Richelle Drucker on RDA’s winning formula for virtual events
In episode 8 of Sips with purple cork, we sat down with RDA’s Richelle (Arleth) Drucker to talk about her journey with virtual events and what she has learned along the way. As she sipped her Azur Wines Rose, we reminisced about the past couple of years and discussed the changing role of events.
Richelle began working with purple cork during the pandemic and has never looked back. She planned her first event with a simple goal in mind: To bring together RDA’s sales and marketing teams. Covid-19 eliminated the water cooler and post-work drinks and Richelle knew that the teams were craving social time with each other. But the event also allowed her to get a sense for how purple cork events are run and gave her ideas for the future.
Whereas her first few prospect and customer events were content driven and featured presentations by RDA experts, she later tweaked the format, based on what she heard at a purple cork community event she attended. During the event, marketers shared their best practices and tips for success. There, she learned that many of her peers were finding great success by focusing on the social and networking aspects of coming together and limiting the product and company content.
She had the opportunity to test this new format at a Craft Beer Tasting that she organized for marketing and IT leaders on Cinco de Mayo. The format was simple. It included a kick-off by purple cork and an introduction by Barrel Brothers’ high-energy brewmaster, Steven Maduro. Attendees were sipping beers within the first few minutes, sharing first reactions and bonding over tasting notes. The last 20 minutes were spent in Zoom breakout rooms, networking and talking about industry trends and challenges around headless technology.
According to Richelle, here are several of the reasons why this event format worked so well:
The Cinco de Mayo theme was helpful in driving attendance. It provided a hook for the landing page and email content that was fun and engaging.
Richelle was careful to set expectations about the event so attendees didn’t expect a demo or a presentation. She made it clear how attendees would be spending their hour together.
Bringing prospects together with clients is a winning mix.
The one-hour event time commitment was perfect for attendees—who can’t take an hour out of their day for a fun virtual event?
The fact that beer needed to be mailed in advance provided a lot of touch points prior to the event to drive engagement and solidify attendance.
A pre-event survey gave attendees the opportunity to provide input into what they were hoping to get out of the event and made them feel invested in attending.
Beer tasting with a brewmaster is a unique experience and a great draw.
Richelle was able to drive 90% attendance and the folks that didn’t show up let her know in advance that their plans had changed. Because they had received the beer already, they were responsive when RDA reached out the next time. Guilt is a powerful motivator!
Feedback from the event was overwhelmingly positive. Attendees loved switching up the traditional wine tasting and having beer from Sonoma. They also loved the opportunity to break into smaller groups and network with their peers. In fact, many wished they could’ve had even more time in the breakout sessions.
“The fact that attendees said they would’ve loved more time in the breakout rooms shows how engaged they were. I loved seeing that feedback.”
Now that in-person events have returned, Richelle is reminded why she loves virtual events so much. They’re easy to organize, cost-effective and more successful because of the smaller time commitment from attendees. She did see good attendance at the three in-person events she recently managed, but there was much more legwork involved in their success.
Richelle is looking forward to planning more purple cork events. She sees opportunity in tailoring the events to specific audiences, including roles and challenges. She is also looking to bring RDA partners together, to connect and network and is thinking about working with her Customer Success team on customer events.
“One of the things that I really appreciate about purple cork events is the format. purple cork and the tasting experts get attendees engaged and excited early on and that energy really drives the event.”
