Ready or not, it’s 2020! Have you started thinking about what conferences you want to attend this year?
After seeing how many hits our 2019 Midwest marketing conferences blog post received (hooray for website analytics!), we decided to scope out the 2020 conferences happening right here in the Midwest. If you have international conference tastes and a “drive-able” destination budget, don’t worry! You can learn a thing or two from marketing masterminds and save your hard-earned travel miles for vacation.
Check out our list of 2020 Midwest marketing conferences.
April
Midwest Digital Marketing Conference (MDMC)
This conference made our list for the second year in a row. Rated a Top Marketing Conference to Check Out in 2019 by Forbes, the Midwest’s largest digital conference is back with more digital insights from speakers from around the world. MDMC20 will feature more than 80 sessions, nine intensive workshops, and more than 100 speakers including Google, LinkedIn, GoDaddy, Johnson & Johnson, Adobe, Purina, and more.
Date: April 8-10, 2020
Location: St. Louis, MO
Who Attends? Data and digital gurus, social media marketers, creative minds, innovators, academics, and students
Website: bestmarketingconference.com
Social Media Strategies Summit
SMSsummit promises all the education, case studies, networking, and inspiration you need to accelerate your career. Over the course of three days, you’ll gain the tools and strategies you need to create a strong-performing, engaging social media presence for your brand. This year’s thought leaders hail from Microsoft, Nickelodeon, Lowe’s, Epsilon, Southwest Airlines, and Carhartt.
Date: April 28-30, 2020
Location: Chicago, IL
Who Attends? Senior-level, cross-industry marketing professionals
Website: socialmediastrategiessummit.com
May
Experiential Marketing Summit
New to this year’s list, the #1 Conference for Creators of the Brand Experience. This conference welcomes more than 1,800 attendees, setting itself apart with learning tracks led by design experts, strategy chiefs, bestselling authors, and heads of companies like Pepsi, Uber, General Mills, Under Armour, Samsung, and General Motors. If you’re an event marketer, this conference will be right up your alley.
Date: May 11-13, 2020
Location: Chicago, IL
Who Attends? B2B and B2C brand-side marketers, executives from leading event agencies, meeting planners, tradeshow organizers, event strategists, experience designers, event technology gurus, and more
Website: emsummit.com
Interact20
We all know marketing and tech trends move quickly. What better way to share your experiences with fellow marketers and discover new ways to innovate than at a ‘two-day extravaganza curated by digital marketers for digital marketers!’ Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs Ann Handley, VP of Data-Driven Marketing at Barkley Jessica Best, and Founder of B2Linked – The LinkedIn Advertising Agency AJ Wilcox are just a few of this year’s conference speakers.
On the fence about attending? Check out the Interact Podcast for a taste of what you’ll experience at the Interact20 conference.
Date: May 18-19, 2020
Location: Columbus, OH
Who Attends? Marketing professionals who work in content marketing, social media, UX, search marketing, and digital marketing
Website: interactohio.com
June
DigiMarCon Midwest
Want to hear from some of the most thought provoking speakers in digital marketing? Gain insight into the latest strategies and technologies to move your business forward? Network with thought leaders? DigiMarCon Chicago is your kind of conference! Session topics for 2020 will include digital strategy, web experience management, mobile marketing and retargeting, user acquisition, and more.
Date: June 17-18, 2020
Location: Chicago, IL
Who Attends? Innovators, senior marketers and branders, entrepreneurs, digital executives and professionals, web and mobile strategists, designers and web project managers, business leaders, business developers, agency executives and their teams… pretty much anyone who works with digital
Website: digimarconmidwest.com
MnSearch Summit
The MnSearch Summit is a full-day event where industry thought leaders deliver forward-thinking strategies and tactics for search and digital. Whether you’re new to digital marketing or a seasoned pro, this conference promises to deliver ‘as many insights as Minnesota has lakes.’ You’ll hear all about SEO, PPC, social media, email, content, video, analytics, and much more.
Date: June 19, 2020
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Who Attends? In-house and in-agency marketing and business professionals from Minnesota and the greater Midwest
Website: mnsearch.org/summit/
July
Marketing AI Conference (MAICON)
Artificial intelligence (AI) can give marketers and brands superpowers. Yet AI is still a relatively new concept in our industry. MAICON is for marketing leaders who want to better understand AI, educate their teams, gain executive support, pilot priority AI use cases, and develop a strategy for successfully scaling AI. No matter what type of software your organization uses—ad buying, analytics, automation, conversation, search, or social—this conference will demonstrate how these programs can become more intelligent with AI and machine learning.
Date: July 14-16, 2020
Location: Cleveland, OH
Who Attends? Manager-level and above non-technical audiences
Website: marketingaiinstitute.com/events/marketing-artificial-intelligence-conference
Midwest e-Com Conference 2020
If you sell products online, this is a conference you won’t want to miss in 2020. Midwest e-Com has been ranked among the top five and top 10 Amazon/e-Commerce conferences for the past seven years. Sellers on Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, and more will learn what’s changing in the world of ecommerce, new tactics to market their businesses, rules for selling through each platform, and how to grow their businesses.
Date: July 17-18, 2020
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Who Attends? Both new and seasoned online sellers
Website: midwestecom.com
September
BossCon
Become the boss of your marketing, business, and life. Many of the details of this 2020 conference have yet to be released. But based on what we know about 2019, it’s the conference to attend if you’re looking for the motivation to make 2020 your best year yet. Led by the ‘Queen of Social Media’ Rachel Pedersen, BossCon 2020 will feature tactical strategies, mind-blowing trainings, talented speakers, and networking with other marketers and business owners aspiring for greatness in 2020.
Date: September 16-18, 2020
Location: Twin Cities, MN (venue TBD)
Who Attends? Anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit who wants to succeed in all aspects of their life
Website: bosscon2020.com
October
Content Marketing World Conference and Expo
I can personally vouch for this conference after attending in 2017. This year’s conference theme, ‘Break the Rules,’ will focus on helping marketers step outside of the ‘one marketing plan fits all’ approach and experiment to find what works best for their businesses and customers. Content marketing leaders and thinkers will dig deep on topics including demand generation, email and conversion, tools and technology, social media, teams and culture, and customer experience.
Date: October 13-16, 2020
Location: Cleveland, OH
Who Attends? Marketing, content marketing, PR, communications professionals, and agency leaders who develop the strategy or handle the execution of content marketing initiatives for their companies or agencies
Website: contentmarketingworld.com
Summary
There you have it—10 marketing conferences worth persuading your boss to let you attend in 2020. And of course, be sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter Meld Intel to learn about Meld-hosted education events right here in the Corridor!
Did you go to any of the conferences on our 2019 list? Are there conferences you’d add to our 2020 list? Send us a note and let us know!
