Mastering Event Engagement Through Customer Stories
Learn how Karin Flores, VP of Strategic Events at Okta, utilizes customer stories and why they are always the greatest asset in any marketing campaign.
Okta is the leading independent identity provider. The Okta Identity Cloud enables organizations to securely connect the right people to the right technologies at the right time. With more than 7,000 pre-built integrations to applications and infrastructure providers, Okta provides simple and secure access to people and organizations everywhere, giving them the confidence to reach their full potential. More than 10,000 organizations, including JetBlue, Nordstrom, Siemens, Slack, T-Mobile, Takeda, Teach for America, and Twilio, trust Okta to help protect the identities of their workforces and customers.
Guest Bio
Karin Flores is the Vice President of Strategic Events Marketing, Executive Engagement Programs and the Customer Experience Center at Okta, the Worlds #1 Identity Platform. In her role, she oversees Okta's event marketing portfolio including the company's annual Oktane event which draws thousands to San Francisco and online, global Okta City tours and their Customer Experience Center. Karin manages a team of stellar event strategists, leaders in their own right who deliver Okta’s proprietary in person events as well as Okta’s digital events. In addition, she and her team oversee corporate marketing industry sponsorships, strategic alliances programs and third party industries events.
She is in charge of leading the team to deliver end-to-end strategy, demand generation marketing, content development and execution of all broadcasting and virtual events. Under Karin's leadership, the event marketing team provides consistency in global messaging, branding and momentum through the delivery of successful core programs. In 2019 , Karin was named to the “Dream Team” for event strategy by Event Marketer magazine, which recognizes outstanding B2B experiential marketers in their annual Dream Team issue.
Guest Bio
Karin Flores is the Vice President of Strategic Events Marketing, Executive Engagement Programs and the Customer Experience Center at Okta, the Worlds #1 Identity Platform. In her role, she oversees Okta's event marketing portfolio including the company's annual Oktane event which draws thousands to San Francisco and online, global Okta City tours and their Customer Experience Center. Karin manages a team of stellar event strategists, leaders in their own right who deliver Okta’s proprietary in person events as well as Okta’s digital events. In addition, she and her team oversee corporate marketing industry sponsorships, strategic alliances programs and third party industries events.
She is in charge of leading the team to deliver end-to-end strategy, demand generation marketing, content development and execution of all broadcasting and virtual events. Under Karin's leadership, the event marketing team provides consistency in global messaging, branding and momentum through the delivery of successful core programs. In 2019 , Karin was named to the “Dream Team” for event strategy by Event Marketer magazine, which recognizes outstanding B2B experiential marketers in their annual Dream Team issue.
Episode Summary
This episode features an interview with Karin Flores, VP of Strategic Events at Okta, a software development company enabling organizations to securely connect the right people to the right technologies at the right time.
In this episode, Karin talks about how Okta is augmenting its portfolio to meet the needs of their customers, how customer stories are always the greatest asset in any marketing campaign, and what it means for brand personas to be more connected than ever before.
Key Takeaways
- Know the true identity of your customers. After Covid, we learned we didn't’ know our customers as well as we thought we did, yet all we do is centered around our customers. So, it’s an important time to utilize technology and augment marketing portfolios to truly meet the needs of your customers and give them an outlet to share their stories.
- You always have to be in change motion. You can’t build your portfolio or event after it’s been created: you have to constantly poke at it and make necessary changes. Otherwise, you’re behind.
- As a marketer, you need to ask yourself: what am I trying to accomplish? Everything about your program is built from understanding your end goal.
Quotes
“We've really started to augment our portfolio to meet the needs of our customers. I think you always have to be in this change motion, change motion. I think you can't build your portfolio anymore, build your event, leave it and be like, this works and then just let it go. You can't, you constantly have to be poking at it and have to be making changes. You have to be willing to make changes. You have to look at what you're doing and change 50%. The times are changing, we change, the way we do business is changing, our priorities are changing, and if you're not making those changes, you're behind.” –Karin Flores, VP Strategic Events, Okta
Episode Highlights
Episodes Transcript
- Know the true identity of your customers. After Covid, we learned we didn't’ know our customers as well as we thought we did, yet all we do is centered around our customers. So, it’s an important time to utilize technology and augment marketing portfolios to truly meet the needs of your customers and give them an outlet to share their stories.
- You always have to be in change motion. You can’t build your portfolio or event after it’s been created: you have to constantly poke at it and make necessary changes. Otherwise, you’re behind.
- As a marketer, you need to ask yourself: what am I trying to accomplish? Everything about your program is built from understanding your end goal.
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