at Space Between.
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