6 Marketing Leaders to Admire for Stellar Events
Event Marketing isn’t for the faint of heart. If making lists isn’t your love language and if your nerves aren’t made of steel, you might not be in the right role. But, for the special individuals that believe in the power of extra touches and unexpected delights to break through the noise and drive business forward, it’s a very rewarding career. As many have discovered, nothing drives prospects deeper into the funnel than face-to-face meetings, whether virtual or IRL.
Stellar events start with professionals who understand that pulling off a great event is a mix of detailed planning, a true understanding of your persona, impeccable execution, and a little bit of luck. Are your guests feeling social? Will they enjoy each others’ company? The 6 marketing leaders that made our list have proven they have what it takes, and more, to drive business results. Here’s how they make their events memorable:
Phil Feinsot
Marketing Director at Blue Yonder
Bring the right people together
Phil Feinsot knows that successful events happen when champions are leveraged to drive attendance. He explains, “Event magic happens when I invite a champion from a large enterprise and ask for their help driving attendance from other groups within their company. It’s so powerful because even their invitation is seen as a mini-reference for our business.”
Mollie O'Brien
Field Marketing Manager at Snyk
Pick the right event activity
Whether it’s bourbon tasting, cheese tasting or a classic wine tasting event, Mollie O’Brien puts a lot of thought into determining the best activity for the prospects she’s looking to engage. She knows she has picked the right virtual event activity when attendees stay longer than the scheduled time to continue to engage and ask questions. She says, “When people stay late, I know that we have a winning activity and they’re not just there to ‘get through it.’ They’re there because they want to be there.”
Corrina Owens
Senior Account-based Marketing (ABM) Manager at Gong
Think more about what you can give versus receive
Sales is all about gives and gets. In the sales journey, you need to make sure that you're providing value and thinking critically about how you can help your prospects. That’s why Corrina brings strong leaders to her events, knowing that her prospects want to hear their perspectives on trends in the market.
One of Corrina’s most popular events paired her organization's leader, who happened to be a former leading industry analyst, with target accounts to get his hot takes on the latest magic quadrant. The event was budgeted for an hour but went well beyond because customers wanted to dig deeper. Corrina shares, “We didn’t focus on pitching our product as much as we focused on driving community with our target audience which earned their trust and provided more credibility.”
“...we focused on driving community with our target audience which earned their trust...”
Amy Clausing
Director of Events & Programs at Qualified
Let prospects learn from customers
Customer participation is an important element of prospecting events for most marketing leaders. Customers provide perspective and credibility and enable prospects to see what their future might look like as a partner. The more voices you have in the room, the more opportunity you have to strike a chord with your prospects.
That’s why Amy always invites happy customers to her events. She explains, “Our intent is never to talk about product during networking events. But, our best customers are so passionate about the product that if the conversation naturally leads to challenges and solutions, they will sing its praises in a way that feels authentic and not sales-y. They do our job for us, without even being asked. The best part is that our prospects love hearing their point of view. There’s value in knowing how your peers are solving similar problems.”
“The best part is that our prospects love hearing their point of view. ”
Dana Lombardo
Senior Field Marketing Manager at Keyfactor
Surprise and delight your most engaged attendees
At smaller events, all it usually takes is one animated guest to make the event special for everyone. That’s why Dana pays special attention to the folks that light up when trying a great wine or actively engage with other guests to raise the energy of the group. She will privately reach out and thank them for the enthusiasm and go above and beyond to make them feel appreciated. She says, “If we’re doing a wine tasting and a guest is really engaged and loving the experience, I’ll reach out and let them know that I’m going to send them an extra bottle of the wine they love. These small gestures go a long way.”
“...send them an extra bottle of the wine they love.”
Naomi Fuhrmann
Field Marketing Manager at BigPanda
Find a content formula that works for your audience
BigPanda helps IT Ops, NOC, DevOps and SRE teams who struggle with manual and reactive incident response capabilities that are badly suited for the scale, complexity and velocity of modern IT environments. These professionals typically work in the background but the work they do is integral to every company’s success by preventing and resolving IT outages.
Naomi has found that event marketing is a great way to engage this audience and has hit on a formula that is driving repeated success. She explains, “We use virtual networking events as opportunities to foster community discussion. We sandwich the community discussion between the activity, whether it's wine, beer, hot sauce or cheese tasting. People stay engaged in the conversation since it’s hard to check email when you have a drink in your hand.”
“...we sandwich the community discussion between the activity...”
These six tips should give you a few takeaways to apply to your own event marketing programs. A big thanks to Phil, Mollie, Corrina, Amy, Dana, and Naomi for sharing their insights—we’ll see you soon on screen or IRL!
