I just returned to New Jersey after spending three days in Toronto with Uberflip and more than 700 content marketers at the company’s annual Conex event. I’m a big fan of the event, because I am a big fan of content marketing, content creation and everything in-between. So, you can understand my excitement to attend every year and learn from some of the brightest minds in the industry.

This year, that included speakers such as:

• Jay Baer, President of Convince & Convert;
• Amy Landino of Vlog Boss Studios;
• Tamsin Webster, Founder and Chief Message Strategist, The Red Thread;
• Caitlin Angeloff, Global Head of Social Media Strategy & Operations at DocuSign;
• Marcus Sheridan of Marcus Sheridan International Inc.;
• Nate Skinner, VP of Product Marketing at Pardot;
• Andrew Davis, Author of Brandscaping;
• Corinne Sklar, CMO of Bluewolf Group; and
• Much, much more!

The event packed so many great presentations spanning over three days. While I already covered an extensive recap of the event here — highlighting many thought-provoking insights into content marketing and the content experience that marketers can deploy in their organizations almost immediately — I still have so many great quotes and tidbits from the event that deserve a bit of a spotlight.

With that said, I’ve rounded up some of my favorites here in hopes that they will spark a conversation among you and your colleagues.

“There is nothing worse than homeless content. It’s your PDF on SlideShare; it’s your video on YouTube; it’s your infographic, sad and lonely on your blog. Give your content a home and make it feel like it has a place to live.”
-Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs

“Content organization is hot. It’s foundational to creating truly personalized content experiences. Use a content experience platform so you can scale it and not slave over spreadsheets.”
-Anna Hrach, Strategist, Convince & Convert

“There’s one step in between homeless content and where we are now — that’s when we are generating content after content. It’s like we’re standing on a street corner, saying, ‘Please, sir, will you read some more.’”
-Tamsen Webster, Founder and Chief Message Strategist, The Red Thread

“Content is the ‘’location, location, location’ of the 20th century.”
-Carlos Abler, Content Marketing Strategy, 3M

“The reason why people give you their money is the same reason they gave me money as a pool guy, it’s because they feel something about you that they didn’t feel about others. Trust allows someone to give you their money.”
-Marcus Sheridan, Owner, Professional Speaker, Author, Marcus Sheridan International Inc.

“Marketing and sales goes on all the dates. They get vetted by the entire organization and then they hand it over to Bob to deliver the experience.”
-Joey Coleman, Chief Experience Composer, Design Symphony

“Social video should not be mistaken for TV. Television doesn’t let you interact with your audience; Facebook does.”
-Caitlin Angeloff, Global Head of Social Media Strategy & Operations, DocuSign

“When you hire a marketer, what is their on-boarding process? When you have them start, make sure they understand the importance of execution. Teach the process on day one, instill the values up front and build a culture of ‘get it done.’”
-Corinne Sklar, CMO, Bluewolf Group

“If you want to be authentic, don’t tell people the theme of the story. Let them feel the message. It’s the same thing with your mission statement — make them feel the mission statement.”
-Matthew Luhn, Keynote Speaker and Former Pixar Animator

“Ignoring video is the avoided handshake of 2018.”
-Amy Landino, YouTuber, Speaker, Podcaster, Author and Marketing Consultant, Vlog Boss Studios

“Quit blaming the goldfish. Our audience is capable of paying attention as long as we grab and hold their attention.”
-Andrew Davis, Author of Brandscaping

Get more insights from Conex by checking out my recap. Plus, I sat down with Randy Frisch, CMO of Uberflip, during the event, and you can listen to our conversation here.

For a long time, content marketing has been defined (or assumed) as simply “creating content,” but this mindset is destined for failure.

“Creating content is not enough,” said Randy Frisch, CMO of Uberflip, during his keynote presentation at the company’s annual Conex event in Toronto. “We have to focus on the content experience for the buyer journey. A content experience occurs wherever and whenever anyone encounters your content. It could be terrible or great. They occur at every stage of the funnel.”

Nothing turns off a buyer more than a disjointed, complex experience with a B2B brand. According to our own research shows that, when buyers are selecting a vendor in a purchase decision, two-thirds (66%) of buyers said the timeliness of a vendor’s response to inquiries was vital to their purchase decision, while 73% said the winning vendor demonstrated a stronger knowledge of their needs. Other research shows that more than half (51%) find themselves overwhelmed by the amount of content available.

via GIPHY

To be successful in today's B2B marketplace, companies must make innovative decisions throughout their organization to stay above the competition. This not only includes product or service innovation, but also innovation in how marketing and sales teams engage potential customers to offer genuine, seamless buying experiences.

Storytelling. Authenticity. A human approach. These terms have quickly become part of the B2B marketing vocabulary — especially when it comes to content, messaging and engagement with customers and prospects.

Risk aversion is becoming a top motivator for B2B buyers. Research shows 78% of buyers are dedicating more time to researching solutions and are increasingly turning to peers and thought leaders for relevant insights. Demand Gen Report’s 2018 B2B Buyers Survey demonstrates the growing influence of third-party sources and outside opinions on the buyer journey. According to the report:

Skyword360, a content marketing platform, aims to provide marketing leaders a 360-degree view of their content strategies and operations. It is designed to enable marketers to plan, execute and optimize their content strategies across multiple audiences, campaigns, channels, regions and divisions.

Citrix, a cloud computing company, needed a marketing solution that would enhance the customer journey with personalization. The company selected Evergage, a real-time personalization platform, to boost its marketing campaigns.

No matter what industry they’re in, today’s B2B professionals are looking for authentic, audience-based content to help them do their jobs better. Gone are the days where the blog section of a company’s website is packed with product-related information.

HubSpot announced a new partnership with Taboola, a native advertising and content discovery platform. The partnership positions users to create Taboola campaigns from within the HubSpot platform.

As a result of the partnership, Taboola’s content discovery platform will be integrated directly into HubSpot. HubSpot users will be able to use Taboola to manage budgets, perform A/B creative tests, target multiple audiences and review reports in real time.

“We are always looking for new ways to help our customers scale as cost efficiently as possible,” said Kevin Raheja, Director of Strategic Partnerships at HubSpot, in a statement. “Taboola is a platform that so many of our customers are already using and we’re excited to offer them an easy way to streamline their content marketing efforts.”