How we choose our speakers for brightonSEO

How do we choose our speakers?

The key things we look for when selecting speakers for brightonSEO, MeasureFest and Hero Conf.

We’re often asked how we choose our speakers for brightonSEO, Hero Conf and MeasureFest. And in all honesty, there isn’t a magic formula.

Instead, we manually review every pitch we receive, carefully considering whether the idea feels energetic, useful, inclusive and, most importantly, rooted in the real work of digital marketers.

Our goal isn’t to fill time slots or chase the most famous names. It’s to build an agenda that helps marketers do their jobs a little better.

And while there’s no algorithm or exact science that can fully capture our process, here are some of the key things we look for when reviewing pitches and selecting speakers:

Key things we look for when reviewing pitches:

The Idea

Whilst some conferences often begin with “Who do we want on stage?” and then build around their availability or reputation, we start with the ideas behind the pitches. What are people in SEO, PPC, analytics and digital marketing actually wrestling with right now? What would be genuinely useful to our audience? What feels fresh and would offer the audience something new to think about? What would make someone grab their notepad and think: “I need to try that when I get back in the office”?

That means we’ll often choose:

A great pitch from a relatively unknown speaker tackling an emerging industry challenge over a generic idea from a well-known speaker
A sharp, specific pitch offering a fresh perspective over one from someone with an impressive job title
A fully formed talk on a topic our audience genuinely wants to learn about over a loose theme that would need to be fleshed out later

Clarity

Our 20 minute format is short by design. It encourages speakers to focus on one topic, cut the fluff and give the audience something they can genuinely remember and use.

When reviewing pitches, we’d much rather see a specific idea explored in depth than a broad topic that tries to cover everything.

For example, rather than 'B2B Organic and Paid Media Strategy', we want to see a more narrow focus, such as ‘Unlocking B2B Pipeline Growth Through PPC and SEO Keyword Collaboration’.

Whilst a more specific talk might appeal to a smaller audience, our experience tells us the trade-off is worth it. It’s the detailed, thorough sessions that are often the most memorable, where the audience are given everything they need to understand the topic and take action.

Insightful and Actionable

The best talks are the ones where the audience has learnt something new, and also come away with actionable steps, changes or strategies to implement.That doesn’t mean we don’t include big-picture thinking talks in our agenda, but when selecting speakers we are actively looking for talk which would help people to put words into action.

We favour:

Step-by-step how-to sessions, frameworks and detailed strategies over broad topics such as “Advanced SEO Tips”
Talks backed by data, evidence and case studies that clearly show what was done and how it worked, over talks that are vague or lack transparency about the process.
Practical tools and tactics that our audience can realistically apply over ideas that don’t connect with the day-to-day realities of their work.

Our attendees come because they want to learn something they can actually use in their day to day work, and we strive to ensure that our agenda helps them to do so.

Community and Diversity

We believe the best conferences reflect the diversity of those working in the industry, with speakers from a range of backgrounds and experiences.

Because of this we actively welcome first-time speakers, people from smaller companies, and those outside the traditional agency/client mould.

It’s really important to us that people in the audience can look at a speaker on stage and think: “One day, that could be me.”That means that:

Our pitch form is always open to everyone
We invest in speaker training and have a team on hand to help support all speakers to have the best experience possible
We work closely with communities and groups to encourage pitches from underrepresented groups

The search marketing industry is a diverse community, and we want to make sure our agenda reflects that.

A note on sponsored talks

Some of our speaking slots are sponsored. That support helps make the whole event possible but it doesn’t lower the bar for quality or independence.

Sponsored talks should be every bit as useful and insightful as our editorial talks.

To manage this, all sponsored talks are subject to our pre-event deck review process and clear deck guidelines. Just like editorial speakers, sponsored speakers are asked to pitch their talk and title to us in advance, so we can ensure the session is a strong fit for the agenda and meets our quality standards.

Your Next Steps

If you want to pitch to speak at one of our events, then we want to hear from you!

We usually start shaping the line-up around six months before each conference and start to confirm speakers about five months ahead of the event.

Please note: We only contact speakers whose talks we’re able to offer a place on the programme. We invite speakers in waves, rather than filling the agenda all at once, so we can keep some flexibility for slots that may become available closer to the event.

For more information on how we select our speakers, here's what our founder, Kelvin Newman, has to say: