Last week the team were lucky enough to attend one of the world’s most renowned digital marketing events in sunny Brighton. April 2017 saw the second time for Edge to attend, and there was definitely no disappointment this time round.
Aside from some of the great fun we had walking around Brighton and eating Vietnamese food (don’t worry, we will cover this too!) we also learnt some great tips and tricks during the conference.
Money-free Link Building 
Lifestyle blogger Sam Charles took to stage to explain from a bloggers point of view, all about how to link build and outreach to other bloggers. This was a perfect situation, hearing what is and isn’t a nice email to read all from the perspective of somebody that reads plenty, every day.
It’s fair to say there were a lot of do’s and don’t’s discussed, and most importantly, some actionables in the form of creative ideas to link build with. The three main focus points for any outreach pitch were discussed including the importance of offering a recourse or worthwhile cause in return and the concept of helping bloggers with free IT and WordPress advice if this is within the skills of your company. Building relationships were the key point in Sam’s talk, and it was refreshing to hear that becoming a friend and dropping the cold sales approach, is still very much possible with bloggers and influencers today.
Philosophising Marketing
Possibly the most inspirational and eye-opening talk of the day was the keynote from Rory Sutherland. Other than being an incredibly animated and engaging speaker, he made some truly astounding comments that got our whole team thinking about marketing in the stance of behavioural economics.
The main points Rory covered revolved around the fact advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception of it, rather than the product itself. His point was that if this is the basis of our thinking, whilst doing our job as digital marketers, we can effectively create happiness and successful marketing results through how we make people feel and change. There were a lot of complex points and analogy in his talk, and we can’t wait to discover Rory’s philosophy towards marketing further in the future.
Importance of the Search Box
Importance of the Search BoxBringing things back to basic, one of the other important key themes covered was the reminder of the power of the search box and that this ultimately holds the answer to what, as digital marketers, we need to be concentrating on.
What is written in the search box is what is wanted, so in partnerships with a strong sales team, marketers can excel in their job by working out what it will take to bring the answer to the user’s question in a search box to a conversion. Although obviously more detailed than this, this talk gave valuable insight into how stripping back digital marketing to the basics and simply trying to fill in the answer to questions typed into a search engine, will remain one of the most important ways to reach your audience.
Aside from the conference, we had some great spontaneous Vietnamese food and cocktails at Pho, and enjoyed a few local pubs also. For fresh, fragrant food Pho would definitely be recommended, especially their take on a Mojito the ‘Phojito’ which incorporated clear rice spirit into the classic staple drink.
After a day of learning and coming back into the office inspired, the team are already very excited for the next trip to Brighton SEO. Until next year Brighton!
