We are exhibiting at the Digital Marketing Show today and tomorrow (stand B66). I'm going to try and report here on some of the talks I've attended.

I've attended quite a few talks today at the show and, as can be imagined, they have fluctuated in quality. I'm not interested in naming and shaming the less successful ones. However, I do have a big turn off, and that's when a talk is a sales pitch.

Ok, so we know that most presenters have a product to flog, and that's fine, but we are attending these talks to learn about best practice, get new ideas and yes, maybe eventually, sign up to their product. If the only thing you're going to hear about is how great the product is, when you thought you were going to learn about a particular marketing technique, well you're probably going to switch off and check your tweets. I know I did, sorry!

How to solve it: make it about the pain points of your audience, explain how they can solve the problem. The goodwill you will earn from this will be fantastic, and make them much more receptive to you slipping in a mention of your product at the end.