BigPanda’s Naomi Fuhrmann Shares Her Secret to Structuring a Successful Virtual Tasting Event
In Episode 6 of Sips with purple cork, Kelly Robb sat down with Naomi Fuhrmann, Field Marketing Manager at BigPanda. It was too early to drink wine so they enjoyed some delicious Sonoma Valley cheese from Point Reyes cheese while chatting about the secret to Naomi’s event success. With a few years of purple cork events under her belt, Naomi has tweaked the format here and there and tried different experiences. Her insights and best practices are incredibly helpful for other event planners, especially when you consider that she is able to drive 80-100 people to each of her events. This response is a testament to the BigPanda reputation, but also the thought and care that goes into each of Naomi’s events.
About BigPanda and Naomi Fuhrmann
Built from the ground-up for complex IT environments, BigPanda helps organizations prevent and resolve IT outages through its innovative AIOps event correlation and automation platform. Fortune 500 enterprises such as Intel, Cisco, United, Nike, Marriott and Expedia rely on BigPanda to prevent outages, reduce costs, and give their teams time back for digital transformation.
Naomi Furhmann is BigPanda’s Global Field Marketing Manager. In her role, she partners closely with the sales team to drive demand for BigPanda and ensure that prospects have the best content and access to BigPanda during their sales journey. At BigPanda, she has made a name for herself as an events maestro, drawing large turnouts and consistently high engagement.
Here are some highlights of the conversation:
There’s a lot of talk about ‘Zoom fatigue’. How are virtual events performing for BigPanda?
“Our events are still going strong. I think a couple of things work really well for us, including multiple tracks for events. The first track, for example, is around community. We try to keep them peer-to-peer. We invite our prospects and customers and a wine expert from purple cork opens things up. Then we have a community discussion. It’s more unstructured but we do bring a topic. People really like speaking with each other and it’s amazing to be with an audience of 60 to 80 people who are all dealing with the same problems.”
I know people are traveling a lot more now. How does that change how you’re approaching virtual events?
“In person events are definitely coming back but the consensus is that virtual is absolutely here to stay. We've all seen that these events are just so efficient and effective. They allow us to keep in touch points constantly throughout the year. Virtual events are cheaper and we're seeing great results. Also, you have far greater reach. When we do regional events in a specific city, we spend a lot of resources developing content and running the event but our targets are finite. With virtual events, you can have a global reach—you can pull together every time zone. It’s also a much smaller ask of attendees to jump online for an hour to enjoy a tasting than to get dressed and travel to a destination for a day.”
How do you drive so many people to each event?
“One reason why BigPanda is able to drive 80-100 attendees to our virtual events is the varied tasting activities that we provide. I have organized wine tastings, sake tastings, tequila tastings and even had a famous golf coach join an event. Another reason why we’re successful is because of the partnership between sales and marketing. Marketing works closely with sales to ensure they understand the value of the events and keep them top of mind, so if they’re on a call with a prospect they remember to invite them.”
You talk about a ‘content sandwich’. What is that?
“The format of the virtual community event includes a quick intro on BigPanda, for those that might not be familiar with the company, followed by an expert-led tasting. Then, it’s down to the meat of the event, with attendees chatting amongst themselves and sharing ideas and best practices. The second tasting happens at the end of the event, after the networking. So we sandwich the content between the tastings.”
How do you use virtual events to target top-of-funnel prospects?
“Our events targeted at top-of-funnel tend to have seasonal themes, such as May the Fourth, and are about opening doors and meeting prospects face-to-face. Guests are even invited to bring a guest, which helps drive attendance on the day of the event.”
Even with in-person events coming back, Naomi doesn’t see BigPanda cutting back on virtual events. She notes that they’re efficient, effective, much less expensive than in-person events, and provide a bigger reach. For those reasons, virtual events will continue to be an important part of BigPanda’s marketing mix.
Looking to engage your community or fill your pipeline? Please reach out about planning an event of your own. We do the heavy lifting, including the shipping of the wine, so you can enjoy the event and the results that follow!
