Midwest Digital Marketing Conference continues to build post-pandemic momentum with three-day event on UMSL campus
Stephanie Garcia, CEO of Lights, Camera, Live, speaks on “From Unknown to Unforgettable: The Art and Science of Becoming Captivating on Camera” at the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference at the University of Missouri's Toohill Performing Arts Center. I will give a keynote speech titled. St. Louis campus. (Photo provided by Derrick Holtmann)
The 12th Annual Midwest Digital Marketing Conference was held last week primarily at the Blanche M. Toohill Performing Arts Center on the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Lewis shared many similarities with his MDMC experience thus far.
First, keynote speakers Raashi Rosenberger, Global Brand Head of Meta Quest (formerly Oculus) and Stephanie Garcia, CEO of Light, Camera, Live, will educate attendees at the 2024 event. It's back to entertain.
“This is my sixth year at MDMC,” Rosenberger told the audience at the beginning of Wednesday's keynote address. “I love attending this conference and I love coming back to St. Louis. I live in Brooklyn, New York, but I grew up here in St. Louis, so the opportunity to visit my hometown is just right for me. is what you need.”
Rosenberger was a student of MDMC founder Perry Drake, now dean of UMSL's Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship, when he taught at New York University. She talked about how Meta Quest set out to change the perception of its brand as its products evolved. And after her presentation, she stayed near the stage and interacted with the long line of attendees. “Rashi, she loves the engagement, she loves being here, she loves being a part of what we're doing,” Drake said.
As always, many connections were made, many conversations were considered, and many ideas were generated and progress was made over the three days.
“With so much going on around MDMC today, I hear you're looking for high-level strategies on how to communicate with confidence,” Garcia said at the beginning of his Tuesday afternoon keynote address. said. “How do you get your audience to stop and look and listen to you? Am I right or am I right? That's great, because that's exactly what we're going to talk about today.”
This year's MDMC had 575 attendees and over 75 speakers and presenters. At his MDMC in 2024, in addition to the 40 sessions held at the Toohill Center on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, on Monday he will hold his seven workshops at Anheuser-Busch Hall, home of the UMSL School of Business. I did.
Drake said he was “very excited.” “As long as people are having fun, connecting and communicating, the level of engagement makes me happy. That's what I've seen.”
MDMC founder Perry Drake will speak to the audience before Tuesday's keynote address. (Photo provided by Derrick Holtmann)
The MDMC leadership team includes Drake, Mindy Choo (Executive Director), Thomas O'Connell (Production Director), Rebecca Bechtel and Nick Schreiber (Graduate Assistants), Alex Hill (Interns), and the UMSL Marketing Club. DemandJump, the pillar-based marketing software tool, returns as the title sponsor once again in 2024.
The conference will offer a variety of sessions throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, with three sessions held simultaneously at Toohill's Anheuser-Busch Performance Hall, Whittaker Hall, and E. Desmond and Mary Ann Lee Theater. It gave people a lot of theme options.
Sessions included topics such as providing immersive experiences at CITYPARK, home of the CITY SC soccer team, several sessions on search engine optimization and Google Analytics, and marketing through social media. Additionally, five panel discussions were held.
Ebi Nicol, digital strategist and founder of ET Digital Consulting, will present “Storytelling Mastery for Marketers: Unlocking Stories to Connect, Engage, and Convert” at Whittaker Hall on Tuesday. He hosted a session entitled. She was excited about how the session unfolded.
“My session was packed and engaged,” she said. “So many people were taking pictures, taking notes, asking and answering questions. So many people came up to me afterwards and spoke passionately about all the gems they got from the presentation. I couldn't have imagined a better audience.”
Nicole not only taught the sessions, she also learned from the sessions she attended. Wednesday's panel discussion on entrepreneurship, leadership, and growth with Hakeem Shannon, Brian Monsey, and Vanessa Cabrera really resonated.
“It was a great conversation,” she said. “It’s rare for founders to talk openly about the mental and emotional impact of entrepreneurship. It was refreshing to hear about the ups and downs of the journey. At the end of the day, I can totally relate, and many others I know people can relate too.”
One of Drake's favorite things about MDMC is that the conference has something for everyone, from professionals looking to gain knowledge to advance their careers, to college students like UMSL, to potential entrepreneurs. That's what we offer. This year, Drake and MDMC welcomed youth groups from Girls, Inc., St. Louis Science Center's YES (Youth Exploring Science) program, and NFTE (Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship).
“We wanted to bring them back and introduce them to different speakers and inspire them with how successful they were. So it's going well,” Drake said. “We brought in Mr. Fresh, one of the entrepreneurs in last year's Anchor Accelerator program. He's 14 years old. It was to make connections to take this business further. I connected him to some key speakers.”
The first three MDMC events (14/15/2013) were held on UMSL's campus, but as the conference grew and its reputation spread, Drake moved the event to downtown St. Louis to accommodate the expansion. Moved to Union Station. His first year at Union Station, he had nearly 800 participants. By 2019, that number had soared to his nearly 2,000 attendees, with over 125 speakers and presenters, and up to eight sessions held simultaneously.
But that momentum was halted in 2020 by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing Drake and his staff to quickly move the event to an online version. He credits Garcia's support for making the transition possible in such a short time. “Stephanie, she was an integral part of our quick turnaround,” Drake said. “We reached out to her to see if she could work with us to make it really crisp and smart, and she helped us out a lot.”
The 2021 MDMC was also online-only, but starting in 2022, the event returns to UMSL's campus. The growth process began again.
“Our goal is to return to Union Station,” Drake said. “We will raise them carefully but wisely.”
