I’d been looking forward to the Thursday programming slate at INBOUND 2019 for months.
Why?
You see, it’s really quite simple. Jennifer Garner was on the slate talking about her farm-to-table food company Once Upon a Farm (alongside co-founder and CEO John Foraker).
Garner’s TV series “Alias” is one of my favorites (the lady could effortlessly kick ass and cry on cue as secret agent Sydney Bristow).
I was interested in hearing about her company. As luck would have it, a Once Upon a Farm smoothie was in our refrigerator when we got home (Bridget had purchased it the previous week to aid in my attempt to eat/snack healthier), and we didn’t even realize it.
Garner and Foraker were the opening “Spotlight” speakers on Thursday, Sept. 5. They were interviewed by Katie Couric (who would appear in her own “Spotlight” session later in the day).
The topic of the talk was “Passion and Purpose — Creating a Business With Personal Meaning.”
In this picture, you can see Jennifer Garner waving. I can only assume she was waving at me, and not one of the other 25,000+ attendees surrounding the Main Stage. ;-)
Garner’s passion for Once Upon a Farm stems from her mom’s upbringing in Oklahoma.
Her mom made “every bite of food they ate,” she said. Garner would beg her mom for junk food – Chips Ahoy, Triscuits, Little Debbie Snack cakes.
Foraker is the former president of Annie’s Homegrown (an organic food company in Berkeley, CA, whose parent company is General Mills).
“I had the best job in the food industry and I went to this little startup,” said Foraker.
Both agreed they wanted to make food products for kids of all ages — not just infants.
“I’ve got kids to feed and lunch boxes that need filled every day,” said Garner, whose kids are ages 13, 10, and 7.
It sounds like the two have a shared synergy and passion. Foraker complimented Garner on her hard work ethic with Once Upon a Farm.
Garner suggests her passion for providing healthy and affordable food for families came from the generational poverty she experienced growing up in West Virginia.
The presentation was thought-provoking and had a lot of energy. Garner’s personality (reminiscent of her Jenna Rink character in “13 Going on 30”) was fun and infectious.
Once Upon a Farm is trying to build a culture that consumers will buy-in to.
“To me, culture is everything,” said Foraker. “Have values that people will self-select into.”
After the session concluded, it was time for our first breakout session of the day.
Bridget and I attended an interesting session titled “Retention is a Game of Inches: Use a Scalpel, Not a Sledgehammer” presented by ProfitWell co-founder and CEO Patrick Campbell.
Campbell had a humorous demeanor from the get-go — something that helps break the monotony in a data-driven presentation.
Subscriber retention is an important topic for Bridget and I as it regards our subscription-based website BeAResumeWriter.com for career industry professionals.
Campbell talked about how businesses spend 63% of their sales/marketing budget acquiring customers, but only about 8% of that budget retaining customers.
He quipped that some businesses spend more time, money, and effort picking out toilet paper than on monetizing customers.
Gone are the days of penny-per-click ads on Google and 90% open rates on e-mail campaigns.
Campbell had a number of suggestions for retaining subscribers, including encouraging annual subscriptions (over monthly subs), offer amazing support, and fix credit card failures (20-40% of churn is due to failed credit card payments)
He gave us a lot to think about.
We then met up with Jason for lunch at the Lawn on D food trucks.
Since there are 20,000+ attendees at INBOUND each year, organizers offer a number of food options that will get participants in and out and onto their next educational session.
The Lawn on D area is an ultra-modern outdoor park with grass and astroturf areas, along with a hooded tent where patrons could eat their food truck selections.
I had a sandwich from the Daddy’s Bonetown Burgers truck. It was called “Daddy’s Cheesesteak Sub.” It featured grilled steak, bacon, smoked onions, and cheddar cheese with house-made bourbon barbecue sauce on a wheat bun.
It was pretty good. Honestly, it didn’t really resemble a cheesesteak in terms of look, taste, or consistency, but I was glad to try it.
Bridget had the “Honey Truffle Goat Cheese Sandwich” from The Dining Car food truck.
Bridget really liked her sandwich (I thought it looked good). It featured fresh goat cheese marinated with olive oil and herbs, toasted walnuts with wildflower honey and truffle oil, greens, and sherry vinaigrette on toasted ciabatta. She also got chips with her sandwich (mine didn't come with chips).
I didn’t get a picture of Jason’s lunch (we were pressed for time between sessions).
I should note that Porsche was one of the sponsors at this year’s INBOUND. This is a picture as we quickly walked by their area at the BCEC:
Our third program of the day was a “Spotlight” session with former “Today” host and “CBS Evening News” anchor Katie Couric.
Most people know Couric from her stints on TV news (on high-profile offerings at NBC, CBS, and ABC) as well as her time at Yahoo! News. Recently, she has produced documentaries (“Fed Up” being one of the more talked-about projects) and she is currently writing a tell-all book about her time on NBC’s Today (set to drop in 2021).
Couric currently has a daily e-newsletter called Wake-Up Call under her Katie Couric Media brand.
Couric was interviewed at our session by journalist Sacha Pfeiffer.
The two talked about the evolution of Couric’s career.
Her first husband Jay (who died of colon cancer at 42) described her as “hardwired for happiness.” When she interviewed politicians, people used to call her “the velvet hammer.”
She says being authentic and natural sets the right tone.
Couric said she is relaunching her podcast (called “Next Question”) in October. She wants to take big issues and try to understand them more. One of the topics will be the current hot-button issue of vaping (25% of teenagers who vape go on to smoke regular cigarettes).
One of her podcast guests includes fellow INBOUND speaker Jennifer Garner.
“I want to keep putting good stuff out in the world,” she told attendees.
Bridget and I split up for the 1:15 p.m. session. She attended the program titled “How to Generate Revenue With Content Marketing” and I went with Jason and Jolene to a presentation by Khan Academy CEO Sal Khan.
Khan is a pretty entertaining speaker. Most of the information he shared served as a general overview, including the origins of the Pre-K to college learning opportunities Khan Academy provides for learners online.
I just recently listened to this interview Khan Academy held with Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in 2013:
Once Khan’s presentation concluded, I zipped to meet Bridget at the presentation titled “3 Growth Marketing Principles for Creating Your Unicorn” with MobileMonkey CEO Larry Kim.
MobileMonkey is a Facebook Messenger marketing platform.
Kim spent quite a bit of time talking about his first “unicorn” product called WordStream (a platform he started in 2008 that was eventually bought by global news giant Gannett).
Kim was a whitty and self-effacing speaker. At one point in the presentation (as he was talking about the intricacies of building WordStream) Kim quipped he didn’t just want to talk about his greatest hits from a decade ago.
He says marketers are better off jumping on new marketing channels than tweaking existing ones.
Bridget and I split up again for the 3:45 p.m. session. She went to “Don’t Just Create Content…Create Experiences!” and I went to “The Future of Branded Content Is Podcasting” presentation by HubSpot’s Sam Balter.
Balter offered some interesting insights into the world of podcasting. He is the host of the “Weird Work” podcast (which focuses on “people who make a living in really, really weird ways”).
He had a slide showing a quote from a member of Google’s podcasting team that read, “Our team’s mission is to help double the amount of podcast listening in the world over the next couple of years.”
The average podcast listener is 18-34 years of age, 30% have an advanced or graduate degree, and weekly podcast users spend an average of 5+ hours listening.
As a result, there is a real opportunity for marketers to reach desirable demographics with their content.
Jason and I host a UNO Hockey centric podcast called the “Mavpuckcast” (featured on my fansite MavPuck.com). The session provided a lot of actionable content to chew on as we tweak the podcast for the future.
After the session, I had a little bit of time to snap some pictures before I met Jolene for the “Spotlight” session featuring singer/actress Janelle Monàe on the Main Stage.
At Club InBound they offered this cubicle (locked with a unique code) to charge your digital devices.
The floral artist (mentioned in my first blog post about INBOUND) was just about done with the day’s INBOUND sculpture:
Club InBound also featured this “Take a Message/Leave a Message” wall:
Bridget attended a session with Roberto Blake titled “YouTube Video Marketing: Content Strategy for Discovery and Conversion.” (I decided to attend an encore of his session on Friday after Bridget raved about it.) I did meet up with her afterward and we took this selfie with the YouTube influencer:
Jason attended the session titled “How to Craft a Winning Social Video Strategy.”
The “Spotlight” session with Monàe — “Leading With Authenticity” was informative and enlightening. The entertainer has a mellow demeanor and velvety smooth voice.
She talked about how she uses Slack to keep all her professional projects organized (offering some suggestions for feature changes she’d like to see in the app).
One of the more interesting anecdotes she mentioned was that a recent pescatarian diet (a plant-based diet with protein supplied by seafood) left her with high levels of mercury in her system (that she is being treated for).
After Monàe’s talk, I met up with Bridget at her session (which ran late) and we headed back to the hotel.
I know this is a running theme, but we were tired after the day’s programming.
By th way, Bridget and Jolene both won these INBOUND shirts via Twitter:
Jason and Jolene tried to get into a nearby Mexican restaurant (the wait times were too long) and Bridget and I were going to check out a place called Larry J’s BBQ Cafe (which closed at 7 p.m., just as we arrived).
I posed for a picture by this sign for Larry J’s, and a man perched nearby said, “If your name’s not Larry, don’t pose by the sign.”
When Bridget asked, “Are you Larry?” the man replied, “Not today I’m not.”
After that weirdness, Bridget and I made our way to Tony C’s Sports Bar & Grill — a restaurant along the waterfront featuring some nice pub grub.
Fun fact: Tony C’s is named in honor of Boston Red Sox legend Tony Conigliaro.
We had an appetizer of the Fresh Potato Chips (with Remy’s secret sauce). The chips were terrific.
I had the Bacon Cheddar Burger, which featured applewood bacon and aged Vermont cheddar cheese on a toasted sesame brioche.
Bridget had a side of the Mac & Cheese. (It was delicious, she said.)
We walked back to the hotel afterward. It was a really nice evening. The hearty meal and crisp air made me sleepy.
I nodded off watching “The LEGO Movie” in our room, and had my best night of sleep on the trip.
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