The Marketing Immersive 2024

New to AMA Chicago! The Marketing Immersive is a half day of enriching, expert-led sessions designed to equip marketers of all levels with the skills and knowledge necessary for crafting an effective marketing plan for the coming year. Whether you’re just starting your marketing journey or have many years of experience, each session offers valuable insights and practical tools tailored to meet the evolving demands of our industry.

Three concurrent sessions; you may attend only one, so bring your team!

• Session 1: Create a Marketing Plan on a Page led by Shannon Lee, Senior Vice President Creative, StudioNorth
• Session 2: Content Strategy and SEO for Lead Generation led by Andy Crestodina, Co-founder and CMO, Orbit Media
• Session 3: Harnessing Narrative Psychology for Effective Personas led by Kristian Alomá, Founder, Threadline, and Dave Healing, Senior Director, Brand Strategy & Activation, Zillow

These sessions will not be recorded but each participant will receive a link to a digital document of information presented during the session they attend.

Session 1: Create a Marketing Plan on a Page

In this session, you will create a practical marketing plan using a straightforward plan-on-a-page approach. This session will equip you with the necessary tools and training to identify your ideal target audience, define your goals and strategic initiatives, select the appropriate channels with the right content, and establish KPIs to drive your business forward. This half-day session is designed for teams that manage the marketing function but require a practitioner to assist them in getting started.

Key Takeaways

You’ll leave with a simple, sharable, and strategic go-to-market plan that:

1. Prioritizes your marketing activities
2. Gives you a visual structure to gain stakeholder alignment
3. Provides insight on allocating your marketing budget

Presented by Shannon Lee | Senior Vice President Creative, StudioNorth | LinkedIn

As Senior VP of Creative at StudioNorth (B2B brand and marketing agency), Shannon leads a high-performing team of content creators and develops brand strategies and full-funnel marketing campaigns for her clients. With more than 20 years of creative marketing experience, she has worked with Fortune 500 brands, B2B, B2C, and nationally recognized non-profit organizations. Shannon understands the power of bringing a brand’s heart and soul into marketing communications and believes it’s the only way to truly connect with an audience.

Shannon is a past President of AMA Chicago, and she led the chapter in receiving the Silver Chapter of the Year award in FY 2021–22.

Session 2: Content Strategy and SEO for Lead Generation

Join a transformative half-day session where we delve into the proven tactics of top-performing SEO and content strategies, combined with the cutting-edge power of AI for B2B marketing. This comprehensive workshop is designed to take you from the initial key phrase to the final conversion, ensuring a seamless and efficient journey from search results to thank-you pages.

Discover the secrets of driving continuous demand, creating compelling content, and leveraging AI to enhance both quality and efficiency. Led by industry expert Andy Crestodina, with over 20 years of experience and insights from working with over 1,000 clients, this session will provide you with actionable strategies and practical knowledge to elevate your marketing efforts.

Session Overview

This half-day session is ideal for experienced marketers looking to refine their strategies and for intermediate marketers aiming to advance their skills. Whether you’re focused on SEO, content marketing, or AI applications in marketing, this workshop will equip you with the tools and insights needed to succeed.

Why Attend

• Comprehensive learning: Gain a deep understanding of the entire B2B lead generation process, from keyword selection to final conversion.
• Expert insights: Learn from Andy’s extensive experience and practical examples, backed by research and real-world application.
• Actionable strategies: Leave with specific, high-impact changes you can implement immediately to improve your website’s performance and lead generation.

Key Takeaways

1. Effective SEO and content tactics: Learn the most successful tactics for driving rankings, building authority, and generating leads, based on years of research and practical experience.
2. Visitor psychology and conversion optimization: Understand why visitors take action on websites and how to make your content compelling and persuasive.
3. AI integration in marketing: Discover a full-funnel AI framework for lead generation and content marketing, enhancing both speed and quality in your marketing efforts.

Enhance your marketing strategy with proven techniques and cutting-edge AI insights. Register now and take the first step towards mastering SEO, content, and AI for B2B lead generation.

Presented by Andy Crestodina | Co-founder and CMO, Orbit Media | LinkedIn

Andy Crestodina is a co-founder and CMO of Orbit Media, an award-winning 50-person digital agency in Chicago.

Over the past 24 years, Andy has provided guidance to 1000+ businesses. He’s written hundreds of articles on content strategy, SEO, GA4, AI, and visitor psychology. He’s also the author of Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing.

• Top 10 Online Marketing Experts, Forbes 
• Top 50 Marketing Influencer, Entrepreneur Magazine 
• Top 25 Content Marketers, Express Writers/Buzzsumo
• Top 10 Social Media Influencers, Social Media Explorer

Session 3: Harnessing Narrative Psychology for Effective Personas

Join Kristian Alomá, PhD, Founder & CEO at Threadline, and Dave Healing, Senior Director, Brand Strategy & Activation at Zillow, for an immersive half-day workshop designed to transform your marketing strategies through the power of detailed, narrative-driven personas. In the session, you’ll dive deep into the essentials of creating, understanding, and utilizing personas to craft compelling marketing campaigns that resonate with your target audience.

This hands-on workshop will guide you through the critical criteria for building effective personas, teach you how to gather and analyze relevant data, and show you how to leverage these insights to enhance your marketing efforts. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer looking to refine your approach or a newcomer eager to learn the ropes, this session is tailored to provide actionable insights and practical tools.

Who Should Attend

• Mid-level to senior marketers: Those responsible for developing and implementing marketing strategies, including brand managers, digital marketing managers, and content strategists.
• Marketing analysts: Professionals involved in market research and consumer insights who want to deepen their understanding of persona development.
• Product managers: Individuals looking to align product features and improvements with customer needs and behaviors.
• Marketing consultants: Advisors who assist clients in refining their marketing strategies and need to stay abreast of the latest methodologies.

Key Takeaways

1. Comprehensive persona development: Gain a thorough understanding of the key elements that make up effective personas, from demographics to psychographics and behavioral traits.
2. Data collection and analysis: Learn the most effective qualitative and quantitative research methods to gather deep insights about your target audience and translate this data into meaningful personas.
3. Practical application in marketing: Discover how to apply personas to your marketing strategies to create personalized campaigns, map customer journeys, and drive product development.

Co-presented by Kristian Alomá | Founder & CEO, Threadline | LinkedIn

Kristian A. Alomá, PhD, combines a two-decade marketing career with insights from narrative psychology, identity, and behavioral economics to enhance brand-customer relationships.

He is the best-selling author of Start with the Story: Brand-building in a Narrative Economy and a lecturer at the Kellogg School Center for Nonprofit Management. With Caribbean roots, Kristian’s passion for vibrant conversations and diverse cultures leads him to speak all over the world.

At home in the Chicagoland area, he enjoys discussing global perspectives and planning cultural explorations with his partner and two children.

Co-presented by Dave Healing | Senior Director, Brand Strategy & Activation, Zillow | LinkedIn

Dave Healing is a seasoned leader, thinker, and strategist who brings over two decades of experience in both for-profit and non-profit organizations to his work on brand. Currently, as the Senior Director of Brand at Zillow, Dave is helping drive clarity internally and externally around Zillow’s purpose of making home a reality for more and more people. Prior to this role, Dave led strategy and operations at Brandtrust, a research and strategy firm based in Chicago, where he helped brands across multiple industries leverage the power of human truth to drive business results. Dave is passionate about understanding how people make meaning of the world, and in his free time, he enjoys spending time with his family and friends, exploring his neighborhood and volunteering.

The Marketing Immersive 2024 is sponsored by