I spend most of my days sitting in front of a screen, buried in a Google Doc. (You probably do too.)
And even though I enjoy deep work, a few times a year I feel the need to leave the desk and socialize with other human beings, ideally at my employer’s expense 😉
Conferences are a great excuse to meet other marketers, talk business, learn new tricks, and pretend we’re all very excited on generative artificial intelligence.
Without further ado, here are the biggest and best content marketing conferences happening in the rest of 2024.
At your place: May 5–7
Prices: from $795
Website: https://cex.events/
Position: Cleveland, Ohio
Speakers: BJ Novak, Anna Handley, Alexis Grant, Justin Welsh, Mike King
CEX is designed with content entrepreneurs in mind (“entrepreneurs”? Did I just coin a cool new word?): People who care as much about the business of content as they do about their craft.
In addition to content marketing veterans like Ann Handley and Joe Pulizi talking about modern content strategy, you’ll find people like Justin Welsh and Alexis Grant exploring the practicalities of quitting your job and becoming a full-time content creator.
Here’s a trailer from last year’s event:
Sessions include titles such as:
- Unlocking the Power of Book Publishing: From Content to Revenue
- Quitting a $200,000 corporate job to become a solo content entrepreneur
- Why you should prioritize long-form content
(And yes, Ryan da The office is holding the relationship.)
At your place: June 3-4
Position: Seattle, WA
Speakers: Wil Reynolds, Bernardo Huang, Britney Muller, Lily Ray
Prices: from $1,699
Website: https://moz.com/mozcon
The software company Moz is best known in the SEO industry, but its conference is popular among marketers of all kinds. Among the lineup of 25 speakers are many content marketers speaking, such as Andy Crestodina, Ross Simmonds and Chima Mmeje.
Check out this teaser from last year’s event:
This year’s speeches include topics such as:
- Trust and quality in the new era of content discovery
- The power of emotion: how to create content that (really) converts
- “E” for engaging: why the future of SEO content must be engaging
At your place: 18-20 September
Position: Boston, MA
Speakers: to be confirmed
Prices: from $1,199
Website: https://www.inbound.com/
Hosted by content marketing OG HubSpot, INBOUND offers hundreds of talks, insights, chats and meetups on topics ranging from brand strategy to artificial intelligence.
Here is the summary video:
I’ve attended my fair share of INBOUND over the years (and even had a beer with co-founder Dharmesh Shah) and always appreciate the wide selection of events on offer.
Keynote presentations are a highlight, and this year’s keynote speaker has a tough act to follow: Barack Obama closed the conference last year.
At your place: October 22–23
Position: San Diego, California
Speakers: to be confirmed
Prices: from $1,199
Website: https://www.contentmarketingworld.com/
Probably THE content marketing conference, Content Marketing World has been producing content talk and inspiration for a solid fourteen years.
Here’s last year’s recap:
The 2024 agenda is a work in progress, but last year’s conference explored every imaginable aspect of content marketing, from B2C brand building to the uniqueness of content for government organizations, with session titles like:
- Government Masterclass: A Content Marketing Strategy to Build Public Trust
- A Beloved Brand: Evolving Zillow’s Creative Content Strategy
- Evidence-Based SEO Strategies: Debunking “SEO Best Practices” and Other Marketing Myths
At your place: October 24-25
Position: Singapore
Speakers: Andy Chadwick, NikRangerCharlotte Ang, Marcus Ho, Victor KarpenkoAmanda King, James Norquay, SamOh, Patrick Stox, Tim Soulo (AND Myself!)
Prices: to be confirmed
Website: https://ahrefs.com/events/evolve2024-singapore
That’s right: Ahrefs is hosting a conference! Join 500 digital marketing experts for a 2-day meeting in Singapore.
We’ve got 20 top speakers from around the world, expert-led workshops on everything from technical SEO to content strategy, and tons of opportunities to engage with content pros, big brands, and the entire Ahrefs team.
I visited Singapore for the first time last year and this is it Truly it’s worth the trip: I recommend visiting the Supertree Grove, eating in the street markets of Chinatown and going to the beach in Sentosa.
If you need persuasion, here’s SEO pro JH Scherck on the Ahrefs podcast advocating conference travel:
And finally, here’s a quick overview of the conference venue:
At your place: October 27–30
Position: Portland, Oregon
Speakers: Relly Annett-Baker, Fawn Damitio, Scott Abel, Jennifer Lee
Prices: from $1,850
Website: https://lavacon.org/
LavaCon is a content conference with a very technical focus, with over 70 sessions dedicated to helping companies solve “business issues related to content, increased revenues and decreased production costs.”
In practice, that means speakers from NIKE, Google, Meta, Cisco, and Verizon, and topics like:
- Operationalizing generative AI,
- Taxonomies in the age of artificial intelligence: are they still relevant?AND
- Among many, one: building a semantic layer to break down silos
Here is the video summary of last year’s conference:
At your place: November 8
Position: London
Speakers: Nick Parker, Tasmin Lofthouse, Dan Nelken, Taja Myer
Prices: starting from £454.80
Website: https://www.copywritingconference.com/
CopyCon is a one-day conference in London, hosted by ProCopywriters (a membership community for copywriters – I was a member once, many years ago).
Aimed at copywriters, creatives and content strategists, the agenda focuses heavily on the qualitative aspects of content that are often overlooked: creative processes, tone of voice and creating emotional connections through copy.
It’s a few years old, but this teaser video shares the meaning of the topics offered:
This year’s conferences include sessions such as:
- The amazing magic of the tone of voice,
- The power of AI tools as a content designerand with a beautiful title
- Your inner critic is a Ding-Dong.
(Why YES, your inner critic is really a ding-dong.)
Final thoughts
These are all content-specific conferences, but there are tons of content-adjacent events that take place throughout the year. Honorable mentions go to DigiMarCon UK 2024 (August 29–30, London, UK), Web Summit (November 11–14, Lisbon, Portugal), and B2B Forum (November 12–14, Boston, MA).
I’ve focused this list exclusively on in-person events, but there are also online-only conferences available, like the ContentTECH Summit (May 15-16).
Are you going to a content conference I didn’t talk about? Share your recommendation with me on LinkedIn or X.