For the past six years, Forrester has held its Sales Enablement Forum for B2B marketing professionals in March, the first two years in San Francisco and then down in Scottsdale (see here for my debrief from the successful 2015 event). I've already had a few calls and emails asking me about this year’s Forum: What is the agenda? Where and when is it being held?

So, here is a timely reminder that we have reconfigured our events calendar this year and the 2016 B2B Marketing Forum is now scheduled for October 18 and 19 in Miami, Florida. Planning is well underway: We are recruiting guest speakers and planning the track sessions. Without giving too much away, I can report that our current thinking is to set the overall agenda across these five themes:

1.  Go-To-Customer  – How to inform and configure your marketing, channel, content and sales plans so that they are customer obsessed.

2.  Blending Art And Science – Use data to set sales and marketing activity based on the ultimate predictive metric: propensity to buy.

3.  Contact In Context – Use voice-of-the-customer/social listening/predictive analytics to be able to speak to customer issues more directly and authentically.

4.  The Value Of Trust – The power of emotion in business-to-business buying decisions.

5.  Connecting The Dots – Engagment marketing is a hallmark of a customer-obsessed firm with marketing, channel and sales alignment. 

Of course, that means we’ll have some significant research and reports on these topics that we will publish at the Forum. There will be separate session tracks going deeper into content marketing, engagement marketing, eBusiness and partner channels, as well as sales enablement, of course.

We’ll also be running a distinct track that discusses how to arrive at marketing technology decisions. Our clients are asking for help in planning, rationalizing, architecting, and justifying their marketing and sales enablement technology investments ― and we are currently researching a TechRadar on this at the moment.  BTW: Those sessions will also be of interest to your colleagues in your technology management or IT departments, so perhaps you should bring them along ― Forrester recommends you work together on these projects.

So, please mark your calendars if you have not already done so. I would also encourage you to book NOW – there is currently an extra promotion on offer for a few weeks ― a $100 discount on top of the usual early bird discount of $300: Just use this code: B2B16PON when you book online.   

Now you do not have to wait until October to hear from us. Laura Ramos and Lori Wizdo will be presenting at our more generic Marketing 2016 Forum in New York, and Steve Casey and Shanta Samlal-Fadelle will be available for 1-1 meetings (in addition to Laura and Lori) for you B2B Marketers attending. Laura and Lori will also be at the London Marketing 2016 Forum EMEA.  Or, you may catch up with us at other events, as happened earlier this month at the Content2Conversion conference in Scottsdale where Laura and I had many meetings. We certainly appreciated the attention! 

We all look forward to seeing you in Miami.  Always keeping you informed! Peter