There is a ton of conferences popping up from startup to usability. Some, (many) are very general and some very focused. As a small business person, with all the conferences available now, how do you decide which is the best one for you to attend?
If you are like most in large or small companies you look at your marketing budget for the year and narrow it down to which ones are going to give you the most impact on your objectives. While South-by-South West may be really cool to attend with lots of networking and ideas to be had… will it really move you forward? After all if I am going to spend a few thousand bucks, I can do that very easily taking my family on a vacation.
So Conferences in my case has to have impact for several objectives on our marketing program. We usually look at a focus areas we want to get more education in, and then evaluate how much the conference is going to meet our objectives in growing our business. As a result we have put together a short list of conferences in core focus areas that we think will help the small business, startup or online entrepreneur move forward in building a solid business foundation in core areas with a primary objective of growing your business.
On Search Engine Marketing
Pubcon: October 21-24
On Interactive Media
South by Southwest Interactive – SXSWi: March 8 – 12
On Startup
Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference: February 9- 12
On Traffic & Conversion
Traffic & Conversion Summit: January 18 – 20
On Ecommerce
Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition
On Web Development
CMS Expo: May
On Networking
CEO Space: March 17 – 24
On Innovation
Innovation Uncensored: April 23 – 24
On Small Business
The Small Business Summit: August 6
On Leadership
Inc. Leadership Forum: June 10-12
On Inbound Marketing
INBOUND Marketing Conference: August 19-22
On Content Marketing
Content Marketing World: September 9-11
Do you have some conferences that you think were worth the money and that had a significant impact on your business? Let us know by sending us a link on twitter.
