NAED Marketing Recap … And Winners

The recent NAED Marketing Summit brought together almost 225 marketing professionals to San Antonio early this month representing about 100 companies in the channel, plus service provider. Channel Marketing Group was proud to be one the sponsors.

The conference was a 2 ½ day event. Unfortunately, due to American Airlines, I missed the opening session and reception, but I heard there was much buzz in the room, indicating lots of networking.

Day 2 became a marathon day with breakfast networking starting a 7:00 AM culminating with Scott Costa closing his NAED Marketing Awards presentation at 7:00 PM. No one can say that marketers do not put in the hours in support of their companies, and their passion.

The day was packed with content and, quite frankly, while the intent was for the content to be marketing-focused, some of it could be very effective for senior management.

This morning’s keynote speaker, Carla Johnson, who wrote “ReThink Innovation” talked about thinking and having curiosity. This leads to innovation.

She delved into what drives curiosity (yes, it is questioning, but strategic questioning) and it is what separates leaders … and leading companies.

She offered to share her Applied Curiosity Worksheet which, essentially, focuses on a “5 Why’s” approach (which someone once told me Confucious said, and then it is also part of quality initiatives to get to core reasons.)

This was followed by four breakout sessions of which attendees could select three to participate in over the 2 days. I chose:

• Sales and Marketing Alignment – Kaytee Howarth from ABB gave this presentation. She shared ideas, from a manufacturer perspective, of how to gain sales and marketing alignment on initiatives to best support corporate objectives, specifically as it relates to product and vertical initiatives. It was a packed audience, albeit her presentation, and it is understandable given her perspective, was manufacturer-centric.

The key is making sure that leadership of the two functions are aligned and that teams are connected, understand each other, the goals, the market, and the customer. While she said “sales insights should drive marketing” she also said Marketing needs to talk to customers, sales, technical, operations and executives and be a translator to each audience. She had spent some time in Marketing, which informed this perspective and helped make her a better sales leader.

Further, she emphasized that Marketing should be responsible for strategic messaging whereas Sales is responsible for the customer’s reaction and providing that feedback to the internal team.

• AI – The Alexander Group provided a very detailed discussion, but it was interesting when the presenter asked for a show of hands in the session I was in and asked how many people’s companies are doing something with AI. About 80-90% raised their hand. And 1 person shared their company is doing something with Agentic AI.

He stated that AI must be “productivity with a purpose” and hence have an ROI, otherwise it is a “nice to have.” His slides shared some AI tools, however, he was not endorsing these tools and said there are many comparable and they are being updated and obsoleted regularly!

A key question, and something for distributors to discuss (as should small and mid-sized manufacturers) is “who runs digital strategy?” In many companies, IT is a facilitator but not the strategy driver. And once strategy is decided, there needs to be a tactical owner.

• Marketing Metrics – The final breakout I attended related to Marketing Metrics. No major takeaways because the pertinent metrics for each initiative, and company, can deliver, but the three types of metrics should be:
  • Reporting … what happened
  • Insights … what is actionable for others (so could be MQLs and SQLs or other next steps)
  • Actions – what is moving the dollars

The key, when presenting metrics, is adding context to add value (as anyone can read the numbers / view a chart.

Also, perish the thought of having, and for management, perish expecting, perfect data to analyze. Take “good” and act.

Unfortunately, this speaker seemed to be more consumer-oriented or direct to customer vs channel oriented as she continuously focused on “leads” whereas this may or may not be relevant to a distributor or manufacturer given channel dynamics.

The other one was on Story Telling, which received strong reviews, however, this was similar to one last year, hence why I chose differently.

And the closing keynote was a neuroscientist, Carmen Simon, from Enhancive, who spoke on memory retention which, from a marketing perspective, is important as need to get the customer to “remember” a brand, value proposition, company, or product.

Some takeaways from her session:

• Decide what want to be memorable for.
• Can only control 10% of what will be remembered (think about what that means when you are making a presentation!)
• Repetition is the “Mother of Memory” but need to do it distinctly
• Don’t use “Thank You” slides. First and last slides should be memorable.
• She spoke on
  • How to structure presentations, and content.
  • Usage of color
  • How to harness complexity, and what is complexity

Very informative and, if you are seeking someone to reevaluate corporate sales presentations, management presentations, and to “teach” better presenting, hiring her for a workshop could be very beneficial, however, you will have to think, pay attention, and be an active participant.

Some other “tidbits.”

• A few distributor marketers said co-op is very difficult if not non-existent with the comment “many manufacturers no longer have.” Which led to discussions about co-op vs MDF.
• Discussions about data quality for eCommerce and AI initiatives (more on this in a future post once I get some feedback on the definition of “data quality.”)
• A number of “younger” (age and new to the industry as well as marketing role) personnel

Overall, much skills and behavioral-oriented presentations. Market and industry-discussions may have occurred in networking sessions and in the Activation Labs, which were 45-minute breakout sessions designed to share best practices, stimulate ideas, and generate takeaways.

And a highlight of the event was Scott Costa presenting TED Magazine’s Marketing Awards. There are 12 categories and sometimes 6 award recipients per category due to distributor and manufacturer awards and by dollar volume. So, like the Emmy’s and the Oscar’s, the presentation goes loooooooong but, Scott, like any good award emcee, added levity.

Here’s a list of the winners:

Congratulations to each company.

While a hectic 2 ½ days, it was an informative one. We’re looking forward to the 2026 conference (click here to be kept updated on it.) The chair is Tara Lehman from Wesco.

If I you were at the conference and we didn’t get a chance to connect during the day, or at the Channel Marketing Group table, give me a call. We’re here to serve you and help generate insights and ideas that deliver results … and revenue.