What To Expect ~ What You Can Expect Out of the “Hot Seat”:

When I first put together this year’s Ohio Growth Summit I wanted to maximize the attendee experience by having incredible keynote presenters and highly interactive breakout tracks lead by the best and brightest. To cap the learning experience I thought we could have a panel of experts discuss what they felt were key issues of importance to those building small businesses. Then I started thinking about it and decided we should let the attendees direct the expert interaction by asking “real life” questions. From there the “Hot Seat” was born.

How does it work. Four attendees will be selected and each will be assigned an expert. The business owner and the expert will discuss their pressing business question. For 12 minutes each participant will discuss the issue with the expert to come up with some actionable steps they can take to immediately create positive changes in their business. At the conclusion the audience will vote for the best expert recommendation with the winning business getting a $50 Amazon Gift Card?

Oh yeah, did I mention this is done on the Ohio Growth Summit’s main stage in front of 200 of your closest friends.

So who is in the Hot Seat, the business owner or the expert? You decide.

So sign up now to take advantage of this opportunity to get direct insights on how to make your business more successful direct from the experts live and in person right here in Columbus on May 24.

What To Expect ~ What You Can Expect Out of Adventures In Advanced Content Marketing:

The content revolution is upon us. Since the early beginnings of business (when they were all small), business owners have known the power of story-telling and how it can play to the emotions of potential customers. However, today there are more tools and platforms to reach more and more people with your message. Are you ready to be part of the revolution? The Ohio Growth Summit has reached out and asked Content Marketing expert Nate Riggs to develop a track that will bring together the best and brightest to help you understand content marketing space and how to best tell your story and build your business or businesses you work with.

7 Foundational Principles of Content Marketing — Nate Riggs.

In this highly visual and fast-paced presentation, Nate Riggs will teach you the 7 foundational principals of content marketing that will help you and your business build solid strategic understanding of how publishing compelling content will lead to more audience attention, and ultimately more engaged customers for your business.

How To Discover Your Story

It’s incredibly difficult to keep the pace of publishing content in a dynamic business environment where competition of attention is always high. In this expert panel, you’ll hear some of Ohio’s top content strategists share their ideas, tips and approaches for discovering brand stories and creating flexible editorial roadmaps that will help you maintain effective content marketing practices throughout the year.

Sarah Storer — Senior Content Strategiest, The Karcher Group and TheNakedRedhead.com
Amy Schmittauer — Small Business Consultant, Sexy Savvy Social
Eric Leslie — Digital Video Producer, OnScene Productions

How To Tell Your Story — Implementation Panel

We’ve covered the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of content marketing, but what about the ‘do’? In this panel discussion, the rubber meets the road. You’ll hear perspectives of managers who’ve successfully seeded and grown content marketings programs from the ground up inside their Ohio companies with amazing results to show from their efforts. The discussion will explore everything from getting manager buy-in and budgets, to executing content marketing plans on limited resources and measuring the impact.

Josh Gordon — Director of Customer Experience, The Karcher Group
Dan Toland — Digital Manager, Ohio Farm Bureau
Lilia Lipps — Marketing & Communications Manager, OneCommunity and Owner at Indulgence Cakes

Content Marketing Perspectives from Ohio’s Most Successful Small Business Owners

To wrap up the day, hear from the the folks who might be the most skeptical, numbers-driven and resistant to the idea of content marketing — the business owners. In this All-Star panel of presidents and founders of uber-successful Ohio-based businesses, you’ll have the chance to hear real-world business perspectives on how content marketing fits among more traditional marketing activities. Our panelists will share both their success stories and failures, and how each experience impacted business’s KPIs.

Anthony Iannarino — President, SOLUTIONS Staffing
Sam Falletta — President, Incept
Joe Pulizzi — Founder Junta42 and Content Marketing Institute, Author of Get Content, Get Customers and Managing Content Marketing
Gini Dietrich – CEO Arment Dietrich, Author of Marketing in the Round, How To Develop An Integrated Marketing Campaign In A Digital Era

Closing Thoughts – Nate Riggs

So sign up now to take advantage of this opportunity to get direct insights on how to make your business more successful direct from the experts live and in person right here in Columbus on May 24.

Huntington National Bank, our presenting sponsor for the second consecutive year, has supported the Ohio Growth Summit since its inception. In addition, Huntington serves as a Sustaining Partner Sponsor whose sponsorship supports the SBDC’s activities and programming for the entire year.  Huntington understands small business and consistently provides financial solutions tailored to the unique needs of small business.

Ohio Small Business Development Centers (State Office), our Sustaining Partner Sponsor, is a front-line, immediate response, high-impact program designed to facilitate small business growth, job creation, and access to capital. Staffed with highly trained business advisors who offer business advising and technical services at no charge. In addition, the SBDC offers low-cost training workshops for entrepreneurs in all industries, at all stages of business development.

Small Business Administration, Sustaining Partner Sponsor.  Since its founding on July 30, 1953, the U.S. Small Business Administration has delivered millions of loans, loan guarantees, contracts, counseling sessions and other forms of assistance to small businesses. SBA provides assistances primarily through its four programmatic functions: Access to Capital, Entrepreneurial Development, Government Contracting, and Advocacy.

Columbus State Community College, Sustaining Partner.  The mission at Columbus State is to provide Central Ohio residents the educational opportunities they need to get to the next phase of their career – whatever that may be. Work immediately with a two-year associate degree in a Career & Technical field, transfer and continue your education with Associate of Arts or Associate of Science or continue your professional development through the Community Education and Workforce Development division. Columbus State. Your path to the education you need.

Columbus 2020 – The Columbus Region, Gold Sponsor.  The Columbus Region is guided by Columbus 2020, an unprecedented strategy for economic growth. Columbus 2020 is a bold, new, regional public-private partnership that will leverage Central Ohio´s research and academic institutions, diverse industries to position the State Capital to become the fastest growing economy in the country and one of the nation´s leaders in economic development.

The Karcher Group, Silver Sponsor. The Karcher Group works to connect web marketing and development to your real business goals: Web marketing isn’t easy because it takes a lot of different skill sets to execute strategies that actually meet your real business goals. It’s even harder if you’re trying to manage multiple vendors. That’s why the Karcher Group built a team of search engine marketing and social media marketing professionals to help our clients create and execute web marketing strategies with a true focus on ROI.

AEP Ohio, Silver Partner. AEP Ohio offers a portfolio of energy efficiency programs to business customers in the state of Ohio to encourage customers to save money on their electric bills. Learn details about the New Construction program, the Custom program, the Prescriptive Program and the Self Direct program for retroactive projects. These programs help speed the payback of energy efficiency investments while helping to reduce the carbon footprint in Ohio. Incentives are available to all non-residential AEP Ohio customers in the state of Ohio, to assist with energy efficient retrofit and new equipment replacement in electric energy efficiency projects.

Telhio Credit Union, Silver Sponsor. Telhio is more than a bank. It’s a credit union. And when you’re a member of Telhio, you own it. You reap the benefits. Wherever you are in life, they’re here to help you grab every opportunity. On your terms. There may come a time when you will need extra funds for a major business purchase. Telhio offers a variety of business loans to keep you going without missing a step.

Columbus Chamber of Commerce, Our purpose is to accelerate your business’ success. The largest business organization in central Ohio, representing 2,000 member businesses. The Columbus Chamber has supported businesses for more than 128 years. Within the community’s new economic development strategy, Columbus2020, the Chamber is singularly focused on serving businesses operating in the Columbus area.

Social Media Club of Columbus was founded to help people find all the relevant communities of interest in which they want to participate. SMC wants to help you explore your personal and professional passions by helping you connect with a community of your peers based on both geography and areas of interest. SMC wants to ensure that the world of social media does not become an echo chamber of self-reinforcing thoughts, but is instead fueled by diversity of opinion and perspective.

Content Marketing World 2012 (CMW). Their goal is simple: CMW wants to help you with the how-to of content marketing. CMW2012 believes the more you know about content marketing, and how to integrate it into your organization, the better you will market…attracting and retaining more and happier customers.

Columbus State Workforce Development.  In today’s global marketplace, the Ohio workforce development efforts are becoming more and more in demand. To meet those needs, The Center for Workforce Development at Columbus State Community College has partnered with many companies in the Columbus, Ohio community to address workforce improvement and economic development needs through innovative approaches to education, career counseling, talent development, customized training and organizational performance.

TechColumbus. TechColumbus’s ultimate goal is to accelerate business growth, job creation, and prosperity in the 15-county region of Central Ohio. TechColumbus runs a world-class technology business incubator and works with entrepreneurs and investors to develop and launch technology start-up companies, as well as grow young companies that will provide the jobs of tomorrow

Support our sponsors. Visit their websites and engage with companies and organizations vested in your success.