How to Craft the Perfect Speaking Proposal for Litmus Live

Each year, Litmus Live brings together a community of designers, developers, and marketers who live, breathe, and love email. Litmus Live speaks to all aspects of the email creative process: Design, code, strategy, planning, workflow, and analytics, and more. It’s also an opportunity for the community to come together to share best practices, case studies, and hands-on advice for creating innovative, on-brand campaigns that engage and delight audiences.

That content comes from people like you—those who are excited to share your stories on the trials and tribulations of email. We want to learn how you’ve convinced your executive team to hire another email person, hear about how you streamlined an absurd 300-step email production process, and laugh and cry alongside you as you recall how you recovered from the worst #emailfail of all time. Sharing your experiences helps us all learn how to make email better.

Recap: The highlights from Litmus Live 2018

If you’ve never presented before…

Putting yourself out there can be hard, and it’s also incredibly rewarding. You don’t need to have pioneered a new coding technique or nailed a 100% conversion rate. You don’t even need prior speaking experience. Many of our best speakers were past attendees that were inspired to speak at a future event. All you need is passion and know-how.

One of our favorite parts of Litmus Live is coaching and mentoring the next generation of email marketing thought leaders. We’re always looking for fresh faces and new perspectives. We’ll help you craft an engaging presentation and answer all your burning questions about how to get past the stage fright and deliver an awesome presentation.

Plus, there are plenty of resources to help you get started:

• Get inspired with the topics we’d love to see at Litmus Live 2019.
• Bust common myths and false requirements about becoming a speaker at a conference.
• Check out advice from past Litmus Live speakers who shared their tips on the Litmus Community.
• Get more tips from experienced speakers on how to prepare and write a tech conference talk, what you need to know about speaking at conferences, and tips for public speaking.  

How to craft the perfect speaking proposal

Here’s some of our best advice for submitting a stage-worthy proposal:

Do:

• Have a goal. What’s the “one big thing” or major idea you want attendees to learn or know after hearing your talk? What problem will you help them solve?
• Know the audience. Litmus Live attendees are marketers, designers, developers, writers, strategists, and analysts—the people who make email happen at their organizations. They have their hands dirty in copy, code, and lists all day, every day. They want to learn how to do their jobs faster and more effectively, and need tips, tools, resources, and inspiration to help make email better for themselves and for their companies.
• Keep it actionable. The audience wants to leave your session with a to-do list of great ideas.
• Stick with what you know. The best proposals come from knowledge and passion. Your topic doesn’t need to be particularly crazy or innovative. “Boring” topics like how to streamline the email creative process are usually among attendees’ favorite sessions.
• Shoot a short 90-second video. It doesn’t need to be fancy, but we do want to see your personality (and passion!) shine through. Need some inspiration? Check out past video submissions from Sarah Esterman, Logan Baird, or Kristin Bond and Rebecca Lewis.
• Ask someone to review your proposal for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and clarity.
• Collect relevant materials as part of your proposal. Internal presentations, screenshots, and HTML samples are fair game.
• Include specifics: Examples, results (marketers like numbers!), and stories.
• Focus on advanced or technical advice. Attendees are a savvy bunch, and are eager to learn about complex concepts.

Don’t:

• Be afraid to include technical know-how and code samples if appropriate.
• Submit a sales pitch for your product or service. We’re looking to teach—not to sell.
• Skimp on the details. Prepare at least three detailed concepts or takeaways the audience will learn during your talk.

The best topics are those that address the everyday challenges of email creation—design, code, strategy, planning, workflow, and analytics. We’ve also had lots of requests from prior attendees for topics covering visual design, effective layout strategies, deliverability, accessibility, email automation, and ESP-specific challenges.

Have some advice? Weigh in on Community.

Last year’s agenda + sample sessions

Take a look at last year’s agendas or watch some of our top-rated sessions to get a better idea of what we’re looking for:

• View the 2018 Boston agenda
• View the 2018 London agenda
• View the 2018 San Francisco agenda

Fabio Carneiro: Fixing Enterprise Email with Design Systems

Leonie Jonker: Improving Engagement Through Feedback Mechanisms

Drew Price: Moving Beyond Campaigns & Creating a Flagship Email Product

What do speakers get?

If you’re chosen to speak at one (or more) of our conference locations, you’ll get:

• Thirty minutes onstage to share your insights and inspire the email community
• Plenty of support, reviews, and feedback from the team at Litmus to help polish your presentation
• Complimentary admission to the conference
• In many cases, we can offer some help covering your flight and hotel

Get budget and buy-in to attend Litmus Live Convince your boss and make your case to attend the best email marketing conference of the year with our customizable Justify Your Trip guide. Download the guide →

Sign up to receive Litmus Live email updates

Hear about speaker, ticket, and agenda updates when you sign up for Litmus Live emails.

Get on the list →

Jason Rodriguez

Jason Rodriguez was the Community & Product Evangelist at Litmus