The Marketing Meetup describes itself as “a positively lovely community for 51,387+ marketers” – and that’s refreshingly accurate marketing copy for once. After attending their first-ever conference in London this March, I can confirm they weren’t exaggerating!

The conference theme was “Marketers’ campfire stories: inspiring growth through practical lessons from hard-won experience.” The concept was real people sharing real experiences… except those “real people” included some of my marketing heroes.

Let me share the nuggets of wisdom I collected…

Wear all the hats – just not at the same time

Thierry Ngutegure from SALT Agency kicked things off with “The Great Pretender: how I learned to embrace wearing many hats.” As someone who regularly juggles client work with 101 other business ideas AND a small farm + personal life, this one hit home.

Thierry’s insights weren’t just about wearing different figurative hats for different occasions (we all do that, right?), but knowing when to switch between them. Hat-switching is not about multitasking yourself into a nervous breakdown; it’s about recognising which hat serves you best in different situations, and making a distinction between your “expert” hats and your “generalist” hats. (but more on those later).

Next time you’re frantically swapping between your creative beret and your data analysis bowler, know that timing is everything. Sometimes knowing when to change hats is more important than how many you can balance on your head at once.

Be the underdog everyone roots for

Jo Bird shared her experience from working with Gymshark and Lounge in her talk “From Self-Doubt to Stand-Out: How Being an Underdog Is Your Best Brand Story.” Her message was clear: people don’t sympathise with Goliath – they’re Team David all the way.

There’s something paradoxical here: we’re all chasing growth, but the moment we become “the biggest,” we risk to lose that underdog charm that made people fall in love with us in the first place. Underdog brands don’t try to be the biggest; they focus on beating the odds.

My takeaway from Jo’s talk: being overshadowed by industry giants isn’t a disadvantage. Being the underdog is relatable AND marketable. David didn’t try to become Goliath; he just got really good with a slingshot.

Public speaking: less about you, more about them

Max Hoppy from The Keynote Club tackled the number one fear of approximately everyone ever: public speaking. His session “Public speaking with confidence: Who wins, the chicken or the bee?” offered a perspective shift: you’re not out there to speak, you’re there to share knowledge and help your audience gain new insights. Suddenly, it’s not about your sweaty palms and racing heart – it’s about what your audience needs from you.

It’s like realising the universe doesn’t revolve around your anxiety (rude, I know). By focusing on serving rather than performing, presentations become less about surviving and more about giving. And isn’t that a relief? Not that those nerves will ever go away completely…

Juxtaposition: the secret sauce of copywriting

Harry Dry of the ever-entertaining Marketing Examples newsletter demonstrated in “The day I became a better writer” that good advertising copy often hinges on finding the perfect juxtaposition. And he brought receipts – showing examples where contrast made copy sing versus where sameness made it sink.

It’s like the marketing equivalent of a plot twist – your brain notices when things don’t go as expected. “Here’s what everyone else does. Here’s what we do instead.” Juxtaposition just makes copy more memorable.

(Also, Harry’s stage performance in an astronaut outfit was absolutely out there. I didn’t know what to expect, but didn’t expect this).

Traffic is vanity, influence is sanity

Rand Fishkin of SparkToro came armed with enough graphs and stats to make a data analyst weep with joy. His talk on “The Death of Marketing Attribution” was a reality check: clicks from organic search are declining (since way before LLM responses in search were introduced), and people share fewer links these days.

His advice: stop obsessing over traffic numbers and start optimising for influence. If you can effectively reach your people where they’re already hanging out, who cares if they never visit your website, or if the first and only time they do so is to make a purchase?

This might require a painful conversation with our clients (or their SEO agency) about why those traffic metrics they love so much aren’t the be-all and end-all, but Rand’s data has our backs.

Content without connection is just digital litter

Sophie Miller (Pretty Little Marketer) shared her journey to growing a social following of over 500K organically. Her key insight? Many brands are separating themselves from their audience by creating content that doesn’t invite conversation.

Content that reflects your audience leads to meaningful conversation – and conversations build connection. Instead of measuring success by how many pieces of content you pump out, maybe start tracking how many genuine interactions each piece generates. Quality over quantity isn’t just a cliché; it’s the difference between building a community and shouting into the crowd.

Don’t put lipstick on a branded pig

Diane Wiredu of Lion Words delivered what was, for me, one of the standout keynotes of the day: “Working on copy before messaging is like putting lipstick on a pig.” Her point? Knowing what you want to say must come before figuring out how to say it. It’s something I keep telling people, so it’s nice to hear it from someone else for once.

Messaging answers the fundamental question: what do you really mean? Without this clarity, even the most beautiful copy can lead people to form completely wrong ideas about your brand.

If you’re a copywriter, I’m sure you’ve been there – spending hours perfecting a piece when we’re not even sure how the content relates to the company’s activities. Stop polishing that pig and figure out your core message first. The lipstick can wait.

Design your life like you design your marketing campaigns

Louis Grenier from Stand The F*ck Out got existential, sharing a deeply personal story that led to only one conclusion: when faced with your own mortality, you better be in a position to say you’re living the life you want to be living.

It was a good reminder that behind all our marketing metrics and campaign calendars, we’re humans with finite time. Are we spending it on things that actually matter?

Aside from that, Louis also regaled us with his signature strong opinions about marketing and brand communications. I may not agree with all of them, but he certainly gave us a lot of food for thought! AND he gave us a free copy of his book, and a chance to get it signed too. I started reading on the airplane home and can tell you: don’t skip the foreword. And take enough breaks to let it all sink in.

In the age of AI, clarity trumps everything

Crystal Carter from Wix had only 7 minutes (a “lightning talk”) to show us how large language models are transforming search, offering a simple but interesting insight: optimise not just for ranking, but mostly for clarity.

As search engines increasingly use AI to generate and rank results, content that presents information with exceptional clarity gains the advantage. It’s not just about playing the SEO game anymore; it’s about making your content so clear that even a machine can’t misinterpret it.

This might mean saying goodbye to those cleverly ambiguous headlines we all thought were so smart. In this new world of AI, being crystal clear is just your best strategy.

Grow deeper, not just wider

Bronwen Foster-Butler, CMO at Finisterre, shared that “the best way to grow a great brand is to scale through a niche.” When you try to reach everyone, you risk losing the people who would have been your biggest fans.

It’s the marketing equivalent of trying to be friends with everyone in high school instead of finding your people. Superficial connections with many versus meaningful relationships with a few – and we all know which approach builds a stronger foundation.

For those feeling the pressure to continuously expand their audience, this is your permission slip to go deeper instead of wider. Sometimes the path to growth isn’t saying “hello” to more people, but having better conversations with the ones already listening.

Small efforts, compounded

Jeremy Connell-Waite from IBM closed the conference by showing how small blocks of time – just 1000 seconds daily (about 17 minutes) over a year – can create remarkable outcomes.

For anyone who’s ever thought they don’t have the time or the power to really make a difference, this was a gentle reminder that excellence doesn’t require dramatic gestures or 12-hour work days; it just needs consistent, modest effort applied strategically.

It’s like the marketing version of compound interest – small, regular deposits eventually create wealth. And in a world where we’re all juggling too many priorities, isn’t it nice to know that 17 focused minutes today is enough to move the needle?

The vibe was immaculate (as the kids say)

Beyond the talks, the conference itself was a masterclass in community building. The volunteers made everyone feel welcome, the venue had thoughtful touches like a quiet room for introverts needing a breather, and there was ample time between sessions for meaningful conversations.

Several speakers hung around all day (no helicopter speaking here), and refreshingly, nobody tried to sell me something thinly disguised as a presentation.

The food was delicious (those lunch bites!), coffee and (proper English) tea were plentiful, and the programming had just the right balance of input versus processing time. If only all conferences understood that our brains need breaks as much as they need information.

More gems to come your way

I’ll be unpacking more detailed insights from the conference over the coming months – there was simply too much goodness to fit into one post. To catch these nuggets as they come, follow along on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Bluesky.

The “campfire stories” theme turned out to be perfect – not just for the format of the talks, but for the warm, welcoming community gathered around them. In a world of increasingly generic marketing, this event was a powerful reminder that the best insights still come from real humans sharing their real experiences and hard-won wisdom.