This special episode of The CMO Show features a line-up of international guests, including co-founder and creative director at Velocity Partners, Doug Kessler; VP content solutions at St. Joseph Media, Jacqueline Loch; B2B content and inbound marketing creative at Lexmark, Jannay Oiknine; CEO and founder of Altura Interactive, Zeph Snapp; and marketing communications manager at Medical Mutual, Betsy O'Connell.

The largest in-person content marketing event of its kind, Content Marketing World is estimated to have made an almost $3.6 million impact on the local economy, as more than 3,500 attendees descended on Cleveland for the week.

And the take-home message? It appears that storytelling is front and centre when it comes to successful content marketing strategies. Speaker Michael Brenner told the audience that content marketers should approach marketing as if it's their job to tell stories that focus on the customer, not the brand. Quoting Ann Handley, Brenner reinforced the advice: "Take your brand out of the story—make your customers the hero."