There are plenty of great marketing talks out there, but I genuinely believe these to be amongst the best webinars for marketers on the web.

Over the past 10 days, six separate people have asked me what the ‘best’ TMM talk is of all time.

And here’s the God honest truth – there genuinely isn’t a ‘best’ talk. For one, that implies that one talk would be better than any other in all scenarios, which plainly isn’t the truth. Instead, let me share with you where I would start if I wanted to go back in time with TMM. This list is by no means exhaustive, I’ll have to do a part two soon 🙂

Some of the best ‘how to do marketing’ talks

These are the talks where someone has come in and shared something super tactical and in the weeds. Telling you step by step how they’ve done a thing.

• ​Mary Owusu on SEO – I think Mary delivered ‘the perfect talk’. Eloquent and with an amazing story, and she made me sweat when she started diving into TMM’s SEO live on the call.
• ​Carrie Rose on PR and how to build links – THE ENERGY. Carrie and Rise at Seven are flying – this talk, with a title that is fairly self explanitory, is one people recall as one of the absolute best.
• ​John Espirian on smashing Linkedin – There was no fluff in this talk. It was pure gold (possibly the most used word in the chat on the day).
• ​Ash Jones and Claudia Cardinali on personal branding – Ash & Claudia have helped some of the industry’s best known names get to where they are through personal brands. In this session, they shared how.
• ​Harry Dry on building email lists – Harry Dry is another young voice taking our industry by storm. In this session, he shared how he built his list to 50,000+ in a year and a bit with super practical insights.
• ​Dave Harland on writing stories for social media – Possibly the funniest talk of all time, but also super practical and insightful on great copywriting.
• ​Theo Watt & Eve Young on podcasting – Theo and Eve left nothing on the table when it came to sharing how to build a podcast. This was a brilliant example of an excellent ‘how to’ talk.
• ​Asia Orangio on creating strategy – Asia delivered the talk I wish I had seen when I started my marketing career. Marketing execs and managers alike need to take this in. It’s a game changer for those starting out in particular.

Some of the most inspirational talks for marketers

These talks are perhaps less tactical, but leave you with that warm glow afterwards.

• • ​Graham Robertson on creating beloved brands – Graham’s thought on ‘do I love this?’ changed my entire approach to marketing. One of those people who clearly has experienced a multitude of things I don’t even know exist right now.
  • ​Martyn Sibley on his journey and how we can be doing more to help the disabled community with our efforts – Martyn is possibly the most inspirational person I know. His portion of the talk is in the second half of what was already a cracker with Andy from ContentCal.

Some of the ones marketers speak to me all the time about –

The ones that stuck in the brain with the big names.

• ​Mark Ritson AMA – Possibly the most influential marketer in our industry right now. I have a lot of time and respect for Mark as he gave us his time, particularly when he didn’t need to at the beginning of the pandemic to do an AMA.
• ​Bryony Thomas on strategy – Bryony has a model for everything. A tonne of marketers walked out of this talk much wiser on marketing strategy than when they entered. I’m a big fan of hers.
• ​Rory Sutherland on… everything – Rory is one of a kind. If I was to say this talk was a stream of consciousness, for most people that would be an insult, but for Rory – it’s the highest praise I can think of. The man is a genius and this talk was likewise mind-bending.
• ​David Hieatt on email and business – This was one that went in a different direction than I expected, to be honest. We were supposed to focus on email marketing, but ended up in many directions. After the talk, I was worried people would have not enjoyed it because it wasn’t ‘as advertised’… in fact, my inbox has never been more full of ‘THAT WAS INCREDIBLE’ emails.
• ​Dave Gerhardt AMA – DG is another hugely influential marketer. To get a view into his brain for an hour was useful beyond belief. Plus he said I was a good interviewer 🙂
• ​April Dunford on positioning – April is the one of the world’s foremost experts on positioning. Her talk style was enough that people have come to me numerous times since her talk and said… “That April was quite something wasn’t she?!”
• ​Louis Grenier on radical differentiation – I was a fan of Louis before I met him. Now, I don’t think there is any other marketer people speak to me more about than him.

Some of the talks which weren’t directly about marketing, but I learned so much anyway

Because marketing inspiration isn’t just found by speaking about marketing.

• ​Martin George on lessons learned from 30 years in marketing – Martin is one of the most grounded, lovely, hard working and accomplished marketers I have spent time with. His lessons from 30 years of marketing were humble and from a place of experience. Also amazing was the amount of people who got in touch after Martin’s session saying how they had previously worked with him and loved the experience. That’s who I want to be when I grow big.
• ​Penny Ferguson and Catherine Newman on leadership – Penny and Catherine provided an amazing insight into what true leadership is in this session. If you have any challenges as a manager, or with a manager – this is the talk for you.
• ​James Routledge on mental health – James Routledge is eloquent as anything and shared openly his journey of mental health. I came away from this talk thinking ‘that was important’, which, for a happy little marketing community like ours, really is a lovely thing.

The only reason I’m stopping here is that is about 20 hours of content already. There are SO MANY MORE amazing talks and write ups and more on the blog, and The Marketing Meetup Podcast.