Two months ago, I decided to organize a marketing conference. An event is always a good opportunity to expand your network – and to grow your business.
And with things going back to normal, it seems like a good time to host an event.
Without doing any research (I should have), I booked a venue, CommonGround at Bukit Bintang and started looking for key speakers.
What's the conference about & what's it called?
We decided to call it Underdog Marketing Conference to celebrate underdogs – the people who are popularly expected to lose, with odds stacked against them, but win in the end.
Here's what it means to be an underdog:
- You can turn difficulties into advantages.
- Your limitations forces you to be creative.
- Even if you're the underdog, you can win against big competitors by relying on your unique skills, speed and flexibility.
In all seriousness, Underdog Marketing Con is a conference where we aim to bring marketers and business owners together (200 of them) – to network, learn and do business with each other.
Everyone is welcomed to join. Your job title does not have to be 'marketer' to join. Because every business needs marketing. Even as a freelancer, you need to market yourself!
How is Underdog Marketing Con different?
I've been to many marketing conference. There's something I realised. In many conferences, the speaking titles are always presented as a high-level topic.
Some examples:
- The state of AI-driven marketing.
- Why music plays a big role in branding.
- Championing personalisation in marketing communication.
OK great. Those sounds really good - and important.
But when I go back to my office, I found that I couldn't use any of lessons I learnt from the speaking sessions!
That's why in Underdog Marketing Con, I focused on inviting speakers who is wiling to share real case studies of their marketing. This way, you can actually use the lessons you learn to grow your business.
Why join Underdog Marketing Con?
There are so many reasons to join a marketing conference. Let's start off with the best ones:
- Networking. It's always about who you know, not what you know. A conference makes the perfect place for you to expand your network.
- Build relationships. Conferences are the best place to build relationships with your business contacts. Bring your client/partner together with you.
- Get out there. You have an awesome product or service. But if nobody knows about them, what's the point? Get out there and tell people about your offer!
- Learn. You can learn anything you want online. But nothing beats learning in-person, meeting the speakers and shaking their hands.
Building Underdog Marketing Con in public.
Lastly, I wanted to mention that we didn't organize Underdog Marketing Con to make a lot of money.
Like most brands, our goal as a new brand is to build market presence. We believe the event will help us, along with every attendee to build their presence.
That's why we decided to build the conference in public. To be as transparent as possible. You can see our revenue report below.
I will also share the marketing strategies we use to market the conference – and hopefully you can learn from our marketing process. Just subscribe for free to DailyCMO to be notified when I publish.
