The first panel of the day was a marketing strategy panel led by Dave Peck (Social Media Strategist for Meshin) and Kriselle Laram (Creative Strategist for Bullfrog Media) where the main message was that we can learn valuable marketing lessons from kids.  The most important thing that we can learn from kids is to keep it simple.  Adults tend to overanalyze things, whereas children see the world through much less complication.   When you focus too much on analytics, marketing strategies, SEO, optimizing social media tools, etc. it’s easy to lose track of your main connection to your target customer.

Dave Peck and Kriselle Laran suggest that as marketers we should find our connection to our customers (preferably an emotional connection since these are the strongest) and market towards people that truly need or want your product/service, because trying to force other demographics to use your product will probably not work.  They claim that kids are especially successful marketers because they don’t use manipulation or ulterior motives to get their way.  With adults, we recognize these ulterior motives right away and reject marketing that we feel is manipulative.

The major takeaways from this panel:  1) Learn from how children naturally (and successfully) market, 2) Don’t build your marketing strategy to increase your finances, build it to meet the needs and wants of your customers, and 3) Since it’s not ‘just business’ for the customer, don’t let it be ‘just business’ for you.

Here is an interview I did with Dave Peck after the discussion, where he explains his inspiration for the panel, why children are such good natural marketers, and the most important thing is that we can learn from them.  Follow Dave Peck on Twitter here.