During the week of April 17th, the Campaigner team (myself included) descended on Las Vegas for Mailcon, a gathering of email & digital marketing experts and enthusiasts from all over the globe. Campaigner was proud to be a major sponsor of the event.
As first-time attendees we had some idea of what to expect, and indeed the Mailcon team did a very good job of preparing us ahead of time, but I’m happy to report our expectations were largely exceeded.
Overall Impressions
- The subject matter experts were out in full force. The experience level of attendees was evident from the conversations we had at the Campaigner booth, over coffee, etc.
- The after-hours events were well planned and a lot of fun. From the welcome reception through to the final happy hour, there was plenty of opportunity to network and unwind.
- Networking, yes. Meaningful business conversations, YES! We were most surprised by the number of genuine business opportunities that came out of Mailcon.
- We’ll be back next year. Enough said.
The Exhibit Hall
We honestly weren’t sure how busy the show floor would be, but the amount of traffic to the Campaigner booth on the first full day of Mailcon was worth the trip all on its own.
Our team very much enjoyed being able to showcase Campaigner and gain feedback in person. We naturally have an affinity for our own platform, but it was great to hear attendees comment on the range of features available and the robustness of the platform, with our segmentation and workflow tools really standing out due to their capabilities. I picked up on a few comments during demos (expertly provided by our own Alicia Preston), such as “this is a very sophisticated platform,” and “It offers so much more than I thought.”
I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the number of conversations we had related to SMS. As our own Amy Doyle Ellwood rightly stated in our fireside chat session, North American marketing teams are now ready to adopt SMS in the same way that UK & European marketers have been doing for several years. When we released our own SMS feature in 2021, our UK customers were the first to jump in, with North American customers only now really beginning to follow suit, minus the early-adopters.
All things considered, having a booth in the exhibit hall certainly enabled our team to have more conversations than would have been achievable by simply networking.
SaaS Pitchfest
When considering our sponsorship options for 2023, we decided to sponsor Mailcon’s first ever SaaS Pitchfest; an event showcasing marketing technology solutions startups. While not a startup, as sponsors we were offered the opportunity to pitch Campaigner to kick things off. Our own Phillippa Barber did an amazing pitch and demo, nicely capped off with her own touch of humor. Fantastic job Phil!
This was the first time the Pitchfest was held at Mailcon, and it appeared to attract a great deal of interest. As someone who has worked at a few start-ups over the years, I thought it was a great idea to offer them a platform in a conference atmosphere, and we were more than happy to have our name attached to the event.
The Mailcon Sessions
Though I did not have time to attend all the sessions of interest to me, we each chose one or two “must attend” talks so we could share learnings amongst each other, and with our teams back home.
I personally enjoyed sitting in to hear about the future of Mailcon, as well as a discussion on the regulatory landscape in 2023. I’ve said this before, but when I started my marketing journey I didn’t realize that would also mean becoming a policy expert, but it’s now firmly intertwined in much of what I do.
While AI was certainly a theme, there was a lot of buzz around interactivity in emails and how this can be incorporated into your email designs. Mailcon CEO Kristen Haines discussed the topic on Kevin Lee’s Power Marketing podcast prior to Mailcon, and throughout the conference interactive email technology and trends was a hot topic.
Putting my product hat on for a moment, a topic like this can occasionally give me angst, as I try to assess whether or not we need to make the investment in new features to support such trends, or if they’re going to come and go before the requirements are written. Thankfully, the HTML block available in the Campaigner D&D designer can be used in conjunction with third-party tools that create the interactive code for you, allowing users to start incorporating these elements without the need for a designer.
This capability within Campaigner offers us time to monitor adoption and respond based on the use cases that appear, especially as we watch (and look forward to) seeing marketers leverage interactivity within Campaigner to produce incredible customer experiences via personalized, engaging designs.
As referenced earlier, Amy Doyle Ellwood, our top-notch Director of Client Services, and myself hosted a fireside chat on lessons learned from both our customers and our own experiences during the pandemic, and offered some thoughts on how to apply those in today’s economic uncertainty. Watch for upcoming posts related to our session content, but for now I just wanted to say that we very much enjoyed the engagement from those who attended, so thank you again!
Looking Ahead to 2024
As I’ve already stated, we look forward to a return to Mailcon next year. My biggest hope is that more people make it a priority to be there.
As a long-time conference goer who’s spent more time on the show floor than I care to remember, Mailcon is worth your time. For those who plan to return next year, I look forward to seeing you all again, and for those who will become first-time attendees and sponsors, I look forward to meeting you.
