Looking Beyond … How the NAED Marketing Summit Can Help

Now that the calendar has turned and we’re technically into the second half of the year, leadership in many companies are looking “beyond.” The “beyond” is 2026. Planning season is starting and for leadership and marketers it is the start of their “second” job.

The “second” job is that you are executing on current initiatives while beginning to plan for 2026. For marketers, this is the essence of marketing. It is about influencing business future business decisions. We’re not in a consumer environment where we focus on impulse buys. B2B marketing is about thinking ahead and demand generation.

This is why the NAED Marketing Summit is important. Consider

• It is purposely scheduled at this time to help marketers begin thinking about their plan, and perhaps more importantly, their company’s needs, for the coming year.
• The content can help stimulate ideas to drive new initiatives.
• Networking with other marketers, and business partners, can unleash further ideation. Where else can distributor marketing personnel interact with manufacturer marketing personnel and build relationships?

Okay, so, how do I know some of this? Because Channel Marketing Group was actively involved in the NAED marketing conferences years ago. Some may remember when it was called Adventure!

Channel Marketing Group presented, and at times set, the agenda for conferences. We were involved in converting the conference from a family-friendly event to a strategic marketing conference (sorry, no more “boondoggle / vacation.”)

Last year I attended as the conference was in Charlotte. It attracted over 225 people and, content-wise, was back to a more strategic, thought-stimulating, agenda.

And I am pleased to announce that Channel Marketing Group is a sponsor of this year’s conference.

Some of the sessions I’m particularly looking forward to including:

• Carla Johnson’s opening session titled “Applied Curiosity.” I believe that a core skillset of marketing leaders should be intellectual curiosity. The ability to ask “why” and to be an explorer and look beyond. If you only do what you’ve done, and what your competitors have done, you’ll only get so much. I am interested to hear Carla’s presentation.
• While all of the breakout sessions have value, there are a couple of breakout sessions that caught my attention:
  • Kaytee Howarth’s session on the time-honored challenge of Sales and Marketing Alignment. This could almost be similar to Mars vs Venus! Kaytee is ABB’s Eastern RVP and has been a regional manager AND in marketing so she has “been there, done that” and knows, firsthand, the conflicts between the two groups, and the successes they can have when they come together. Collectively we can learn from some of her war stories. There will be guaranteed takeaways from her session.
  • AI is the conference topic du jour. The session titled Building Future-Ready Teams with AI is intriguing to see the Alexander Group’s construct. Companies are determining how to integrate AI into the business. Some are strategic, some are letting departments drive their own initiatives, and then there are the myriads of purpose-built tools that are being used (inclusive in marketing.) Hopefully, they will share some marketing specific tools and distributor / B2B relevant case studies.
• Mary Czarnecki spoke at last year’s conference, and, with a return engagement, you know she was good and provided attendees with much value.
• Metrics are always good as “metrics matter” and marketing departments need to do a better job of identifying goals and tracking contributions. It differs by company and the expansiveness of the marketing role within the company.

The structure of the conference will allow everyone to attend 3 of the 4 breakout sessions.

And book your flight for late in the afternoon. The closing speaker holds much promise. While the title is technical and scary (Neuroscience), the essence is critical. Dr. Carmen Simon is going to share tips on how to get people to remember what you say / present so that you can influence their behavior (okay, sounds like a business skillset we need and a life skillset!). This gets to how the brain processes information and memory (which gets to something I call “remembrance marketing.”

It’s an information packed agenda. There is also time to socialize, meet potential partners (yes, I’ll have a booth and so will some others.) If you are interested in video marketing there is a 2-hour pre-conference session you can register for and, if you are really into metrics and understanding your web activity, there is a pre-conference session to better understand GA4 (and if you don’t know what that is, the session isn’t for you!)

If you are in Marketing, I encourage you to attend. If you are a business leader, you should have your Marketing leadership attend. The conference is for distributors, manufacturers, and manufacturer reps.

To date, almost 80 companies have already registered. There are distributors, manufacturers, and rep firms attending. Is your company one of them?

If not, if you register by July 16^th you can save a few dollars. The conference is August 4-6 on the Riverwalk in San Antonio.

I hope to see you there and reach out if you’d like to connect there.