Last month the European Marketing Confederation (EMC), and client of HAN Communications, hosted their third annual forum event in Hamburg, Germany – home to marketing association member, Deutscher Marketing Verband (DMV).
The event brought together senior marketing professionals and CEOs from marketing membership associations across including Malta, Germany, Finland, Iceland, Switzerland, Ireland, the UK and Lithuania, to name but a few.
Taking place over the course of a day, the event aimed to share the very best of ideas and formulate thoughts on how we can work together to promote marketing as a valued, and valuable, profession.
HAN Communications attended the event to blog on some of the outcomes from each of the speaker slots, on behalf of EMC.
Speakers included CEO of BIFM and strategic adviser to the Chartered Institute of Marketing, James Sutton, who spoke to delegates about some of the ways in which professional bodies can seek to transform themselves for the better.
We also heard from other marketing association members including Professor Ralf Strauss, President of the German marketing association, DMV. His talk focused on the importance of content driven strategies to help increase marketing association brand awareness.
Tom Trainor, CEO of the Irish Institute of Marketing, spoke about his personal views on governance for businesses, in particular those that are not-for-profit – or rather, not-for-loss.
Finally, we heard from EMC Vice Chairman, Martin Huisman, who is Chairman at NIMA, the marketing association for marketers in the Netherlands.
This was a knowledge sharing session which focused on events and the various techniques used by marketing associations to acquire new members.
All of the delegates got involved and each shared their own experiences, whilst taking away some useful tips from their colleagues from other associations across Europe.
“The forum was a great opportunity to meet with people from a variety of organisations and discuss some of the challenges that marketing membership organisations currently face.
“Furthermore, the forum is a great platform to network with similar organisations all over Europe, each of which is faced with the same issues and opportunities. We took a lot away from the event, and look forward to more of the same next year.”
Jón Þorgeir Kristjánsson, Managing Director at IMARK – Iceland.
Planning is already underway for the next forum, which will be hosted by EMC member, Swiss Marketing, in October 20108.