OX7 returns to downtown Chicago

Better together: How media brands can partner with experts to drive engagement & value in the post-traffic era

These days, everyone from the NYT to your next door neighbor has a mic. Some publishers saw the new influencers as a threat, but Adam Ryan saw opportunity: By supporting and elevating expert voices, he could create a new kind of media company — one that gave audiences truly differentiated content while driving sustainable revenue for both creator and company.

So he and Becca Sherman founded Workweek, a creator-first B2B media company giving industry experts the support they need to promote and monetize their content.

In this session, Adam Ryan tells us how to use expert-led content to amplify new voices, find new audiences and grow your media business. How can you elevate individual voices without sacrificing your company’s brand, credibility and equity? What are the risks and rewards  of tying your brand to a single voice? Ryan tackles all these questions and more during this can’t-miss keynote.

Fortune favors the bold: Lessons learned from BNP Media’s big bet on digital

In 2020, BNP Media announced it would close almost all of its 40 print brands and switch to digital — and that they’d do it in 90 days. For another company, that might’ve been the beginning of the end. But since then, BNP hasn’t just survived — they’ve successfully pivoted to a digital-first, audience-centric strategy.

So how did they do it? Nikki Smith tells us how BNP navigated this transition and provides practical takeaways for anyone navigating their own digital transformation, covering everything from auditing audience health, adapting their subscription and retention strategies for the digital space, and empowering their sales and content teams. Put your seat backs in their upright position and stow your tray tables — it’s going to be a wild ride.

Dream team: How Questex combined insights and data to build a lean, mean go-to-market machine

Batman and Robin, Beyonce and Jay Z, Barbie and Oppenheimer. The best duos don’t just succeed — they create something even better than the sum of its parts. And that’s certainly been the case for Questex.

In this “back of the house/front of house presentation,” discover how Questex’s business and data teams worked together to create an unstoppable go-to-market machine. By combining its deep market knowledge with its audience database and off-site intent data, Questex was able to enhance its marketing segments, drive more actionable leads and ultimately, grow revenue. In this session, discover how to foster cross-functional collaboration, create a multi-dimensional go-to-market strategy and reach your revenue potential.

Two feet on the gas: How Craig Fuller has grown Firecrown Media into a high-flying media business  

Craig Fuller, founder and CEO of FreightWaves Media, has been busy lately: Since forming lifestyle brand Firecrown Media in 2021, the company has acquired FLYING Magazine in 2021, 25+ other aviation-related brands, and all of Bonnier’s marine-related assets. And recently it’s announced the formation of a new SaaS division called SONAR.

In this session, learn how Fuller grew FreightWaves and Firecrown Media, how he’s navigating a rapid growth phrase, and how he’s using his media assets to broaden the influence of his brands. Fasten your seatbelts and get ready to ride, because Firecrown is coming in hot.

Building the audience team of the future

As VP of Audience Development at Endeavor Business Media, Amanda Landsaw has scaled from a team of one to 20+, all while helping Endeavor become one of America’s biggest B2B media brands. Now she’s telling us how she did it.

Dive deep into the dynamics of team structure, the art of finding and nurturing the right talent, and the science of evolving your team to meet the demands of different budgets and rapid expansion. Discover the roadmap to crafting a compelling audience experience, ensuring privacy and compliance, and breaking down silos across departments.

Whether you’re scaling up or starting out, this presentation will give you the insights and tactics you need to lead your audience team into a successful future.

Give them something to remember: experiential marketing for media companies 

Media companies are relying on events and experiences to replace lost print revenue. But getting an event off the ground is hard enough. Making money from it? Even harder.

Enter Jeff Stelmach and Kerry Smith, who have each led experiential marketing for some of the world’s largest and most successful brands. Tomorrow at OX7, they’ll show us how today’s Fortune 500 brands engage, grow and monetize their audiences — and what media companies can learn from them.

Jacob from A Media Operator (AMO) will record a live podcast at OX7.