SiriusDecisions Europe Summit 2013: interview with John Neeson, MD and Co-Founder

We’re fresh off the heels of the SiriusDecisions EMEA Summit and what an event it was. Hats off to our friends at SiriusDecisions for once again organizing and delivering an insightful and worthwhile gathering.

MarketOne was once more a sponsor (that makes four years in a row), and during the event we were lucky enough to catch up with John Neeson, MD and Co-Founder of SiriusDecisions for a very informative chat. We thought we’d pass on the highlights of a fascinating discussion:

MarketOne: What are the key differences between this year’s event and last year’s event?

John Neeson: This year’s SiriusDecisions European Summit has been extended to run over a day and a half and has grown to attract 370 delegates. We have also expanded our audience, adding attendees representing Product Marketing as well as those from Marketing Communications, Operations and Sales.

MarketOne: What would you say are the key topics for this year’s event?

John Neeson: An important topic for this year’s attendees to take away with them is the Content Model for Digital Marketing, presented by Marisa Kopec in her session ‘B2B Content: The Revolution is Now’, which highlights statistics showing that 2/3 of digital content produced by marketing departments is going to waste – a very expensive waste. Also ‘The Rearchitected Waterfall’, with its further enhancements, is the second big session of this year’s event.

MarketOne: What are your thoughts on future challenges and opportunities in the upcoming year?

John Neeson: Overall, financial challenges in Europe and in the US have definitely impacted the speed of change for industries across both continents. From a geographical marketing point of view, Europe is characterized by distinct regional segments. This creates demand for meaningful regional case studies. Cultural and lingual diversity means that content and Social Relationship Marketing have to be specifically targeted. In my experience, marketing databases in Europe contain a higher quality of data because of the market’s more sophisticated privacy regulations. These restrictions limit the potential for outbound email marketing, but that in turn has increased the focus on inbound marketing, which is achieving significant results compared to the US where the market is more sloppy in its strategic use of inbound marketing. From what we see, Asia Pacific is following EMEA rather than the US in this respect.

MarketOne: Where are you seeing growth in B2B segments in Europe and the US?

John Neeson: Technology companies are always early adopters and 30% are already using marketing automation. At SiriusDecisions we see potential growth in manufacturing, healthcare (mainly the US) and financial services as regulations are lifting. In EMEA we’re particularly noting growth in emerging welfare in Eastern Europe and South Africa.

We’d like to extend our thanks to John for talking with us. We’re particularly interested by his comments about the challenges for marketers today in different regions. As a business working on campaigns across the world in 10 or more languages at any time and dealing with different privacy regulations and other restrictions depending on the country, it is definitely a challenging environment. If you’d like to find out more about how we help companies thrive across continents, why not contact us.

The most interesting topics presented at this year´s European SiriusDecisions Summit according to us are discussed in this post.