As I sit here in the Las Vegas airport still buzzing off of all the fantastic energy of the 2015 Oracle/Eloqua Modern Marketing Experience show, there is one quote that has managed to stay with me for the entire conference. During the initial kick off and keynote addresses, Jay Baer spoke directly to marketers when he said: “stop trying to be amazing and start being useful.” It was as if a brightly colored slot machine had gone off in my brain. As content marketers, we so often try in vain to produce the most dynamic content and oftentimes, unintentionally, we sacrifice something in the process: our audience. If our content doesn’t resonate with our buyers or consumers, then we’ve missed the mark entirely. This year’s show posed some pretty big challenges for this content marketer which will become key development areas for this 2015. For those of you content marketing superstars who couldn’t be in Vegas with us, I’ve shared some key takeaways to keep you thinking, growing, and engaging more consumers.

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1. The power of ‘you’ messaging begins with Neil Patrick Harris: This can be a weird one, but stay with me. If you’ve ever read his autobiography “Choose Your Own Autobiography” you will have noticed something remarkable – it is all ‘you’ messaging targeted towards different audiences! He almost never mentions ‘me.’ We could all take a page of out his book (see what I did there?) and become our very own ‘you’ messaging masters. These insights are courtesy of the great Peter Ostrow and his great #CX2015 session.

2. The name of the game is DATA (and providing it to customers where and how they want it): There’s no question that marketers and consumers alike are swimming in more data than they know what do with (stats show nearly 90% of data is unusable). The magic happens when customers get their hands on relevant data in the medium they like and when they like to consumer content. Sounds simple enough but it’s incredible how prevalent this theme was among both attendees and vendors.

 3. Marketing should serve as the glue that binds customers and brands:  As content curators, marketers need to leverage their position as the bridge that connects customers and brands through compelling messages and emotional drivers.

4. The cost of losing a customer is higher than ever: This means great customer service is more important than ever. Shockingly, 89% of consumers have switched to a competitor after poor experience. This means companies need to get more and more creative with how they achieve customer satisfaction success (5 Reasons Why You Need a Social Customer Care Program) or they risk losing out to competitors.

5. Don’t let conversion or metric quotas stunt your creativity: As GM of the Oracle Marketing Cloud Kevin Akeroyd professed, “Moments of truth will become moments of triumph.” Stressors and bottom lines aren’t going anywhere, but the creativity with which we face them is always a marketer’s best tool.