This year, Ignite UK went fully digital for the first time ever. Here’s a recap of some of the best bits that you may have missed.

Standout keynotes

Anthony Tasgal

kicked off the event with a compelling reason why stories bring data and insights to another level. He even used a story from Greek mythology to discuss the power of storytelling. Valitor’s

Christine Bailey

gave the same sentiment in her presentation. In a world that is becoming increasingly digital focused, she mentioned using martech to your advantage to create value propositions, content and personas.

Both Cara O’Nions (Bottomline Technologies) and Carla Johnson (Outsourced) shared the importance of developing and nurturing relationships both externally and internally. While Carla discussed how to rethink your ideas of innovation for your team, Cara drove home how to manage relationships with your ambassadors and advocates to ensure the optimal benefit.

Engaging with audiences

Radix Communications’

David McGuire

started the engagement stream with a bang by addressing the six reasons most marketers aren’t satisfied with their content marketing: poor access to customers; lack of cooperation from other departments; too much work, not enough time; lack of budget or resources; stakeholder interference; changing priorities and unclear briefs.

He concluded:  “Get away from a subjective conversation about what ‘good content’ looks like. Make it objective to make it clear what needs doing.”

Turtl’s Nick Mason also spoke about the importance of personalisation using the four D’s: data, decision, design and distribution.

Leadership in the digital age

In the leadership stream, Monday.com’s Aron Vuijsje talked about bridging the gap between silos during quarantine by implementing the right technology and processes, while Sandvik’s Sakina Najmi discussed the traits you need to lead an organisation successfully. Sakina also advised leaders to bring people with them on the journey, not the digital technology.

The ‘how to’ on sales enablement

On Day 2, Peter O’ Neill shared insight from

B2B Marketing’s recent Sales Enablement report,

which included what sales enablement adoption and integration is all about, along with some of the top software vendors to help spearhead your sales enablement journey

VHR’s Aimee Treasure also gave us a look at some of the most common pain points both marketing and sales have said about each other. She explained how the two can collaborate more effectively if sales utilises marketing more to generate new clients, and if marketing can show their inherent value to sales and stakeholders.

ABM journeys explained

What type of ABMer are you? A delegator, deliberator, do-er or a combination of all three? This was presented at Really B2B’s Charlie Nicholson and Chris Ashley Mann’s session in the ABM stream.

In their ABM session, they said: “Don’t wait it out; don’t sit and speculate – act and plan to adapt.”

Regardless of where you are in your ABM journey, there were tons of sessions to check out, including Pure B2B’s Melissa Chang’s session on ABM for demand generation and Claire Bloxham’s, who explained how she created Korn Ferry’s ABM programme.

Generating insights

Over at insights, Uberflip’s Randy Frisch cited three things to consider for content, including environment, structure and engagement so that marketers can produce the best content. Dennis Publishing’s

John Webb

went into why, as a B2B marketer, it’s not about convincing people to buy anymore. Today, it’s crucial to focus more on how to help customers buy using demand generation to find the best solution for them.

Creativity and innovation

Prelini Udayan-Chiechi and Jonathan Sedger shared how Zendesk worked with Vismedia to deliver a 15 minute show with participation from across EMEA and the US. The duo explained why taking these sorts of risks can help revolutionise the B2B world digitally, along with how they were able to pull off the launch shortly after lockdown.

Another highlight was SAP’s Malin Linden’s session who explained how innovation thrives on diversity and the key to cultivating it. She challenged the idea of following the status quo and candidly shared her experiences at SAP.

Seeing beyond technology

In the martech stream, there was a focus on getting processes perfected before focusing on the technology. Bird & Bird’s Sophie Bowkett gave a stellar presentation on implementing the right processes before going forward in the tech stack. Another highlight was Percassity’s

Simon Daniel’s

session, where he discussed how to adopt the optimal marketing operations strategy in your organisation.

Clevertouch’s Jamie Burell also delivered a great presentation on when it’s time to change your marketing technology. Some reasons he cited included: to strengthen the tech spine, to update the existing tech, and to fit marketing needs, rather than IT’s.

Branding your image

“If you’re going to be an expert in anything in B2B marketing, be an expert in people,” said Rooster Punk’s Paul Cash who gave a riveting presentation on the secret language of marketing and sales. He used some B2C examples to discuss how to solidify your brand as a great one.

While Sophos’ Sally Adam delivered the nine content marketing sins, she concluded on a very wholesome note for all B2B marketers: “Participating in conferences like this is very much how we can help navigate marketing hell.”

Thanks to everyone who participated! See you next time!