As we begin to gear up for the upcoming Inbound Marketing Summit (IMS) in Boston, we had the privilege of speaking to Butch Stearns, who is Chief Customer Officer at The Pulse Network (The Pulse). Last time we sat down with Butch, who will host and emcee the event, we talked about effective storytelling and got a preview of what to expect at IMS San Francisco. Today he shares a little bit about what to expect in Boston and how The Pulse continues to foster a great community surrounding the event.
Your presentation at IMS San Francisco was all about creating great content. Do you plan on building off of this topic in Boston, or will you be taking your talk in another direction?
We are extremely excited with the agenda of keynotes, speakers and presenters we will be presenting at IMS Boston 2013. For my presentation, I will be building off of the topic I discussed in San Francisco; I will be talking about Creating Great Content, but I will also be tying it into lead generation and getting results from the great content you create. Creating content is the first step in a four step process to generating more leads and to customer acquisition. The 4 main steps to effective content marketing are Creation, Curation, Distribution and Syndication. Curation should be focused on who owns the content and who is recommending. Think of distribution as the channels that you own and Syndication as the channels you don’t own (paid and earned media and other partnerships).
After all of the great content and conversation around IMS San Francisco, how does The Pulse plan to encourage the same sort of interactions and involvement during and after the Boston event?
IMS is a close-knit, year round community, and because of the strength of that, it becomes both easier and more challenging to continue the conversations year-round. It’s easier because of the community aspect. When it comes to learning and practicing effective inbound marketing techniques and principles, while the basics always stay the same, the world is constantly changing: new technologies, the continuing shift of power from brands to consumers and creative ways to both strategize and measure successful campaigns and marketing efforts.
So having this community to tap into is invaluable. I am constantly learning from the thought leaders in the IMS community. Without slighting anyone else, here are a few folks that I constantly learn from: Jason Thibeault of Limelight Networks, Larry Weber of Racepoint Group, Frank Belzer of Kurlan and Associates, Tamsen Webster of Allen and Geretsen, Patrick Cahill of beep! Directed Voicemail and Andrew Dumont of Moz just to name a few. We encourage year-round interaction and involvement in our IMS community and we believe we do our part at The Pulse Network to keep the community engaged and connected year-round.
What are you looking forward to most about IMS Boston and how is it unique from New York and San Francisco?
Besides the great agenda we have assembled, I am looking forward to my next face-to-face meet ups with many familiar faces from the IMS Community. I’m also looking forward to the new faces who will be supporting, exhibiting and attending IMS Boston for the very first time.
On top of that, we are doing something a little different this year at IMS Boston. We are actually conducting three events at once: IMS Boston, CMO Pulse Summit and Digital Pulse Summit. These are three separate events, but all tied in together; we have three separate tracks. CMO Pulse and Digital Pulse will be conducted in breakout rooms, while most of IMS Boston is being conducted on the main stage. However, we will be doing shared keynotes with all three audiences.
