With Henry Stewart's disappointing decision to eliminate the Marketing Operations track and put all its focus into Digital Asset Management - at the very least for the Los Angeles conference next month, Marketing Operations professionals are left wondering if a viable forum still exists to address marketing effectiveness, optimization, ROI and other weighty subjects that create the need for MO.
The eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, which runs four times a year, is beginning to see the value of Marketing Operations and has added MO to its agenda, initially in May for the SF summit (I spoke there) and again this coming week in Washington DC.
There is a significant opportunity for some event management organization to grab MO and run with it and eMetrics, which is run by the Web Analytics Association, is as viable a sponsor as any.
There are a number of speakers addressing topics beyond web analytics, including Kim Johnston, Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing Operations with Symantec, who will discuss Global Marketing Metrics. Others speakers with a broader focus include Laura Patterson of VisionEdge Marketing ("Creating a Performance-Driven Marketing Organization"), Katie Delahaye Paine of KD Paine and Partners ("Reputation Management in a Social Media World"), Liz Miller of CMO Council ("View from the CMOs Office"), and myself ("Marketing Operations: The Discipline Behind the Metrics").
I'll be speaking on Tuesday, May 21 at 1:05 p.m., so if you're in DC, come check it out!
Gary
