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2022 Experience Event

Make Your Journey Epic

Blaze your own trail in marketing and design.

REGISTER AGENDA SPEAKERS SPONSORS

AMA Iowa is excited to help marketers make 2022 more epic at Experience 2022: Make Your Journey Epic on Friday, February 11th from 8AM-1PM. You’ll hear and learn from some of the industry’s best and brightest about the latest marketing trends and tactics as well as improving your leadership, skills, customer journey, and more. At the close of this event, you’ll be ready to hit the ground running and create epic marketing for your customers in the year ahead.

A lot has been done when it comes to marketing but this year’s event will give you a jumpstart to your creative juices!

AMA Iowa | Experience 2022 will help make every aspect of your marketing epic from sales to strategies in an impactful, half-day virtual event.

We’ll also be keeping this event virtual to not only keep everyone safe and healthy but so that more of you can join the conference from wherever you choose. It’s also our gift to you to enjoy a half-day Friday! For a limited amount of early registrants, you’ll also receive an engagement box full of great swag from our sponsors, just like a live event.

For our ninth year hosting this event, you’ll hear from phenomenal award-winning speakers, virtually connect with like-minded marketers, and feel more prepared for the year ahead. Just like an in-person event, you’ll also be able to engage in two breakout sessions to get the most out of your morning.

Make sure to register as soon as possible so you don’t miss out on our limited capacity and your chance to snag an engagement box! Registration officially closes February 8th at 11:59PM.

Check out this year’s speaker lineup and agenda below.

A big thank you to our sponsors:

Have you registered yet?

Agenda

8:30 AM - 9:30 AM - KICKOFF + OPENING SESSION - Jen Sharp, Pella Corporation - "Finding Your Authentic Leadership Style"

Often, we see models of the “best leaders” and we desire to emulate those we respect. Personally, you may have found some leadership approaches work, while others feel ill fitting.

No one is really a born leader. While it’s fair to say some have natural charisma to inspire or influence others, the most powerful leaders are built from intentional insight and choice.

You can be your own best authentic leader by intentionally leveraging all of your rich life lessons, leaning into the outside perspectives you’ve been gifted and forming personal insights. It’s time to sit back, take a breath and ask yourself some of the most vital questions that will allow you to define your own authentic leadership approach and optimize your own impact on the world around you. You’re worth showing up -- intentionally --- in the way you lead.

9:30 AM - 9:40 AM - Break

9:40 AM - 10:20 AM - BREAKOUT SESSIONS

1. Aaron Templer, Three Over Four - "Leading in a Social World"

We marketers have long had our hands on the levers of social media. But we've biased leaders of organizations and brands into a way of thinking about online social constructs that actually stands in contrast to the way social networks generate value.

Leading in a Social World exposes both the shortcomings of the tactics-focused, channel-thinking social media marketing approach on which so many marketing professionals, leaders, organizations and brands rely, and the questionable data upon which many of their decisions are based. The better way is through building social capital—not with better marketing skills, but with stronger leadership acumen. Leading in a Social World shows you how.

2. Jarrod Sutton, National Pork Board - "Building an Effective Strategy to get it Right"

Organizations require efficient and effective strategy to build credibility. An effective strategy brings together vision and execution beyond simply stating an organization’s vision, mission, and objectives. At the end of the day, strategies are built around an organization’s needs (considering all stakeholders) and relevant market context. To move forward it is important to consider six fundamental areas: Clarity of Purpose, Mutual Respect, Cross-Functional Alignment, Attention to both Operations and Planning, Honest Communication, and Infrastructure.

Jarrod will discuss the important of building an effective strategy and will provide examples of how this came to life for the National Pork Board.

3. Panel Discussion, Lauren Ceplecha, Jake Bullington, Karsen Miller, Aaron Van Maanen - "Navigating Early Careers"

The early stages of your career can be exciting—and challenging. What do you want to do, where do you want to go, and how can you get there? These are important questions to ask yourself, but finding the answers doesn’t have to be a solitary pursuit. In this session, professionals from the fields of internal communications, digital marketing, social media management, and video production will share their insights and experiences choosing, chasing, and creating the careers of their dreams.

10:20 AM - 11:10 AM - BREAKOUT SESSIONS

1. A Goal that Gives Back: Increasing Access to Soccer in Urban Areas

With an estimated 4 billion fans, soccer is the most popular sport in the world, yet access to playing the game is severely limited. Soccer is a pay-to-play sport in America, and for underprivileged youth in urban areas, safety concerns and lack of space are further obstacles to participation in the game. However, the U.S. Soccer Foundation and Iowa-based nonprofit Kick It Forward have determined to combat these issues. Learn how these organizations found a unique solution to transform unused space into lighted miniature soccer pitches, generated support for the new product, and used it to impact communities across the state of Iowa.

2. Gary Kroeger, Outleir Creative Solutions - "The Importance of Soft Skills to Make Hard Sales"

In today’s marketplace that relies on technology to message more efficiently, necessary skills from old school marketing have gotten lost. Our attention to the digital space, targeting and retargeting has left the single most relevant aspect of the purchase funnel-to-founder- the personal touch; the organic relationship between consumer and provider. In this seminar we will go back in time to look at classic sales/branding techniques (before the internet) to see what worked and why, and then we will look at what is missing from current processes.

We will break this down into:
What is the problem?
What are soft skills?
Why are they important?
How do I attain them?
How do I apply them?

The final piece of the puzzle becomes:
How do I retain them?
How do I teach so that our culture sustains?

3. Putting Your Best Foot Forward: Networking Like an MVP (Most Valuable Partner)
Eduardo Zamarripa, Musco Lighting and Liz Sporrer, Vermeer

Networking is the single most important factor in getting your foot in the door of the corporate world—and it’s often essential to getting things done once you’re inside. While networking ability may appear to depend more on personality than preparation, effective networking depends on principles of relationship building and team play that can be learned and applied by anyone. Eduardo Zamarripa and Liz Sporrer will demystify the world of business networking and share strategies for résumé writing, interviewing, and making the most of every interaction to create a lasting impression that will help you turn an internship into a full-time career.

11:10 AM -11:20 AM - BREAK

11:20 AM -12:00 PM - GENERAL SESSION - "MLB Dream Game: A Customer Journey"

MLB Dream Game was one of the most anticipated sporting events of 2022 and one of the biggest media phenomena in Iowa history. Representatives from Major League Baseball, the Chicago White Sox and Travel Dubuque will discuss the conception, coordination, and execution of this long-awaited event while addressing fan expectations, the constraints of a rural setting, and a global pandemic. "Field of Dreams" actor Dwier Brown (“John Kinsella”) will moderate the panel.

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM - CLOSING SESSION KEYNOTE, John Armato, FleischmanHillard International Communications - "The World Belongs to the Curious"

Unbridled curiosity and intentional inquiry are the parents of ideas. One is a character trait. The other is a skill. The combination has always been important for marketers, but it will be indispensable as we try to penetrate an increasingly confused and cluttered world. The winning marketer in that environment won’t be the one who simply tries to come up with the best answers. The winning marketer will be the one who understands that great answers are the byproduct of great questions.

“The World Belongs to the Curious” explores the distinctions, dynamics, and domains of questions. The result will be a more precise understanding of questions themselves, and a greater ability to use them with intent. Along the way we’ll talk about some especially powerful questions I’ve collected over the course of my career, peppered with anecdotes and examples from real life – including what to do when you think you have the answer.

1:00 PM - Conference Closes