Event marketing has never been easy, but today’s event landscape is a whole new world that is still being charted. Companies of every size, industry, model, and location are revisiting their go-to-market plans and budgets, and are rethinking their approach to events.
Sudden virtual shifts have opened new opportunities for broader engagement and have reshaped the attendee experience. Live events are re-emerging, shaped differently than before, and often requiring a more complex mix of blended in-person and virtual experiences. Safety, access, and value are converging to reshape requirements and expectations.
With the event landscape still in a very fluid state, how can your business move confidently forward to take advantage of new opportunities, while being good stewards of your resources and relationships? Join our panel of event experts to glean insights on the latest developments in the event marketing space.
Key Takeaways
- The shift from in-person to virtual and hybrid events has created new opportunities but also challenges, requiring businesses to rethink their event strategies.
- Virtual events provide enhanced opportunities for data collection and engagement tracking, helping businesses understand attendee behavior and improve event ROI.
- Hybrid events are becoming the future of event marketing, though they demand higher budgets and increased planning efforts to cater to both virtual and in-person audiences.
- Building relationships and offering interactive experiences are crucial. Events should go beyond pitching products to fostering connections and delivering value.
- Leveraging innovative platforms like Streamyard, VMix, and Mural can enhance virtual and hybrid events, creating engaging and memorable experiences.
- Event planning now requires agility to adapt to changing regulations and audience preferences, with contingency plans like Plan B, C, and D being essential.
- Immediate follow-up within 24 hours, including sharing event recordings and repurposing content, is key to maintaining momentum and achieving event objectives.
Full Transcription
Introduction and Event Landscape
Jennifer Zick: All right, we are recording. We’re going to go ahead and jump in and get started, and I’m sure there will be others joining as we roll along. But welcome to the growth marketing webinar on the topic of what in the world is going on with events. I’m your host, Jennifer Zick. I am the CEO and founder of Authentic® and we’re delighted to have you with us today.
I’m so excited to introduce to you our panel of thought leaders on event marketing and all topics connected to it. But before we make those introductions and dig deep in this conversation, I want to just offer a little bit of housekeeping and let you know what to expect today. So first of all, a little bit about Authentic® and what brings us all together.
Authentic brand is a community of fractional cmos. We help businesses Overcome Random Acts of Marketing® so they can confidently take the next right step to build revenue. And we work with entrepreneurial businesses who are growing, and our work with them really helps them to direct their resources confidently to achieve next level growth. So I’m delighted today to have one of our Fractional CMOs with us, as well as two of our Ally Network provider partners who help our clients successfully execute their marketing strategies. And you’ll get to meet them momentarily.
So this growth marketing webinar series is really designed for revenue leaders of small and growing businesses. Most of our clients are somewhere between five and 100 million in revenue. And so that’s the audience that we’re really speaking to in regards to today’s topic and thinking about how this theme and topic where the rubber hits the road for those size businesses.
But I also want to recognize that we’re joined on this webinar today by marketers, sales leaders and executive leaders, all with different roles as it relates to making decisions strategically and in terms of resourcing and executing marketing programs. So we’re so grateful to have a mixed audience here today, and I hope you’ll all come away with some nugget of insider wisdom that helps you confidently move your strategies forward.
So without any further ado, we’re going to kick things off. My colleague Monica is running the back end of our program in Zoom today, and we’re going to be using the Q and a feature of this webinar, which you’ll find in the bottom of your little Zoom navigation. If you have a question while we move through the conversation, please post it through the Q and A and not the chat, because the Q and A will allow all the other attendees to see your question and vote it up if they want to know answer to it, and then we’ll be able to facilitate a really great Q and A toward the end of this presentation. So drop your questions and we’ll be excited to engage you with those. At the very end of the presentation, we’ll have a very short little poll to ask for your real time feedback. It’s important to us to know what you value and how we can best serve you through this webinar series. So thank you in advance for that feedback. And this presentation is being recorded.
So while we invite you to take copious notes, please know that you can always grab the recording via the recap email you’ll receive after the event, and you can share it with your colleagues or review it for yourself. Finally, our next webinar is scheduled already for June 10. Same time and day, June 10 we’re going to be covering with a panel of agencies on how to build strong and productive agency relationships. So I know a lot of small businesses struggle with understanding the value their agency partners are bringing to their business. Sometimes it might be a challenge with the agency, but often it’s a challenge with the relationship structure in the business. So we’re gonna get some great insights on how agencies and their business partners can be really effective. All right, now to the fun stuff.
I’m so delighted to introduce you to my marketing colleagues here today, all of whom bring a truly unique perspective to this conversation on event marketing. And I want them each to introduce themselves individually. But I’ll start with a quick overview. Barb Bertsch is a member of the fractional CMO community here at Authentic and has been for the past couple of years. She’s just a power contributor on our team, working with clients of all different business types and sizes. And so she’s bringing the perspective today as a senior marketing leader who has worked in small and mid sized and large enterprise global businesses, helping teams build effective brands and integrating events. She’s going to have that marketing leadership perspective today.
Jen Gilhoi is our ally partner around event promotion, social media, communication and engagement strategy. She really helps our clients elevate the investment they make in events by making sure it’s not just the moment of the event, but what goes into the communication and engagement strategy before, during and after to take full advantage of that investment.
And finally, Wendy Porter is our Ally partner around event strategy, construction and logistics, and she has literally done it all. We’re just delighted to have recently brought her into our ally community because she’s been keeping close tabs on the evolution of events and what that logistically has looked like over the past year and the evolution that’s happening in this space. So you’re gonna learn a lot here today. I’m gonna learn a lot here today.
And as your moderator and as a sales and marketing leader myself, who has orchestrated and still is building events of various formats, I’m hoping that I can also add just a little couple sense of wisdom and insight to the conversation. So ladies, let’s get started. Barb, I’m going to ask you to say hello and introduce yourself and we’ll move around the room.
Barb Bertsch: Hey everybody. So like Jen said, I am a fractional CMO with Authentic. I’ve been there a little over three years now. So I’m representing the panel as a marketer where my experience with events is always been navigating budgets, organizing all the things, the attendance that are participating at a show on behalf of both sales and marketing registration, the lead capture, the strategy around the lead capture, and kind of teaching those sales reps on what that looks like and how to make that happen, what is most effective booth design, et cetera.
And if we’re lucky enough, we get to work with people like Wendy and Jen to help us navigate all those things. But oftentimes we’re doing that all on our own. So I think that we’re all going to learn something here today and I’m really excited to be a part of it.
Jennifer Zick: Thank you Barb. We’re so glad to have you here. Jen, I’m going to move next to you in our virtual room.
Jen Gilhoi: Great. Hi everyone, I’m Jen Gilhoi. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you to Authentic for hosting. I am the founder of Spark Track and I’m also an authentic brand ally partner. I’m an empath storyteller who observes and captures experiences for brands so they don’t miss the opportunity to deepen relationships from a decade of really hosting membership events for organizations. And as a lifelong learner of events myself, I noticed one thing was lacking and that was event follow up, which Jen touched on. So I really, you know, focus on helping create that momentum for event hosts to really keep moving all of those things forward that they shared in the event. And I launched Spark Track in 2012 to spark conversations, track results and then began to offer a signature service which is my written event recaps.
And since then I really expanded to include event communication, social media strategies, written and video recaps all on site and really focused on event ROI. So I am excited to be here with you all today. And I’ll turn it over to Wendy, I guess, next.
Wendy Porter: Thanks, Jen. Hi, yes, Wendy Porter here. Thanks for having me and thank you to Authentic for hosting us today. I come from a big corporation, so my background is actually in marketing. And I was in many of your shoes back in the day when I had an event lobbed at me one day and said, here, you do it. So about 20 years ago, that happened to me and really kind of, you know, learned how to execute on events. I’ve done, as Jennifer Zick said, you name it, I’ve pretty much done it. So I’m here today to just, you know, share my wisdom as it relates to events and what’s happening today. And happy to be here.
Jennifer Zick: Thanks so much, Wendy. And panelists, I know that our attendees will be eager to connect with either all of you or one of you based on some of what you share here today. So for those of you attending, I would invite you to reach back out to authentic brand. We would be happy to connect you to our panelists if you’ve got a question for them, based on their experience, I know they would be also happy to connect with you. So we open that invitation to you. So let’s set the stage for this really juicy conversation. And I’ll just start by saying we don’t have enough time to cover all of it, but we promised to cover some key points, so we’re going to drive to that today and it’s my job to keep us on track. So I promise you we will get there.
But just to lay the landscape, we work with small, growing businesses. And for most of those businesses, in a normal, non Covid year, the event line item in their marketing budget is the most invested category in their business. Many small businesses rely heavily on events, whether they host them or they pay to sponsor or to exhibit at others, industry events and conferences. Events are a huge driver of pipeline and new opportunities and relationships for growing businesses. And so most of our clients have been completely upended this past year and sitting in a little bit of a wait and see mode, what’s going to happen to the event landscape? Where can we confidently invest money and know that we can drive engagement that’s meaningful for our stakeholders? What do we do next? What in the world is happening with events?
Event Marketing Insights
Jennifer Zick: So, Jen, I’m going to start this first question. I’ll start with you, but Barb and Wendy invite you to chime in here. It’s literally a whole new world when it comes to event marketing. You’ve been close to the action from the start, as have all of these panelists. So I’d love to hear your thoughts on some of the central strategies that you’re seeing to be emerging in the world now that we’ve been forced initially to shift to exclusively virtual experience. That landscape is changing to hybrid and the reemergence of in person. I just got back from my first in person conference last week, so I can share some of that insight. But what are we learning? What are some of the ahas coming out of this past crazy year?
Jen Gilhoi: Yeah, well, first of all, whoever titled this event did so perfectly. There’s so much to cover. And when I think about the initial shock of just kind of looking at the event industry and being in live events and covering them, that moment of panic and then immediately diving into these global and national communities who are coming together to really figure out what events look like. So Wendy, I know you’ve been involved in the live events coalition. I’ve been involved in an exhibition, a global think tank. So staying plugged in, we really have some perspective on that. So I will share with you all three kinds of categories of insights. I boiled it down. So there’s marketing insights, there’s marketing of events, and then there’s engagement of events.
So in those three categories, I would say a couple of the ahas and marketing insights is related to data and insight. So as a live event person, I was always looking to cover follow up and what virtual has shared with us is this richness of measurement and engagement that we can then really learn from and take forward. So I think we’re going to continue to see more of that. We’re going to talk a ton about hybrid events and why we think that’s the way of the future. So that data and actually processing that and using that to fuel what your next engagement with your audience is. Events are a continuum of marketing and sales efforts. So this is what I have preached on forever.
And I talk about the event engagement bell curve, where in the past it really was this spike of energy at 80% of your dollars investment going into the event itself. And very little thought was given to the pre and post. Now, because of COVID the curve is flattening. We’re thinking about how to engage before and after, which I think as a marketer, I love to see, and I think working with Barb and people in those internal marketing roles, it’s just going to be more rich for data and delivering on that event. So the second category, marketing of events, I would say what I have seen is we need to deliver more value. It used to be that you would start promoting your event way out in front of it.
And I actually was noticing myself getting a little fatigued getting all these promotional things like register sign up. Now. By the time the event came around, I was kind of like, not interested. So what I see happening is, you know, a shorter lead time, especially the more spontaneity that virtual has provided, and then being able to really capitalize and have energy to do what we should be doing after the event. The third category is engagement. So really that, Jen, what you talked about in the beginning, increased diversity, equity, inclusion, the access to events. We are seeing events triple, quadruple the amount of attendees just because we are making that available virtual. And companies do not want to lose those audiences that they worked hard to create and build over the course of COVID so I think we’ll see that continue forward.
I also want to just mention one other huge piece that’s coming out of this is looking at where you build your community. And I feel like it was a little bit Facebook, Instagram, all these other communities that we would post event things on. Now what we’re seeing is, let’s continue. Let’s start the community before the event, during, and then move that into slack clubhouse LinkedIn groups, all these other more intimately, intentionally connected groups after. So I am very interested to see what’s happening in those virtual platforms. And there’s so much more, but I think that kind of gets us kind of the ball rolling for the conversation.
Jennifer Zick: That was a great overview of some major categorical impacts. Thank you, Jen. And it was actually a perfect bridge to the question. I’m going to tee up next for Wendy, because you started to talk about in the engagement, which is where decision making should start, relationship, how technology is playing a role in driving more intimate communities of connection. So, Wendy, I want to start with you on this next question, because even before the pandemic, in recent years, in my marketing leadership journey, before I started Authentic, there was the emergence of the event app. Right? Less printed collateral, less wasted paper, more engagement with interactivity and connection with people.
And so the event technology landscape was already starting to grow. What have you seen start to happen as everybody is shifting to virtual? And now as we’re looking at hybrid event strategies in the realm of technology.
Wendy Porter: Yeah, well, so at the start of the pandemic, it was a little crazy because we were all being bombarded by, look at this platform, look at that platform. Which platform should we use? You know, what do we do? And so there was a lot of analysis that was happening by event professionals to try to figure out what was the right platform. And today there are actually 340 different virtual platforms out there. And to be honest with you, a lot of them are very similar. I haven’t really seen one that I thought was like, just amazingly leaps and bounds above or different from something else. Right. So there really is no perfect platform right now. There’s really two different kinds, right? There’s broadcast technology, which is more like a tv show.
So when you’re engaging with that, you’re thinking about really producing content that’s like a tv show. And then there’s more like the Zoom platform, where we can see all the Brady Bunch boxes and you can collaborate together right within a platform. And again, there was no one platform that did both of those things. So what I ended up seeing was really more production companies that were cobbling it together. So they wanted that broadcast experience, they wanted the quality of the experience, they wanted the branding of a broadcast experience, but they wanted the engagement to be more like a Zoom platform. And so what technologists have been able to do is actually kind of marry those two. And you put it onto a platform so that, you know, the end user really isn’t aware that you’re actually integrating in a couple of different technologies.
And so, you know, you have one broadcasting out, and then you’re clicking through on an agenda, and you’re also all of a sudden out in a breakout room, and you don’t even know that you just switched platforms. So that is something that is happening right now. So it’s kind of a wizardry, right, that’s happening behind the scenes. When you have a professional tech team, it’s really still evolving. I think things are getting better. You know, Zoom, for example, is adding elements now that they’ve seen are important. So, like lower thirds. So in a broadcast, when you see someone’s name pop up on the bottom, Zoom is now starting to add those types of elements that you can only get, or historically could only get in a broadcast situation.
And there’s a couple of things you want to think about as you’re thinking about your platforms. You want to think about Internet speeds and what’s happening between the two ends, between your production side and your end user. And then you also want to think about your quality of equipment. Oftentimes, it doesn’t really matter what platform you’re on. It’s about the camera quality, it’s about the microphone quality, it’s about the lighting. So you can. I was just on a call yesterday that was actually on a platform called Streamyard, and we had two different people on the call. One person was on their computer camera and the other person was using a high end HD camera. And the look of the screen was 100% different. So it wasn’t about the platform, it was about the quality of the camera that they were using.
So those are some things to think about. Trade show tech. When you’re talking about trade shows that have been very hit or missed in the last year. There’s some amazing 3d platforms out there that kind of create that 3d exhibit hall experience virtually, but we have found that, a, those are extremely expensive and b, they frankly just don’t work that well. You know, really, when you’re creating a 3d booth, you’re just creating a website, right? You’re just creating a landing page. And so it’s got to be more about the sponsorship elements and the engagement that the sponsorships are bringing and other ways you can engage with the end user than it is about creating that booth, which really isn’t that effective right now and doesn’t really differentiate companies very well.
Talking about some of the coolest platforms that I’ve seen or technologies that I’ve seen. So I mentioned Streamyard. This is a relatively new company started in 2018 by a couple of guys that were actually in the gaming industry, and they created this easy to use platform that is a broadcast technology that everyday users can use and not pay the big bucks that you would get through a large AV agency. It’s mainstream now. It ties into common platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, where you’re actually broadcasting through those platforms on streamyard. Another really interesting one is something called VMix, which is where you can actually create an environment.
So, for example, if you want to create the Tonight show, you can do that on a green screen and create that tonight show look and then create your content to feel like you’re having that tonight show experience. That one’s pretty cool. Another really interesting one that I’ve recently learned about is something called Twine, which they call themselves the serendipitous networking for virtual and hybrid events. It’s a networking platform that’s really innovative and pretty cool. Another one is called Mural, which is an online collaboration tool where you can create post-it notes. So if you’re trying to crowdsource content and you want people to give their input and put it on post-it notes, you could do that virtually and then reorganize it if you want to group things together.
I could go on for a whole day about all the different platforms that are out there, but there’s a lot of really interesting, innovative things happening in the industry right now.
Jennifer Zick: That is fascinating stuff, and I’m learning so much. I’m taking notes along with my little host script here. It’s just amazing to see how a good crisis can drive innovation and make us aware of new solutions that we didn’t need otherwise. And full confession. Prior to Covid, I had thought for a couple of years Authentic should host a webinar. I just never got around to doing it until there was no other way to engage people and bring communities together. And we’ve launched a few virtual event series and thoughts this past year and have learned so much even as a small business ourselves. So thank you for that overview and you’ve piqued my interest, and I’m going to check on some of the sites after this call, but I’m going to switch gears over to Barb.
Barb, you are the master of human relationships and experiences. You always have culture and engagement in the center of your soul. As a marketer, I want to come to you with this question. This year has radically reshaped the human experience, right? And I think a lot of us, I’m an extreme extrovert, and even I look back now and question the logic of all the time that I spent in my car, driving to and from meetings, traveling by, you know, airplanes to conferences, and being away from my family. Like, I think most of us in some way are starting to ask, how do we take the things that changed for the better in this past year and integrate that into a different way of interacting and living?
And so I wonder, have we established permanently different norms about the value of events and the value of live versus attending virtually? And if so, what do event marketers need to keep in mind in terms of driving engagement and value for attendees?
Barb Bertsch: Yeah. So when I first read this question and had kind of put my thoughts together and I was thinking about it, I’m not sure about permanent norms. I mean, that was like a week ago, and already some things have come out that have made me think through that question a little bit more. And I think, you know, you talk about diversity and inclusion and the thought about this hybrid approach, much like the return to work that we’re seeing many companies move towards. I think that maybe we are onto some new permanent normal. But, and certainly in the near term for sure, I think that as things start to reopen and people start to reengage in person with others, they’re going to remember the value of those in person connections. So maybe over time that switches back, but I’m not so sure.
Not everybody finds value in that. As far as, you know, the introvert versus extrovert kind of an individual. I see both sides. I’m an ie, so I get it. I stopped in a couple weeks ago at a pretty well respected exhibit design company here in the Twin Cities because one of my clients had rebranded, and we’re looking at new trade show booth and exhibits. And I told the contact there that I wanted to get ahead of things before things started to reopen, and they got really busy. And he’s like, oh, we’re already seeing it. So I think there’s a little bit of both. So note to all you marketers out there, if you need to redesign your booths, get on it. I think that there’s multiple reasons people don’t attend in person, whether it’s financial or personal or professional.
And the online offerings that are going to. That is coming and that is there and they’ve never had before is going to be something that is a game changer. And on the side of the company that’s hosting or the group that’s hosting, it’s maybe an additional income stream that they hadn’t had before either. So I think we’re going to see that here to stay for a while. Just in talking to another one of my clients about some of these online events that they’ve attended, some of the feedback was really that it was a waste of time. It was good for the people attending, but not so great for the exhibitors. They weren’t able to interact. They could see people coming into their booth, but they weren’t able to connect with them unless the person coming to the booth chose to.
And we know, we all know how that goes. It’s like an act of God in person to try to get somebody to come in and listen to your speech, right? So I think, you know, I know the sales teams are jonesing to get back on the roads and meet people in person for that reason. So.
Wendy Porter: I want to add to that. So from an experiential standpoint, I think there are different ways that we can be looking at events. So I think, you know, think when you’re in person, you think about the five senses, right? And you can still do that with virtual events. So think about the music that you have when people are joining. What do you have on screen? What do you have during breaks? Think about sending them a gift box ahead of time, right? So they can get a treat and have something to taste. They can maybe put a candle in it or essential oils. I’ve got a great company that’s doing scents for events and they will customize it to the client.
You know, think about, as I mentioned before, the microphone and making sure the quality of the sound is really good, right? Just trying to integrate in those, all the $0.05 like you could do in a live experience. Try to replicate that. Even though it’s virtual, there’s still ways to do it. And that leads to memories, right? And mind stamping and people remembering the event that you put on. So I just wanted to throw that out.
Barb Bertsch: So many great ideas. And I’m so glad this is being recorded because trying to be a panelist and take notes, I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m learning so much.
Jen Gilhoi: I’ll add just one more note to that. Just thinking about how people are coming out from behind their screens and how some new experiences. And I’ll mention Clubhouse is that community sourced podcast. It’s a way to come together. And I think instead of sitting in a seat and listening to a keynote speaker, people have a bigger appetite for engagement and interaction. So thinking about how you can create that and what this whole year has meant as we come out of that, and thinking about how, especially for sponsors, how that works differently from the trade show model. So that’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot in the communications piece of it.
Jennifer Zick: Well, because any of us who’ve ever built an event know that events don’t float without sponsors. Right. Sponsors are the lifeblood that make it possible to put an event together in the first place and then hope that you might get some revenue or offset additional costs through tickets and registrations if it’s a paid event. And so that really is a great segue into this next question, because, Barb, you mentioned that businesses and organizations are uncovering through a virtual audience, potentially new revenue streams through ticketed events. But on the other side of that same coin is the fact that you spoke, Wendy, about all of the additional strategic thinking and planning and coordination that needs to go into delivering a parallel secondary event experience for your virtual crowd.
Hybrid Events and Technology
Jennifer Zick: So if you’re doing a virtual event, I think there might be a myth that we need to dispel today that somehow you’re going to save time and money by moving your event virtual or doing a hybrid. Can you speak to that and talk about what it means to run event logistics in a new hybrid world?
Wendy Porter: Sure. So. Well, first of all, I want to talk about the value of events. And we’ve got some research that we’ve seen that talks about the different marketing channels. And the number two most effective channel for your marketing dollars from an ROI standpoint is events. Number one is the web. And we also have research that shows that typically in a B two B scenario, 25% of a marketing budget is allocated to events. So I want to encourage everyone on the line here to not cut events. Stay curious and try to keep an innovative mindset, because there are ways to accomplish successful events. You just have to approach it a little bit differently. And you want to make sure that you have strategists involved with you to help you really think that through and look at your goals from a dollars and cents perspective.
Virtual events are not cheap. To do it well and to get the engagement that you want, it is not cheap. So really, whatever you invest in a live event, you probably should be planning that you’re doing at least equal that budget in a virtual. So you redeploy dollars. Right? So in a live scenario, you might have, you know, had food and beverage that you were spending money on. In this case, I would redeploy that money into technology because you want to make sure that you have the right kind of engagement and the right platforms and all of that, and then also into your gifting. So, you know, sending those boxes ahead of time for engagement, that does a couple of things.
It not only brings in all the senses that I talked about and makes it a more compelling memory, but it also creates a little bit of guilt, if you will. When you send somebody a box that they look at and go, wow, they put some money into this, I better attend that event. Right? So it actually helps get people to show up. So just kind of be really strategic and thoughtful about that. I want to encourage people not to cut their events. I know that’s kind of sort of a knee jerk reaction. A lot of CFO’s are like, well, you know, virtual doesn’t work, so just cut the money. Well, you know, good marketers always have money set aside for testing. Right.
And so I would encourage you to really get the right partners, help you think through your goals, and then try some things and see what happens. And I think you may be pleasantly surprised about what you can actually accomplish in a virtual setting.
Jennifer Zick: That is great input. And I think there are so many interesting, evolving case studies happening in real time right now that of course we want to stay on top of and watch, like some examples, I’ve seen some hybrid events that charge a certain ticket fee for the live experience and less for the virtual attendees. I just came back from a conference that had the exact same ticket price on live as virtual, and my thought process around that is, well, that makes sense in terms of protecting the budget and the investment on the event host side. But are they delivering a quality experience that justifies the equal investment by those not attending in person? Do you have a perspective on that?
Wendy Porter: I do. So you really want to make sure that you’re not just live streaming the live event, right. That’s not a good experience for somebody on the computer. You want to plan it as two separate, parallel paths. So you have the live experience of what’s happening in the room. You have a virtual experience that’s happening online, and you manage them very differently. You may have a host that’s sort of the. The intermediary between the virtual audience and the live audience. Right. You know, think about what would be a good example. I don’t know, when you’re at, you know, you’re at the Oscars or something, and you cut away to the host, you’ve got somebody that’s still entertaining the people online while they’re redoing whatever they’re doing in the room on the stage, right.
So you make sure there’s not downtime, and then you also want that engagement between the two audiences. So I would do that in the form of, you know, mobile apps and surveys and polls where everybody is participating in that, whether you’re in the room or nothing. And then, you know, maybe you’re doing a live remote and you’re bringing somebody in that is virtual, bringing them into that live setting, or you’re setting up little networking pods. So when you go to break, you’re going off into a little corner of an area of the hotel, and you’re sitting down and you’re bringing up that person you want to network with that’s on the computer and you’re at the hotel and you’re having that one on one conversation.
So there are ways to kind of cross pollinate those two audiences to make it feel like it’s a big experience across the board.
Jennifer Zick: And we could go deep on this. But my other question that ties into this then, is, as we’re speaking to small businesses in this webinar, for the most part, how do I think about staffing to manage these two different event experiences if I’ve just got a small and scrappy marketing department? But let’s say I do have a budget and I have a little room to experiment. How do I get the right team built to do this?
Wendy Porter: Well, so it’s two different staff, right? It’s two different sets of. Of experience. And you don’t want your technologists to be trying to manage both. You need a tech team that’s managing the live experience and a separate tech team that’s managing the virtual experience. They’re talking to each other, but they’re separate. And then there are things like travel directors. So if you need to bring in a staff to come to a site to help you with the on site registration or be the runner or manage the food and beverage or whatever, you can hire a team of people to come in just for that day. So there are ways to augment your staff to make sure you can support it correctly in both environments.
Jennifer Zick: I’ve been there and done that, and it makes a world of difference when you have professionals who know exactly what the swim lane is for that event. Yeah, that’s a big, important piece. Barb, I’m coming back to you with this next one because you and I, well, I no longer am a consulting CMO. I am the CEO in a team full of marketers much more brilliant than myself, including you, so. But our job at Authentic is to advise our clients and their marketing teams and their business leaders on how to confidently move their strategies forward.
Engagement and Relationship Building
Jennifer Zick: So when, if you’re working with a business right now that’s been sitting on their event budget, or let’s just say they have decided that they’re going to sponsor a live event later this year, how confident should they be feeling right now about depending on that live event, the way that they might have in the past, where we’re going to send the salespeople, we’re going to have our booth, we’re going to. How confident can they be in just recycling that strategy from before, or what advice would you give to them in thinking about their marketing investments, even this calendar year, as it relates to events?
Barb Bertsch: Yeah, that’s a tricky one, because like I was saying earlier, things are changing and evolving every single day, I feel like. But, I mean, we’re already seeing that events are remaining virtual for 2021 all the way, at least through the fall that I’ve seen. And it’s probably for a lot of reasons, right? There’s not enough information on the various strains of the virus that are kind of starting to come in. Will the vaccines work? Will herd immunity happen? Will people, even with the vaccines, be comfortable? I don’t know. There’s a lot of, you know, friends that I have. They’re like, well, I know I’m vaccinated, but I still don’t really want to go to a restaurant. Well, think about a live event.
So I was having conversations with both my clients, and they’re like, well, we’re signed up for this event, and we’re already seeing key stakeholders starting to pull out, and it’s in the fall. So we’re talking about redistribution of the budgets. We’re talking about how we can be more strategic with our paid media and be very targeted to people that maybe would be attending that event, so that we’re trying to hit them from a different angle than we otherwise would be doing at the event. So we’re trying to get creative. Small businesses, small budgets, we really got to be thinking very differently this year for sure.
With the other things that we talked about today around efficiencies and cost effectiveness of virtual and introverts loving this new way that’s been adopted, I wouldn’t feel confident that our investment in a live event would be worthwhile. I think you’d have to convince a lot of people.
Jennifer Zick: Jen, were you about to chime in on something?
Jen Gilhoi: I was. I was just going to say to look at that event host and how they responded during COVID Did they go virtual? Did they try different things? Were they innovating? Did they keep their community? Did they keep people engaged? And a lot of times if an event host is doing it once a year, they may not have done anything. So that, to me, is also, like a little bit of a red flag to say, how are they going to bring that back with that audience? Because I think people have moved elsewhere and found that those companies that have engaged with them virtually over that time are the ones that they want to build relationships with.
Barb Bertsch: Yeah, that’s a really good point. I mean, I think as concerts and sports venues begin to refill, we’ll start and we start hearing the positivity rates going down and things with the virus start to decrease and hear more stories like that, events could start to make a comeback and make people feel a little more comfortable. But I think maybe these smaller events, attending smaller events and working your way back into a larger event is maybe what we’re going to see, too.
Wendy Porter: Yeah, I agree. I think it’s going to be regional, small regional, and then with the social side first, so weddings, and we’ll start to see the outdoor concerts and all of those things, and then we’ll kind of see what’s happening as it relates to how Covid responds.
Barb Bertsch: Right.
Wendy Porter: And then we’ll start to see corporate. I think corporate is going to absolutely be the last segment to come back.
Jennifer Zick: Yeah, well, and I’ll chime in with my own little case study. And I’m about to get on a plane tomorrow to go to a friend’s wedding who had to postpone their wedding for a whole year. So I’m so excited. There’ll be a mega celebration. But I said last week I got to go to my first business conference, and I was analyzing everything knowing this webinar was coming up. I’m like, I’m going to bring home a case study. But this was what was fascinating to me because, wendy, when we did our prep call for today’s talk, you shared some slides with some really striking data about general populations comfort levels as it relates to shopping, dining out, going back to work, and at the very lowest comfort level, it was live events. Right. Large group live events. So it is an obstacle to overcome.
However, the conference that I went to last week was in Houston, Texas, which is fairly open. The audience were entrepreneurs of small businesses. So they, by nature of who they are, are fiercely independent and risk takers, right? And so this conference saw 1000 people live at the event and 400 online. And everyone who was there was delighted to be there with people again. And they were in a position of authority in their own businesses to make the choice, to take the risk to be there. And I think that’s why it worked for that population. I’ll use my husband as an example of what might not work. He works for a large fortune corporate brand in a specific department, in a specific role. He thinks it’s crazy that one of their vendors reached out to him recently to ask for a coffee meeting.
He’s like, whoa, too soon. Too soon. Large corporations aren’t necessarily funding business travel yet for their employees. So depending on your event audience, who you’re looking to engage, do they even have the power to make the decision to be there in person and travel? Do they have the support of their organization to participate in that way yet? And are they likely to be the risk takers? Like, you got to know your demographic really well. So I think the bet played well for the conference I attended, but for others, it might completely fizzle out.
Wendy Porter: Yeah, we’ve actually seen that. So were, one of my clients was planning to attend a conference here in June, actually, in Texas. And when Texas lifted the mask mandate, everyone was like, nope, not going. And they literally canceled it. And we’ve shifted it to virtual. So, yeah, it just totally depends.
Jennifer Zick: I can tell you that none of us who went into the conference in Texas, even though the large hotel chain had policies communicated and in place, they certainly were not enforced. And so masks were on for the hot second of getting everyone through registration, and then masks were gradually lost. Right. That’s just the reality of the world right now. And trying to navigate people’s various comfort levels in a large group environment is really tricky. But it also, I felt a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel being at that event and seeing that people were really excited to be there and really excited to be together. So.
All right, Jen, I’m bringing this next question back to you, which is what specific advice would you give to entrepreneurs and revenue leaders in both sales and marketing as they consider their go to market program for the next one to two or even beyond years specific to events? What should they be thinking about now?
Jen Gilhoi: Yeah, well, gosh, we’ve covered so much. So a lot of what I’m going to share now is really based on our conversation. But five areas, five tips to be thinking about, which is continuing to think about virtual and hybrid. They’re lower risk, but they have to be done well. Secondly, plan your pre, during and post events, whatever your engagement is, whatever you’re doing, think about your end result and start planning from that perspective. One other thing I see is the, and I think it’s with sponsors in particular, there’s been questions of how do I really engage now? Because that looks very different. And I think you going forward have to be proactive. You have to vet the event host, you have to look at all that. I would highly encourage that.
And then the second piece to that is creating your own content around why you’re participating in that event. I think that’s a huge, and always has been actually a missed opportunity. So creating that beforehand really helps you engage at the event itself and then also thinking about shared experiences. So this, again, I think applies to trade shows and sponsors, where typically the sales pitch is the focus of that. And what I’m seeing and hearing now is let’s have some shared experiences. However you create that virtually or other, that are actually kind of fun and engaging, and then the follow up, the sales pitch, comes later. So be thinking about that mindset. And then lastly, look for events where thought leadership can directly engage with the audience.
Again, that’s, you know, no longer just sponsoring, putting a logo somewhere, but really having that thought leadership perspective. So I think those are some tips that you can take forward as you’re looking at what in the world is going on with events and what you’re going to do throughout the next year.
Jennifer Zick: Yeah, good points. And before I comment on that thought, I want to invite our audience of attendees. If you have any questions, put them in Q and A. We don’t want to miss the chance to answer anything specific that you might be working on in your business. So don’t be shy, get your thoughts out there, and we’ll have some time for Q and A at the end.
But, Jen, I want to reflect kind of on the narrative you just shared there, because I feel like there’s a bit of a cautionary tale for business leaders, sales leaders maybe in particular, as well as marketers, on what the way that maybe they’ve approached sponsorship in the past and the expectations they’ve had of it and how they’re going to need to think creatively about their sponsorship of future events.
Event Planning and Flexibility
Jennifer Zick: Because I’ve seen many businesses who think of sponsorship as the easy button. We give you money, you give me a lead list, I send my reps out for cocktails, and our investment in the event is simply money, travel, people, handshakes, and a list that we’re going to pursue as leads after the event. That formula is not going to be successful in this new world. Anybody want to chime in on that?
Wendy Porter: Yeah, I agree, Jennifer. We’ve been seeing actually kind of an unusual experience in the virtual setting that’s been created to help drive relationships. And so I’m going to give you an example. So there’s a creative agency out there that’s doing super cool experiences that you probably couldn’t do live. And so, for example, they took us on an underwater shark dive. So they found a boat of researchers that are going out and studying sharks, and they figured out a way to hook up a microphone in a mask and go underwater with that research and talk to him as he’s swimming around with sharks. So that was the experience that was put out there. Right. And it was sent to high level CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, people you want to talk to that are hard to get to.
And it got their attention, and we tried to make it a family event. Right. So in particular, there’s this one, I think was a CEO that they were trying to get to, and he was like, okay, fine, I’m going to check this out. This is pretty cool and innovative, and I want to see what this is. So he joined it with his family, had this amazing experience, had a little bit of networking happening off to the side with the sales guy who really wanted to talk to him, but of course, they didn’t talk about sales then it was about the experience and starting that relationship. And then the next day, the sales guy followed up with the CEO and said, hey, great to see you last night.
And that guy was like, yeah, I am now the coolest dad on the planet because you just took me underwater shark diving, and my kid got to experience that. And how cool was that? And that opened the door to the relationship. And now they’re talking about the sales. So it’s creating unique, different experiences that get the attention that you need. That starts the relationship, and then you go from there.
Jennifer Zick: I absolutely love that perspective. I’ve always believed in building relationships before pursuing revenue. Right. We have to be thoughtful about not just using events as an opportunity to pitch. It should be an opportunity to build relationships and deepen trust and create memories together. Right. I’ve gone to many conferences in my life, and I can tell you that it’s not usually the conversations, the pitches I hear at a booth that I remember. It’s the friends that I’ve made along the way. People sharing experiences and their journeys and being together. Right. So awesome. Well, I have one other question for all of you as panelists. Before I jump over to some of them. I see a question coming in from the audience. Thank you, audience. Jump in. Oh, another question. Good job, audience. Keep it coming.
All right, one last question for all of my esteemed panelists. So you all have different kinds of responsibilities when it comes to helping clients with events. As you’re looking at your client commitments, you are looking ahead for the next twelve to 24 months, where do you see? Are you seeing businesses start to make commitments about where they will invest for events? What’s their level of confidence and their appetite for creativity? Would you say that a big percentage of the business market is still kind of sitting on their hands? Wait and see. And a small percentage has got an appetite, and they’re eager and they’re investing, or is it the other way around? What are you seeing?
Barb Bertsch: So I’ll jump in real quick. I have one client who’s got a new service offering, which, you know, their business has been built over the years with in person relationship building. Right. So now we’ve got this new service offering coming, and we had a lot of expectations and plans. But I think, you know, one opportunity that we can kind of glom onto is speaking events. Speaking opportunities at events. Because for a couple of different reasons, it may or may not require travel. They may be able to go and do something in person. But on the flip side of that, whether it’s in person or virtual, most everything these days is being recorded. And as a marketer, being able to leverage that content, it may be obvious, but let’s not forget it anyway.
It’s a great opportunity to repurpose and utilize that in various other areas, and you know it. I have a CEO that’s not super comfortable talking in front of people, but he knows that this is the way that he’s going to be able to get the message out most efficiently.
Jen Gilhoi: Yeah, agreed, Barb. Just thinking about one particular client who has now embraced shorter meetings that are virtual only for the rest of the year. And because they have committed to doing six more meetings throughout the year, they’re actually really looking at their in-house team and how they can invest in training them to do some aspect of the event and then working with myself and a team to be that overall expertise.
And, you know, Jen, you mentioned in the beginning when, before we hopped on here, that investment of that first event that you do that’s new in this virtual, maybe a hybrid space is a heavy lift, but after that, then you can take lessons learned from that and really streamline that and find some efficiencies and also, you know, educate your employees on moving all the technology forward that they need to know.
Wendy Porter: And I see corporate staying virtual. Really for now, I think we’re going to be shifting into hybrids. But I. The challenge with hybrids is that they’re expensive. It’s also a lot more. It’s double your budget, basically, if you want to do a hybrid event. And then for planning purposes, it’s about two and a half times the amount of planning time to do those two parallel events. And so I think that’s a challenge. We need to plan forward for that if we’re going to get to that, because most everybody doesn’t have budgets to double right in the short term. So that’s where I see it heading.
Audience Q+A
Jennifer Zick: Okay, great. Well, we’ve got some really rich questions from the audience and not enough time to go as deep as we’d like, but I’m going to throw a couple your way. This one comes from Mikayla. Question for Wendy and Jen. She says, what strategies do you suggest for helping clients stay flexible or attendees stay flexible and open to the changes that might need to happen based on changing Covid regulations or other things that might arise specifically for Wendy, how much time do you put into planning a plan B with your clients? Expectation management?
Jen Gilhoi: Take it away.
Wendy Porter: Yeah, so, I mean, I think what we all learned in the last year is flexibility is the key. Right. One day, you know, as Barb said, things changed just from last week to this week. Right. That’s kind of how it’s been. And we’ve all just kind of been riding the roller coaster, and you do have to kind of think out and think. Think three dimensions, you know? Okay, this scenario, this scenario. And depending upon where we’re at with different things, that’s the one you execute on. So I would say, I mean, as far as the amount of time I’ve spent to think through the plan B, C’s, and DS is, you know, probably double the amount of planning time. Maybe three times the amount of planning time.
Jen Gilhoi: Wendy, I love how you have all the numbers dialed in. I think that’s it. I mean, I haven’t even often, like, just haven’t even been able to reflect on how much time it takes to plan for all those scenarios. But it is important. And like you had said, you know, events are the second line items, so we need to understand that. Yeah, I don’t have anything to add to that. I mean, I think that’s. You covered that.
Jennifer Zick: Okay, great. Well, here comes another question for all of you from Colleen. They used to host lunch and learn events for their consumers, and people would come, there was free lunch. Now they’ve pivoted and are sharing the same content via virtual events on Zoom. And there’s a lot of no shows. And the suspicion here is it’s because they’re not getting something free. So what ideas will help these folks commit to showing up gift cards, anything like that? And is the problem really the lack of a free lunch or what have you seen with other client situations?
Wendy Porter: So I can jump in on that one, too. I think it gets back to that, what I said earlier about, you know, the gift box and creating sort of that guilt. Right. You got something, and so you sort of feel obligated that you better show up. Right. So I do think that works, and I think it’s important to probably keep those components in place if you really need attendance at your events, if you’re, you know, just kind of putting it out there and it’s okay if people don’t attend and you’re, you know, then I think not having something like that is okay. But if you really want to get people there, you need to put something, get them on the hook, you know, have a reason why they feel like they need to attend.
Jen Gilhoi: Yeah. And I would also just add to that. Look at the value you’re delivering between events and how you’re building that community. So if you do have a lunch and learn and say, there’s a keynote speaker on a topic, are there people that attended that want to dive into that and do something with that? Can you make connections there? So people are actually taking away that value from it? I think there are many different ways to approach that based on, you know, what your content is.
Barb Bertsch: Yeah, I agree with both of you, and I think, unfortunately, Zoom fatigue is a real thing. So do I want to attend a lunch and learn? Maybe not so much. Maybe not as much as I did before. So I think you have to get really creative and find different ways to add value.
Jen Gilhoi: Yeah. How have we not mentioned Zoom fatigue yet? Yes. One of the reasons I love clubhouse. If you haven’t tried it, that’s an actual, you know, you can just kind of pop in. You don’t have to have your screen on. You can be doing other things. So I would encourage you to look at other ways to kind of capture, you know, that audience maybe over the lunch hour when they’re able to do something else besides being behind the screen.
Jennifer Zick: Well, I just have to give a shout out to all of you ladies who aren’t showing any zoom fatigue in today’s conversation and to you attendees who hung on the line and have great questions for us. So here comes another one from Pamela from Ecuador. So thanks for joining overseas. What do you think about the fact that people have developed a necessity, demand, or expectation that online events be free? I’ve experienced that when organizing events that have an entrance fee, they’re more difficult to fill. All right, so it sounds like she’s wrestling with the trade off between a free online event. You might get more attendees, but if you’re doing a paid event, do people have an expectation now that those are. They’re. Should they be free?
Wendy Porter: I think it depends on the type of event. Right. So most of my clients, because they’re corporate clients, we’re putting on events for our customers or our internal. Internal audience, and it’s. There’s no. There’s no pay to play scenario there. But if you’re putting on something where you are charging a ticket fee, in my mind, it’s sort of a self-selection thing. You know, if you’re. If someone doesn’t want to pay to attend, then how interested, really, are they in your company and your product? So maybe it’s okay that they don’t attend, you know, the people who pay to get there and want to come see it. I think that’s actually going to be your better customer in the end anyway. So I think in a way that’s kind of okay.
Barb Bertsch: And I’ll throw one other thing in there. A different perspective is, you know, people don’t understand why they cost. What’s the expense? So maybe as this hybrid approach evolves around online events and more information comes out about that, maybe we, as the event sponsor, need to sort of explain where that money is going to or where that cost is going, if that makes sense.
Wendy Porter: Yeah, that’s a good idea. You can put a pie chart together or something and say, here’s why this costs money, you know, and put a pie chart and show the big square. That’s technology, right? Yeah, something like that. To educate.
Jennifer Zick: Yeah. Well, here comes a specific question, a very industry specific question. So I’ll invite all of you to put on your strategy hats for a moment. If we can give a brainstorm back to Michael, who’s asking. One of our businesses is a co-working space. They run events as a way to drive business in, getting people in to see the space and then to sign up for membership. But hybrids are not accomplishing that goal. So what other way is there to drive marketing events to bring people to see the value of being in their actual physical co working space?
Wendy Porter: Okay, so there’s a really cool technology that’s a 3d experience. You guys have probably seen this, like when you’re looking at a house, maybe, and you want a tour of the house and you see the little dots on the floor as you’re driving around the house, you could actually do that in the space. So create a video. And I know the name of the technology. I’d have to look it up, but it’s pretty easy to set it up. You take maybe nine pictures of your space, put it into this platform, and it creates that virtual tour for you. That’s one way that I would accomplish that, and then I would tie it into some sort of fun online experience to get the people there and then do the tour as part of that conversation.
Jen Gilhoi: Yeah. And I’ll also add to that I am part of a co-working space and there is almost like a little something tangible thrown into those events to get you to come into the space. And it’s mostly been books, so the author talks and. And some other value you’re getting from it. And you know, you get a tangible book after the experience and then you’re the networking piece of it as well, because people want to know who are part, who are also part of this community. And why would I be drawn to that? So, you know, you can look at it more holistically from all of those kinds of perspectives of what that person wants to learn.
Jennifer Zick: That’s a great point. And I should say, Wendy, to your idea about the three dimensional tour. My oldest daughter is graduating high school this month, and we were navigating college selection during a really difficult time to do that. We had seen a couple colleges in person before the pandemic hit, so she at least knew what a college with kids and students looked like. But we had to do a lot of our reviewing virtually, and I was really grateful that colleges innovated pretty quickly to provide three dimensional tours that allowed us to feel like we were standing on campus, seeing those spaces. It wasn’t the same. It can’t replace an in person experience, but it can augment really effectively.
Wendy Porter: Yeah, we’re seeing that with hotels too, for site visits where they’re getting them up online. So you can virtually plan ahead and not have to travel there.
Jennifer Zick: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we’re getting right down to the wire, and I have two questions, but I only have time left for one, so I’m going to pick the one at the top, which is from. These are both from Anonymous. Thank you. Anonymous. Regarding follow up to events, what are some specific ideas, whether that be content media calls to action that you would recommend? I think a recording of the virtual event is somewhat obvious, but are there any other ideas you’ve seen success with?
Jen Gilhoi: Yeah, well, that’s kind of what I’ve built my business on is, you know, the immediacy of it. So thinking about capturing the event experience for attendees and the immediacy of following up, having something in their inbox or something to offer the very next day, because there’s that 24 hours window of I just had this great experience with your brand. I want to do something. So that is, I believe, the event host’s role. And typically what I still see going on is, you know, surveys and content coming out weeks later, which can be fine, but I think it’s worth it to look at that immediacy and what you can provide and then thinking about that again at the onset. So don’t wait until the day before the event or the event itself to go, oh, this is really great content. You know, it’s great. Just plan to share it post event.
Jennifer Zick: Wonderful. Well, attendees, this has been a wonderful conversation that I hope you’ve all gotten some little nugget of wisdom or insight that’s going to help you confidently move your strategies forward. Panelists I just love you to begin with, but I love spending time with you virtually and can’t wait to spend time with you all in person sooner than later. Like, my hugometer is ready to get to work. So beware, make sure you’re fully vaccinated and come on over for a hug. But before we officially conclude, I’ll say goodbye now because once we run our survey, this webinar will automatically close. But before we do that, I want to invite all of you attendees to take a really quick survey. Monica, I think we’ve got that ready to go. So that will launch as we conclude. So please give us your feedback.
We value you. We value you being here with us today. And again, best wishes and your continued growth. And panelists, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and time with us today.
Bye bye, everybody.
