Pipeline Power Hour: Marketing, Summer '23
Get ready for an hour of back-to-back masterclasses from some of the best in tech on the channels we’re all trying to perfect, hosted by B2B marketing legend Matt Heinz.
All right, welcome everybody to the summer of 2023,
pipelines summit, pipeline power.
Say that three times fast.
I will wait.
I'm Matt Heinz, founder and president of Heinz Market.
I'm excited to be here today,
moderating and hosting with five heavy hitter speakers
giving you some of the best strategies,
playbooks and points of view on social event,
influencer marketing tactics.
And our very first guest today on the happy hour,
early happy hour on the power hour is Allison Haffiner,
vice president of marketing and trust radius.
We'll be diving into some of their research
on the latest trends and buyer behavior
to set us up for success and keep in mind
as well as we navigate another challenging market condition.
So Allison, thanks very much for joining us.
- Yeah, thanks Matt and maybe it is,
maybe it's time for happy hour.
- Yeah, you know what power hour, happy hour
and there's no judging here.
But maybe just for folks who don't know you,
talk a little bit about yourself, trust radius
and the research you've been doing
to identify and sort of quantify some of the gaps
between buyers and sellers.
- Yeah, so as we said, I'm the VP of marketing
at trust radius, so trust radius.
We are a platform where buyers come
and they do all of their research
like what peer reviews, product information
and ultimately making a technology decision.
So one of the things that we do year over year,
so this is the seventh annual report
that we've done called the B2B buying disconnect.
So we do a bunch of research,
we're researching, surveying all the buyers
that are coming to our site.
And we're really trying to understand
like what's their mindset,
what's really motivating them,
where, how are they making decisions,
what are the consideration
and how is that changing over time?
The other thing we do is we look at
what marketers are, how they're going to market
and then we find like the disconnects between the two.
So the difference is between buyers' expectations
and the way that marketers interact with them.
- It seems like buying my assets continue to evolve.
As technology evolves,
just as accessibility and information evolves.
With the recent economic shifts
and other certainties piling on,
what are some of the challenges you're seeing
when it comes to understanding and activating
the current real time B2B buyers mindset?
- So I think what we've seen over time is a couple things.
So one is that most of the buying committee now
are millennials and Gen Z.
And so they're over the past year,
that we've just seen that population continue to grow,
which totally makes sense.
And so what we're seeing is that
they're already kind of digitally native,
they want everything at their fingertips.
They're going to also look at not just your marketing
and the claims that you're making,
but they're looking at their peers,
what they're saying about your product,
they're looking at what your customers are saying.
And so they really want as much information
about your product upfront and under the hood,
as much as possible.
And so there were already kind of a skeptical group.
If that's kind of what we've been seeing over time.
But now with the economic conditions,
people are more risk-averse than ever.
And so they already wanted all this product information
upfront, they wanted to get as much hands-on experience
as possible, but they're really relying
on their own prior experience.
So I think that's one big shift that we see
is that when we look at the top resources
that they're using, prior experience
wasn't even in the top five.
And this year, it grew 30%.
And it was one of the top resources.
So people are super risk-averse.
They were already skeptical.
And now they're really relying on their own prior experience
when thinking about what technologies to go for.
So I think that's been one thing that's really interesting
about the economy that we're in,
and really challenging for marketers and sales teams.
- You bring up the difference in sort of
in different generations of buyers, right?
And not only their expectations, digital native,
social native, we're coming up on some of the people
that are gonna be AI natives, being able
to very, very near future.
Some of those, how important are those
in sort of understanding the gaps between buyers and sellers?
And what are some of the other sort of key gaps you see
that are still keeping sellers from really connecting
and engaging buyers in a more win-win way?
- Right.
I think one of the big things that we see in this year,
what we wanted to understand is this concept of ROI.
I think it's a really broad statement.
A lot of people are changing their marketing messaging
around like, hey, this is how much we're gonna impact
your revenue, and there's a lot of this kind of ROI messaging.
But one of the big disconnects that you see is that
buyers are actually really looking for ROI
when it comes to time and cost.
Because essentially they're like,
a lot of people have lost head count,
a lot of people have lost budget.
And so when you see a lot of the shifts in that messaging,
really marketers and salespeople should be thinking about,
how are they defining ROI for those buyers?
How are they communicating that?
And then how are they also helping their champion
within the company build a business case?
And the other thing that we saw this year
that was super interesting is that the C-suite
is becoming more and more involved in purchase decisions,
which it was actually shifting the other way
prior to this current economic climate that we're in,
it's actually becoming more democratized.
And now the CFO is involved or other C-suite members.
And so you really think,
you have to think about how are you making that champion?
How are you giving them that business case?
It's gonna essentially how they're gonna have to sell it
internally as well.
- Yeah, boy, I think what we are,
what people are pivoting to now in this economic uncertainty,
like they feel like pivots in a downturn,
but really it's honing what should be best practices
in any given, right?
Like when people were previously maybe greenlighting
four to five nice to have is now they're greenlighting
one that you need to have,
but the discipline we're creating now
feels like it should be the same kind of discipline
we should keep when we're back to an economic straightaway.
What are you seeing companies do well right now
in sort of stack ranking those priorizations
and building that discipline that is gonna last well
beyond whatever economic uncertainty we're in right now?
- Matt, that is such a good point because I feel like
if you can make these types of adjustments
to your go-to-market strategy,
these are the types of things that are gonna give you
that leg up above your competition and set you apart.
And so what I feel like people are really doing
that is impressive is it's a kind of notion
around like brand trust and you hear that's a lot
and it feels like kind of service a little bit,
but I think that the brands that do a few things,
one they put their customers front and center,
I think customer voice is so important
and getting them on the record, getting their results,
having them be your advocate,
if you think about what I mentioned earlier
is that prior experience is now one,
it's gonna be one of the most important kind of resources
for a decision, you wanna build those advocates
'cause when they go to another company,
you can re-engage them.
So I think that this idea of kind of this brand trust,
this building advocate, and then having those people
be your voice out in the market is huge.
And I think that the more brands are leaning into that,
again, it's gonna set them up for a success in the future.
- Yeah, it's so important to keep in mind,
you've got people that are gonna move on to new jobs
that if they didn't just see success with your product,
but if you were a brand or someone that they trust,
someone that has credibility,
I see companies leaning in on that with prospects,
they get the where companies get the majority of their
referrals, not from customers, but from prospects,
they may not have been able to buy for whatever reason,
but love the brand, trust the brand,
and are willing to stick with it
and sort of still recommend it.
I think we're gonna see a continual proliferation of this
based on the research I've seen for Gen Z, for millennials,
and the next batch coming down the pike.
What do you see as the trends going into next year,
or 2020, or beyond, what do you think we need to be focused on?
- So you kind of mentioned this a little bit,
but I think it's really important to think about
the role of sales.
So if I always think about this kind of this trend
that's happening, and you kind of hear like this brand,
Gen, and people just trying to create demand
versus capturing it, and so I think where the partnership
is gonna go with sales and marketing is gonna be creating
this trusted brand, putting your customers out there,
making your product information readily available,
giving people pricing, it changes the role of sales
because they're no longer gatekeepers
of important product information.
They can be more consultative.
If you have that trusted brand,
more doors are gonna open for them when they're reaching out.
And so I think that's something to think about
when you're kind of building your strategy,
is that alignment with sales,
and giving them that kind of opportunity to be consultative.
And that will also help from a brand, trust perspective, right?
Nobody likes both calling,
nobody likes a million emails.
So how do you set your sales team up for success
and give them that kind of role as a more consultative
versus them banging on doors that aren't gonna open?
- I think it's such an important point.
And I think that you've got so many teams
that sort of have their initial sales team focused
on getting that 20 minute meeting,
and that's a very transactional approach
when I think our prospects are asking for the opposite, right?
They aren't necessarily ready to buy right now,
and if you treat them as a spectrum with trust,
those three steps can be faster than one
to get to where you wanna go.
It could take some re-engineering,
and so rethinking around that BDR role,
and how we wanna treat the sales process,
and hopefully we as marketers can help to lead the way up.
Anyway, Alice and Habiter,
Vice President of Marketing for Trust Radius,
thanks for joining us on the Happy Power Hour.
- Thank you.
- All right, well joining us next on the Power Hour
is Katie Rae.
She is the Director of Community at Metadata.
Katie, how you doing?
- Hey, I am so good, my hour here.
- I'm great.
- Thank you very much for joining us and doing this.
Maybe for those of you that don't know you yet,
maybe explain a little bit about you, metadata,
and what community means for metadata
and what your role is there.
- Yeah, absolutely.
So if you don't know who I am,
like Matt said, I'm the Director of Community
over at Metadata.
We have a community called Demand,
and that's got over 2,000 different demand J-Markers,
we've got a few dropsfrows in there,
content marketers, really anyone in marketing
that just wants to get better at what they do,
and not have to be a team of one all the time,
like so many of us are used to.
And so that's what we're gonna go over at Metadata right now.
And I think with what community means to us,
I'm sure we're probably gonna dive into
a little bit more later,
but it's really about relationship building
and just making sure we don't have to go through live fire.
So everything is so difficult right now,
and community is really here to help support each other
and find people that are like us
that want to get better at what we do want to learn.
And so we're just kind of leaning into that,
being human with our marketers.
- Oh my gosh, the more we can be human as B2B marketers,
the more I think we stand out in a sea of noise out there.
And I hear a lot of people say they want to build a community.
We should build out a vibrant community.
What would you say to someone
that's just getting started on that journey?
Like what are the first steps you need to take as a leader
when you're building out a community,
or maybe even just conceptualizing the community to start with?
- Yeah, that's a great question.
I see this all the time.
I always tell people who is asking for this community?
You've got to ask yourself that.
I think that's the number one thing you have to do
because like you said,
we're getting a lot of pressure from our executives of,
well, we've got the Salesforce community.
We've got this community and that one and whatever.
And so we have to have, well, I always ask,
why do we have to have one?
Who is asking for this?
Is it because you all read the same book
in your executive book club?
And so that's why we're all creating categories
and our building communities?
Or do you actually have like a really strong audience base
who's saying, we want to take this a step further?
And that's what we saw with our community is
we had such a great audience and people who engage
with our content, we're big fans and advocates.
And what we constantly heard from them was that
there wasn't a place for other demand-gen marketers
to get together collectively across multiple countries.
And learn best practices and be able to complain about things
and tools and problems that we're all dealing with
and learn from each other.
So that is always my number one go to.
You've got to ask why and who's asking for this.
- So even when you look at some of the most successful
communities and how demand that the community you guys do
is one of those, you see a variety of different levels
of interaction.
You've got the people that are in there every day
that are engaging, they're answering your question,
you've got a lot of lurkers,
you have people that disappear for a while.
So how do you think about that as sort of
a community journey?
And what do you do to sort of drive deeper connections
and create an earned deeper engagement
from people that aren't as active?
- Yeah, that's a great question.
One of the best ways to kind of break this down
without getting too crazy and technical and scientific
is really to understand how people work.
And just like in communities, just like whenever
let's say you're going to college or you started
a new school or you went and moved cities
and you're trying to make friends,
it always starts at that initial interaction,
which is why for us our first touch point,
we try really hard to be as earnest and genuine as possible
because we want people to know that they're welcome here,
their questions are welcome, their opinions are valued
and we generally care about our members.
So I think that's the first thing
that you really have to consider in this community life cycle
is what is that initial touch point going to be?
And as marketers, we always struggle with this
without being shitting, what is the initial touch point?
So it's a really good reminder that every interaction
needs to be a really positive one
because you never know if that's going to be
the first touch point or the third touch point
in the community member life cycle.
And then once you've kind of moved from that
and people start joining your community
and then they start engaging a lot of it's based
on a couple of member behaviors and actual education aspects.
So you have to train your members,
and I know this sounds bad, but it's just,
it's just human, like we're humans, we have to be trained,
right?
Like if you have a Costco membership, you're trained.
When you go up there, you show your membership card
and they teach you how to do that.
They obey in communities, you're trained to,
hey, when you sign in, you get a welcome email
from the onboarding you and you are asked
to introduce yourself.
And so you go to the Introduce Yourself channel
and you start there.
Now, I would love to be well-firing the numbers,
but I can confidently tell you 100% of our members
doing that is not the case.
Because we have workers, because once again,
they've got the community life cycle.
You've got folks who want to be a part of community,
but don't want to be like super social in it.
And that's totally fine.
And we've got folks who maybe wanted the Indian raise earth,
but they don't know how to.
So you kind of have to have those conversations
that just make to understand who's in your community
and what's really important to them.
- So if I'm hearing you right,
it means like, your goal isn't necessarily
to get 100% of community members engaged every day.
For some people, that may not be what they're comfortable with,
that may not be what they want.
And it may be counterproductive to push people
out of their comfort zone
or what they're interested in to stay
at a level of engagement that's right for them.
- Yeah, now I think that's exactly it.
And we see this all with our community events, right?
Because community isn't just this virtual space
where people come and connect,
we try really hard to offer different types
of virtual events and in-person events
with different levels of activities.
So one of the things that we really focus on
whenever it comes to in-person events
is making sure that there's some type of an activity
for someone who doesn't want to socialize.
So a good example, we've got an event coming up
about "Hup Slatten Down This Year."
It's a casino might theme.
And what I love about it is you've got craft stables.
If you want to be the super loud person chatting
and having a blast, you've got blackjack tables
and poker tables.
If you want to just sit, feel like you're a part of it
without having to really communicate.
If that's not where you're most comfortable at.
And same thing with our virtual events.
You know, we've got webinars,
because some folks, they just like to consume content
and then just go on with their day.
And we've got master classes for folks
who want something super actionable
or we've got our round tables where it's super intimate
and those are six, eight people in a little session.
And we can really get into the nitty gritty.
So it's really meeting your members where they're at.
And honestly, the only way to do that is by asking them.
And I think that's something that we really have to focus
on in community.
- I think you could get more people
to a networking event at a conference
if you literally had an introvert break room.
Right?
How are the adjacent room where like the rules are,
you can go in here, you can stare at your phone
and no one's allowed to talk to anyone else.
Right?
And just make it wait.
'Cause you know, there's plenty of people
that just like, I want to engage,
but I got a limit and then I need a moment.
Right?
And so, you know, things thing in a community,
you meet people where they are,
you give people an opportunity to engage and grow,
but you're gonna have different types.
So another follow up question for you
is around the difference between or how you think
about the relationship between content and community.
I mean, is your content strategy driving community engagement?
Is community engagement creating content?
Imagine it's a little bit of a two way street.
- Yeah, absolutely.
I think with a demand community,
especially we're incredibly fortunate
and because it's for marketers
and our product as a company is for marketers.
And so a lot of our content aligns to each other.
And so we actually will drive a lot of inspiration
from the community and even source writers
and say, "Hey, you know, I love your question about this.
"Looks like there's a research.
"Would you be interested in writing for our blog?"
And so we do a lot of community source content.
We've done this in the past,
like at sales half roles of great,
was really great at doing stuff like this
where we would pull from really great examples
or great sessions.
If someone did a recap over session on LinkedIn
and we're like, "Wow, we love this.
"Would you find diving deeper?"
We'd love to promote this for you.
And so a lot of the content is driven from community members
but that's also a lot of times and people know this about me.
I just all go into the community and say,
"What do you want to learn more about?"
And so while the ideas are driven from them at that point,
we're also doing a lot of the execution too.
But it is a total 50/50 split.
- Awesome.
We got just about a minute left,
but we talk a lot about best practices.
I also like to feature dumpster fires.
So in your time managing communities,
is there a best practice pulled from something
that didn't work, that you might recommend
or caution other community managers from TryNOut?
- Absolutely.
A hundred and ten percent.
So I really struggle with this concept
and it is just because I think it's a really good idea,
it does not mean it is.
And so with community especially,
I'll be like, "Wow, this is such a great idea.
"Everyone's gonna want to do this thing to game
"or whatever."
And then no one does it and I feel like a complete failure.
Or I'd host a half-year before my time in community
about the Well and Nice Association.
And I was like, "Everyone was interested,
"I'm so excited, I did all this stuff."
And nobody showed up and I felt like such a loser,
but it was such a great reminder
and I've always held on to that
because just because I think it's a guy
and it doesn't mean my community members do.
And so once again, going to your community members
and getting that feedback before you plan
will make the world a difference.
- Yeah, especially if you are not representative
of your community, right?
If you are a marketing person and you are not,
I don't have a community of other marketing people,
or people sort of with similar sort of attributes.
- They're incredibly. - Definitely make sure
you're mapping it to what they care about,
not what you care about.
- Yes. (laughs)
- Great recommendations, awesome conversations.
Katie Ray, director of community at metadata.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
- Thanks Matt, appreciate you.
All right, well next up in our power hour,
we have EJ Olling the Vice President of ABX for Sixth Sense.
We're gonna talk a little about the art event orchestration.
EJ, how you doing?
- I'm doing well, how are you?
- Good, I feel like we're between events, right?
We've got the Forester event that you guys just rocked
down where were we, Austin, I think.
And then we've got the Breakthrough event.
You guys always do a great job on with your customer event.
You guys have really become event ninjas.
So I wanna talk about sort of the orchestration
of doing all that together.
But before we do that for those that don't know you,
introduce yourself, a little bit about Sixth Sense,
a little about your role there.
- Absolutely, so my name is EJ Olling.
I'm the VP of ABX.
I only like to go with letters.
So it's just letters, initials, and acronyms.
So we run everything from your events
to your go-to-market strategy, to partner marketing.
And then, you know, success is your revenue AI platform.
So I'm excited to dive in and do my favorite thing out there,
which is the experience.
- So you use specifically this term event orchestration.
So what does that mean, and what does that imply
about the strategy and approach that you take
to the events that you're doing?
- It's really event planning at the end of the day,
but we wanted to add a real fancy word to it.
But, you know, orchestration really is what dialing down
its data and experience equals pipeline.
I mean, that's really what it boils down for us,
'cause you have to take all those different parts,
bring it back to basics.
And so we use a lot of a five-step approach to get there,
but we really wanna craft a really unique experience
from people to walk away from.
- And what are their components of that
that you think about that are sort of more important
than other people to have, or their need to have
versus nice to have when you think about
that overall experience?
- Oh, 100%.
So knowing your audience, like who's your audience
that's gonna be there, how to target your audience,
how to create a unique experience from people
to walk away from.
We like to roll out the teal carpet for everybody.
We wanna make sure there's teal everywhere
when we think of Sixth Sense.
You know, and then it also is the follow-up out of it.
So how do you educate your audience,
that you're inviting to your event?
How do you educate your internal people
to make sure that they are all on the same page
of what they want?
And then what do you get out of it?
And that's the pipeline.
So we really look at it from like a five-step approach
to beginning to the middle to the end.
- How do you balance brand and demand?
I mean, and I know you guys well enough
that like, you know, you go to an event,
like, yeah, we gotta make sure we got meetings,
we've got opportunities, we wanna see pipeline
in our layout of this.
But there's also like when you go to an event,
whether it's your own or a third party,
there's a not inherently investing
in the brand and in the awareness as well.
How do you balance those two
and how does your strategy reflect that balance?
- So when we look at the events, you know,
we look at it, is this a brand awareness campaign?
You know, are we just making sure that there's sixes
and there's teal, you know, everywhere you're going
or kind of highlighting what are going to market strategy
is, you know, that quarter that we're working on.
And then we do wanna get the pipeline out of it.
So a lot of it is we do do a meeting quota.
So you talked about having meetings, you know,
so we really value having a meeting space or home base
and that home base is branded.
So whether people walk by and they see the space
and they know it has a six on it,
or, you know, we really wanna make sure
the clients feel that they have a place to come meet with us,
meet with our subject matter experts.
But it's a hard balance.
And I think that's a hard balance for a lot of people
wanna come to budget.
I mean, feel the same way about your brand as well, you know,
like where do you wanna get it out there versus
I really need to generate that ROI that comes out of it.
- Well, I mean, I think if you,
obviously you wanna get a positive ROI,
you wanna make sort of your investment profitable.
But if you're too myopically focused on that,
I think it's forced for the trees, right?
And so I think that, you know,
even this sort of talking about meetings, right?
You just, you, you, you,
you used the word meetings, you didn't say demo, right?
You didn't say capability's presentation.
So sometimes you're meeting with someone
that isn't ready to buy right now,
but you're forwarding the conversation.
And by doing that in a brand and experience,
in person makes a big difference.
- Oh, absolutely.
And I think sitting down,
and we really want to try to make sure
that we have people who are subject matter experts
across the board.
So maybe it is someone from product,
maybe it is someone from demand-gen,
maybe it isn't executive.
And so we have the right people in the right place.
So you get that experience.
And then you also get the warmness
and vibe this, "Xan Springs" to the table.
And that's really important to us too.
So if you come to Club 6, you walk away being,
I understand that brand.
And I understand the fun that they bring to the table.
I understand what they do.
You know, a lot of companies say they drink around Kool-Aid.
I prefer drinking bakasotas.
So we drink around bakasotas here, you know what I mean?
So we test the product first on RN
so we can really have those valuable conversations.
And that's what we bring to the meetings.
- I mean, a lot of people, like it's obviously,
we're all default to like,
what am I getting out of this relationship?
What does the product do for me?
How does it help me be more successful?
But I hear Brad Adams and talk a lot about
sort of this idea to identification.
Like, how does this brand make me feel?
What does my association with this brand mean?
How does that reflect on me?
And I think about like the experience at Forster
in the Club 6 you add.
And just like being in that room, right?
And being with you with the food and the drinks
and but while all the other people
in the conversation is going on,
being associated with that,
there was a feeling in a self-identity
that I assume was very intentional as part of your event stretch.
- All hundred percent, we want people to feel welcome.
And we want you to feel that you're with like-minded people
as well, you're all in there for the same goal.
We're all going to the same conference.
We all paid for the same badge, right?
We're all staying in the same hotel groups.
But we want to walk away and we at Sixth Sense
want to create this memorable moment
where you can sit down, you can put your feet up,
you can have that cup of coffee and you can take a breath.
And I think that's important too.
Not only do we want to make sure
that people are connecting and having conversations
but that you get to feel your best to you when you're on site.
So we'll do things with having unique swag.
That's not necessarily brandy Sixth Sense but it's teal
and so you have a little teal popa teal and it's my teal today.
Or we do a glam squad or we do things like that.
We want you to feel the best to you,
walk in way out of it.
- You impact that ROI by making sure
that you've got the right people in the room
from the right accounts, right?
And so I'm assuming there's a different strategy you have
on that when you're going to something like a orister event
for a third party event versus running your own breakthrough
events and doing CMO breakfasts and other things.
What are some of your best strategies for making sure
that you're targeting the right accounts at the right events
to maximize that ROI?
- Oh for sure.
So like every other event you go,
you get the list like three weeks ahead of time.
So we'll use Sixth Sense, right?
We'll use our own product to kind of see
who's going to be there, we enrich the data,
we pull previous event lists, we pull regional,
we expand our team in certain moments as well.
And so we'll kind of pull all that data together
and then we'll look at who is in our ICP,
who do we want to get there
and how do we want to connect the dots?
When it comes to something like breakthrough,
we do a big customer focus.
What value are they going to get out of the conference
and that's the audience that we want there?
I mean, anybody can sign up for any conference to go to
but what are you going to get out of it
because that raises our ROI too.
What are you going to learn so that we can learn together?
- Absolutely.
The one thing I harp on a lot around event strategies,
I mean, people think about what they're doing
before the event and at the event.
Oftentimes the post event becomes an afterthought
and then you're moving on to the next event
and moving to the next strategy and that campaign.
We'll talk about some of the best practices
you've identified at Leverage for that post event strategy
to maximize the momentum you have as well as the ROI.
- The beginning of the know the end, right?
We talked about it earlier, the end is key.
I mean, that's really where you take all the conversations
you have, you know, we use a tool, we use Jiffle,
for example, for Forrester where we collected all the data
we needed and how to align it with opportunities
for on-site at the event.
And then we take that and we work with our sales team
and we work on what are those conversations,
how are we moving them through the funnel?
You know, we talk about different types of emails that we did.
We did customized muting pages this time.
You know, we, you can use all these different tools out there
which is amazing.
I look back on my career and wish I had all these things.
But, you know, we have to use all these amazing tools
to then help, how do you carry that conversation forward
we work with our BDR team.
We have a certain strategy for our sales team
versus our CSM team, you know.
So we really look at all the different pockets of information
and then we think about how to take it forward
and then how do we carry it on to like the next event.
So you might have at Forrester,
maybe we'll see you in Empower.
Maybe then we see you at Dreamforce.
We'd love to see you at Breakthrough.
So we really try to keep that streamline approach
throughout of them.
- So we're kind of past, I think, some of the COVID bubble
that we're seeing a lot more people coming out to events
that we're seeing pre-pandemic volume of people
has your thoughts about in-person versus virtual events
changed since 2019 or are we kind of back to,
back to the old normal, is there a new normal
when you think about the right mix of formats?
- Oh, new normal, such a phrase.
I think, you know, it's not gonna be how it was
but that's okay and I think it's okay that things change.
You know, the prices of everything have changed
so we should change along with it, right?
So I think doing virtual works for a virtual environment
doing webinars, educational things, things like this,
like short, quick things, I think webinars are fabulous.
People do want that human interaction
so then you do that in-person thing.
I think that hybrid is hard.
You know, I think it's hard to please both audiences.
So do one thing really well.
So pick that virtual avenue and go down it
and it's cost-save and you're still gonna put money into it.
You know, I mean, you need to do it the right way
and then you do that in-person
but you know, there's the fun and the vibe
and the energy of an in-person event.
I mean, it makes me go in, you know?
I love it.
- Well, you can't replace that, right?
I mean, whether you're an introvert or extrovert,
we are social animals, right?
Like we have been trained over tens of thousands of years
to be with each other.
And I think there's nothing that can replace that
when you do it and find it selectively,
find the opportunities to do 10 minute interviews like this.
Great, efficient, moving on.
But boys, whites of the eyes, you know,
these handshakes and, you know, occasional happy hours,
totally worth it.
Well, EJ Oling, VP of ABX,
all the letters and acronyms in the world for you.
Thank you so much for joining us on our hour today.
- Thank you.
- All right, well, next up we have Marissa Krennis.
She is the VP of Social Marketing at Salesforce.
And we're gonna talk a little bit here
on building event complimentary social media strategies.
Marissa, thanks very much for joining us.
- Well, thank you so much for having me.
- So, I mean, there's so many ways we could sort of dig into this.
And I think maybe we'll all start with just as the leader,
the social team at Salesforce,
maybe talk a little bit about your role
and how that fits into the broader market.
- Yeah, so Salesforce Social really is across
the entire company.
We have social in all different places,
but we've created a centralized center of excellence
that owns a majority of our channels,
but also really thinks about how we're pushing social out
to our employees, how we're looking at community management,
crisis, operations, analytics.
So we have a very large-scale kind of thing
that we're area that we're working on across social media.
And then one of our biggest and best elements of that
and where I actually came from was the events world.
So we do have a focus on Salesforce events as well.
- You can't think about Salesforce
without thinking about Dreamforce.
I mean, Salesforce really sort of invented,
sort of reimagined what B2B and SAS events can be like.
So obviously Salesforce does events really, really well.
Let's talk about what it's like to plan content
and social content around, like how do you get the word out?
Where does that start?
How does it evolve over time?
Kind of unpacked that a little bit more.
- Okay, so let me just say I actually came to Salesforce
as an MBA intern in product marketing for service cloud.
So I am a heart and service cloud from way back.
And it was a summertime.
So every one of the interns was working on Dreamforce.
So when I had the opportunity to come back to Salesforce
to work specifically on events in Dreamforce,
I was like, heck yes.
This is where the magic happens.
This is really where we're showcasing our brand
to the entire world and not just our brand, our humanity.
And who we are, not just as a company,
but as human beings within the company.
And so I'm a huge Salesforce events fan,
even having moved into more of an overall brand role.
I find that Salesforce is not only looking at
how do we showcase our products,
but how do we again showcase who we are
and then also how do we bring people together?
When I think about events in general
and especially social media,
I think about three key pillars
and that's awareness, education and community.
Awareness can really depending on where you are at
in terms of your event strategy
and how big your events are at Salesforce,
I'm gonna be honest with you.
We don't always need to focus as much
on getting demand and we are going to fill the room
no matter what.
So awareness is really how do we take that
beyond the in-person event,
make that broader, make that virtual,
and then how do we actually create something
that's beyond, oh, this is the tech event
because it really is so much more.
And then education and that's a two-prong
and that really comes up in the free during and post as well.
It's first free, like Dreamforce is huge.
It can be a little bit overwhelming.
And how do we educate people
so they're able to make the most of their time at the event?
If you come in without an understanding
of what you're trying to take away,
who you're trying to meet with,
what kind of sessions you wanna go to,
you're gonna be lost.
Honestly, it could be very overwhelming.
So we're educating people beforehand
on how to make the most out of your systems.
I'm in community.
Salesforce is definitely a community driven company as well.
One of my favorite things I've been at the company now
over 10 years and I'd say that that's what
is the big thing that keeps me here
is not only the employees at Salesforce
but this entire community of trailblazers now.
And it's re-event, it's very, how do we connect them?
So when they get to the event, let's say they're going solo,
how do they have relationships with other people
in the community that could help them along
within their Dreamforce journey?
And then how do we not only showcase these individuals
that are doing amazing things with Salesforce,
but how do we help them bring others in
and create an even bigger and more inclusive community?
- Engagement and community really sort of seems to be
the summary of what you just said, right?
Which is so, so important and so evident
in the so much of Salesforce's social strategy
and implementation, I wanna ask you about sort of pre-during
and post-event strategies, right?
And so like the one event happens, you know,
it's how do you sort of, what are some best practices
for building height, for getting people excited?
You know, whether it's about getting people registered
or just getting people engaged, you know,
before the event begins.
- Yeah, absolutely.
We do start, you know, more than 100 days out
and I will be honest, we're consistently on that road
to Dreamforce.
Everything that we do, all of our product launches,
all of our other events, connections, trailhead DX,
World War is really all about being on that road
to Dreamforce.
And so, so, so, obviously, a huge part
of all of those events leading up.
I think one of the biggest things,
and one of my biggest tips is really take your partnership
with your cross-functional partners
and stakeholders very seriously.
We have such close relationships with our demand gen teams,
with our creative teams, with our operations teams,
with everyone that's actually running activations
on the ground.
So, we're not only able to showcase what they are
on social beforehand, we're really set up for success
for that during experience.
And so, going back again, awareness, education,
community, pre-event, we're showcasing,
who's gonna be speaking, who is,
what's gonna be on the ground,
how is it gonna be the most magical event ever via social?
We're also having a lot of fun.
You'll see that especially on our Dreamforce handles
is that we're really engaging the audiences
where they are, if that means they're on threads,
if they're on Instagram, if they're on Twitter,
if they're on LinkedIn, we're finding them,
we're having fun with them, we're putting out memes,
we're creating video content, and we're really engaging.
Again, community engagement is so big
to making sure people are excited and hyped up for the event.
And again, as noted, education.
We don't want people to show up and not know where to go.
- Right, well, I mean, it's too often, I think,
with B2B, like we take ourselves too seriously,
and the personality- - I know.
- Yeah, the personality of Salesforce has overall,
and the overall Salesforce brand is just so great
and so refreshing, and to see that across,
you know, the social platforms as well.
During the event itself, like, what are some of your best
practices for getting and keeping people engaged?
Especially knowing that there are now more
in before channels, right?
I mean, you know, this is even before we even started
this conversation, I think threads didn't even exist
from Facebook, so how do you do that during the event?
- Well, first of all, we have an amazing team
and an amazing agency support.
And so again, it really is pre-planning a lot.
So we have War Room beforehand, I hate that word, actually.
So we have like happiness temps, let's say that,
that feels like a lot better, but we're planning everything,
we're building out every schedule,
and we're using our publishing partners as well,
Sprout to make sure that everything is planned appropriately.
And I'd say during it as well, we're thinking about,
we are so in touch even like our Black Off,
or our like crisis cause, making sure that we're connected
all of those cross partners.
We do have to think about the platform separately, right?
So LinkedIn, you're not gonna be posting every five seconds.
Well, Twitter, I mean, I guess threads,
you can do a little bit more of that.
But we also, again, it comes back
to that community management.
For me, it also comes back about thinking about
that this is actually at least three and fours.
Can we consider two separate events?
It's that in-first mix experience,
and that's the virtual experience.
So in-person, we're really making sure
we have social-first activations off site,
and again, this comes back to that close relationship
with our event, Thanars, where we can actually build
in social activations across the campus.
We're getting that time with speakers,
with trailblazers to content in-person as well.
I'm creating some surprise and delight moments,
and of course, we have a community management team
that is answering every question,
where's the bathroom?
We've got you within five seconds,
and we are providing you that information.
And thinking about that virtual experience,
it's also a lot of the same thing,
but you're thinking about it a little bit.
So what are those online social-first experiences?
Can we get them to print out something?
Can we do a bingo card?
And it is that, again, that community management
and engagement in social streaming is a big one.
So where are we streaming our big keynotes,
our fun moments, and how are we sharing
those experiences on site and having them be
leverage for our virtual audience?
All right, we got just about a minute left,
but I want to ask you about post-event strategy.
So a lot of people think about pre-event,
getting people excited during event, getting people.
And too often, after the event,
we moved on to the next thing.
Like, what are your post-event best practices
for repurposing content and keeping that community engaged?
I thought you were going to ask me,
what's my post-event plan myself,
and it's often time to sleep?
Nap. Yeah, no, it's always nap.
Yeah, it's absolutely.
But I would say that the biggest thing is that
these events are content-created, create chin machines.
So we are building so much content on site
that we can utilize for years to come.
We can use clips from keynotes.
I still sometimes will go back to keynotes from years past
and be like, what is the best snippet that we can use?
Lots of clips, not posting your full videos,
you know, the hour-long videos,
but finding those really magic moments within the keynotes
and reposting those and linking out to that longer form.
Wrap up, blogs are always great.
And then continuing the engagement
and asking for those look backs from the community.
So it's a lot of re-utilization of content
and how you can make it new and how you can lead to your biggest
announcements and product development.
So great, so much to unpack there.
Marissa, Kranis, thank you so much for joining us
and for sharing so much about what you're doing
in social sales force.
Thank you so much, Matt.
All right, well, next in the power hour,
we've got Belinda Joseph joining us,
head of events in community for Goldcast.
And we're gonna talk about why hybrid events
don't have to be scary.
Belinda, thanks very much for joining us today.
Also, thank you so much, Matt, as I'm excited to be here
to talk about hybrid, everything hybrid.
Well, everything hybrid, we use a hybrid omni-channel,
the right, you know, community everywhere.
So we're gonna get into this, sort of this hybrid approach
to event and community.
But maybe first tell me, tell us a little bit of you,
your role and the team you have gone on right now.
Yeah, absolutely.
So as mentioned, I'm the head of events
in community at Goldcast.
So right now, you know, we are in the midst of H2 planning.
So we're, you know, getting ready to enter
a really heavy event season, you know,
as a event platform company, that is our sole
Gold and Market strategies events.
So we are in the process of kind of revamping
a couple of our event series.
We're looking to introduce a new event series,
but so really excited about that.
You know, we got Dreamforce coming up and inbound.
So doing a lot of in-person events as well,
some sponsorship opportunities.
But we're really just trying to, you know,
make sure that the team's aligned with our product marketing
and our product, you know, kind of roadmap
and make sure that a lot of the events
that we're gonna be either hosting or sponsoring
is very much aligned with some of our upcoming product releases.
And so yeah, we're, I'm excited.
We got some really great fun, exciting stuff planned
for the rest of the year.
- That's awesome.
So we'll dig into a little bit of that in a minute.
I think the, you know, we hear a lot of people
just saying the last few months, like events are back, right?
Especially again, burst of events.
We're seeing examples of, you know, attendance levels
and engagement levels or the pre-pandemic levels that said,
we have learned over the last couple of years
that we can create a great experience without leaving our house.
We can create a great experience.
Might I be able to reach more people than we could have before
and create sort of these different levels of experiences?
So I'm just curious, like, how do you think about now,
you know, middle of 2023, the event experience
and how do you think about in-person versus virtual
or hybrid and when to do what?
Like how does, what's the thought process going to that?
- Yeah. I mean, as I mentioned, you know,
for us that is our sole go-to-market strategy.
So, you know, I'm really looking at the full on
like customer journey, right?
So we're doing events all year round,
but I'm really looking at like the type of events
that we want to do depending on the stage
of the funnel that they're in.
So, you know, we're doing a lot of our digital events
for that kind of initial top of funnel stage
and a lot of thought, you know, thought leadership,
more brand awareness, kind of bringing a lot
of those net new needs.
So that event series that I mentioned earlier,
that's where kind of that falls into that bucket.
And then we start using like webinars
for that middle funnel.
So we start thinking about topical conversations
that we want to have or things that we want to present
on for the webinars and then also being very product specific.
So maybe we're highlighting certain product features.
We're doing demos or so forth or some sort of training.
And then finally, where the in-person comes in
is more of that bottom funnel.
And I think it makes the most sense, at least for us,
'cause you have those, you know, existing leads
and a calisthenry engaged with.
You're trying to move them through that cell cycle.
So this is an opportunity to get into a room,
have some of that face-to-face time with them.
And that's where we're seeing where in-person events
is really becoming really beneficial and crucial
for that stage of the customer journey.
I love that framework of thinking about it
in terms of the job to be done, right?
And the role in those different areas,
maybe just like, you know, walk us through the process
of sort of planning one of these, right?
And I think we're a place where, you know,
you've got a hybrid event,
but the hybrid event is part of a campaign.
It's a broader body where it's going on.
Like, where does that begin?
What are the objectives and goal setting look like?
What kind of strategic or goal alignments
to have it across teams before you even start getting
into tactics and everything else?
- Yeah.
- And the first thing, you know, that's important is like,
is really understanding first your audience
and like your objectives as a whole, you know,
like what are you hoping to get out of this?
'Cause I'm not gonna sit here and say like,
you should do hybrid for everything
or you should do digital for everything.
Like you wanna be very thoughtful about that
and does it make the most sense for your audience
and for the objective that you're trying to achieve
at that moment?
And so where hybrid makes sense, you know,
I think it's great for when you're doing large-scale events
and you're trying to get in front of a really large
global audience.
And so as you're thinking through that,
I think a couple of things you wanna think about first
before you start getting into all the planning
and the tactical things are, you know,
again, what is the objective that I wanna get out
of this event?
You know, what is the experience gonna look like
between my virtual and in-person, right?
And I think that's where a lot of people get hung up.
It's like, if you're essentially putting on two events,
right? 'Cause you're having a virtual audience
that you need to plan for versus your in-person audience
that you need to plan for.
What is that production value gonna look like?
You know, you still, you can't replicate exactly
the in-person experience for your virtual,
but you still want them to have a good experience, right?
So looking at, you know, what is the production value,
you know, how you're gonna make sure you're getting it
from the right AV, you know, are you gonna do live,
are you gonna do prerecorded?
And then, you know, I think, you know,
how are you going to ensure that the engagement is there?
So even though you have these two separate audiences,
what can you do to make sure they're engaging
with your content, with your speakers,
as well as engaging both audiences?
Are there ways or tools that you can go about doing that?
And so I think, again, I think that's really
the key thing, is just really sitting down and planning that out
as far as what that's gonna look like.
And then, you know, as far as like setting the goals,
you know, I think this is where
event data comes into play, which is gonna be super helpful.
I mean, obviously when you do digital,
there's so much information that you can gather
about your attendees, like, you know,
how much time they spent at a session,
or did they ask questions, or did they submit poll responses?
So I would also think about,
similarly, when you do have an in-person audience,
it's part of your hybrid.
If you have the right tools, you can also capture
that same information from your in-person audience
that you may not have been able to do before.
So there's a lot of data that I think you could start
thinking about, and things that you wanna track,
and then how you can utilize that data
to help with future events, as well as your follow-up process
afterwards.
- So, well, and those are some really good best practices,
but let's get into some dumpster fires as well.
- Okay. - Yeah, what are some of the,
if we're to a pre-post mortem on an event
that may be like, well-intentioned,
didn't go as way you want,
what are some of the common pitfalls
and challenges of doing an effective hybrid event?
So what are some of the fire drills
and dumpster fires you wanna help people with?
- There's always tech, right?
I mean, there's tech issues, of course.
I think that's a very common thing,
and I think that's something you can expect.
So I always think, make sure you have the right support
people that are there to kind of help
with any kind of those type of fire drills.
So, you know, there might be audio issues,
camera issues, internet connectivity issues,
but then also, speakers maybe not showing up
when they're supposed to, you know,
or not being in the place that they need to be.
But those are things that you kind of need to think of
through and kind of plan ahead
and just being ready for that.
If you have digital, you know,
if you are doing a pre-recording
or showing any kind of videos,
you know, that can also have,
potentially have issues with, you know,
that coming through or having delays.
So just again, a lot of that can be prevented early on,
like the rehearsals, the tech runs and tech checks
and so forth.
I think the biggest hiccups will be technical.
Other issues, you know, going over time or, you know,
just, you know, it happens.
Speakers run over or, you know,
or there is a cutoff maybe your speaker runs over.
So then they get cut off right away
and virtually your attendees no longer can hear or see them.
So again, I think it's all about just making sure
you have to be people that are in the platform digitally
as well as onsite to make sure that they can help
address those important issues like right away.
- That's awesome.
Thank you for sharing that.
I'm curious also your perspective on bringing in sales,
customer success, account management folks in new events.
Just that'll be create a great experience
but to sort of support and follow up with, you know,
the attendees.
How do you do that effectively to create the right experience
for attendees without making them feel like they're
chumming the water for a bunch of sharks
coming and trying to convert them?
- Yeah.
So actually what we utilize as Slack integration
for a lot of our, especially for the digital portion.
So if an account enters an event, our reps are getting
notified right away to let them know that,
hey, you know, account so and so from account,
this is now enter the event.
Here's a link like why don't you go and join them.
So I think it's a great way for the rep to be able to jump in,
say hello, see if they have any questions.
So it's really real time, right, follow up with them.
But then I think it's also just making sure there's alignment.
So even before the event happens,
like in that pre-planning phase,
just make sure there's alignment across your cells and CSMs
about the event, who we're expecting to be there.
And then kind of what's that call to action afterwards
and just making sure there's clear visibility
and who's going to be owning what,
like who's going to be doing the follow up
and then what that should be like.
So, you know, it's important obviously that the cells teams,
the CS seems team, follows up with those leads quickly
and that, you know, that they have the information
that they need.
Again, we take a lot of the event data that we get
from our digital events and we share that with our CSMs
and our reps so they can really deliver
a more customized personal follow up message
after the event's over.
- Yeah, just real quick before we wrap up,
you know, you bring up this concept of data, right?
I think, you know, people think about the experience
and sort of having the production of having an event,
but the data, the richness of data in terms of engagement
towards what people were interested in using that
in the follow up, obviously really critical to making,
not only the event success,
but making the follow up in the ROI.
- Exactly.
Exactly, exactly.
Awesome, well, thank you so much for joining us.
We'll let you Joseph head of events and community
for Goldcast.
Thanks for joining us for Powerout today.
- All right, thank you Matt.
- Well, that's a wrap guys.
Thank you so much for attending our Power Hour.
Really excited to have our great guests join us today.
Hope you've gotten a lot out of this presentation
and out of this hour.
Look forward to seeing you at the rest of the Qualified event.
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