One of the biggest differentiators today for B2B brands is the best possible customer experience. Since there really is no substitute for real-world interactions, activating influencers at events is one of the best customer content strategies out there today. On this episode, I interview Lee Odden, CEO and co-founder of Top Rank Marketing, about why events are an ideal format for influencer content collaboration. What we talked about: Customer content strategies that activate influencers The importance of speakers in building a brand The ingredients of activated content Strategies (like live blogging) that augment an event Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast: Lee’s LinkedIn Certain 

Masters of Events

EP 6: Why Influencers & Events Are Made for Each Other

How do you create a fantastic experience for your event guests? It all starts with that initial interaction. Merideth Ranahan manages executive event production at Capital One. She came on this episode of the Masters of Events podcast to talk about what you need to keep in mind to ensure that initial interaction is the start of a great experience for your guests.  We also talked covered topics like: What Meredith’s has learned through her experience on both the agency and client side of event production The types of data that matter in the execution of events Why it’s just as important to create a great experience for internal event attendees as it is for public event attendees 

EP 5: How to Produce Internal Events That People Actually Want to Attend w/ Merideth Ranahan

We’ve been talking a lot about first impressions. So, have you ever thought about how important name badges are? On this episode of the Masters of Events podcast, Benny Aguila, Sr. Marketing Events Specialist for Blue Shield of California, came on the show to talk about another first impression that’s crucial when it comes to guest experience: name badges.  We also talked about: Reporting event performance Getting feedback from event attendees How Benny is employing technology in his event strategy Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast: Benny’s LinkedIn Certain  

EP 4: 4 Questions to Ask Your Event Attendees That Will Help You Build a Better Guest Experience w/ Benny Aquila

In this episode of Masters of Events, we interviewed Sydney Leopold, Global Events Marketing Manager at Sophos. Sydney talked about how she uses events to drive the mission of her company, how she thinks about event goals and metrics, and how to build a great event team.

EP 3: How a Great Team, the Right Technology, and Meaningful Metrics Can Lead to Successful Events and Increased ROI w/ Sydney Leopold

ABM is the best thing to happen to event marketers.  That’s because it allows them to be far more targeted at events, whether they’re of the trade show/conference variety or company-produced (e.g., VIP dinners, workshops). Listen in as Jessica Fewless, VP of ABM Strategy at Demandbase, shares some practical thoughts on how to select the shows you should go to in a given year based on the percentage of target accounts who will be attending.

EP 2: How ABM Has Changed the Game for Event Marketers w/ Jessica Fewless

Events are a core part of marketing. If it’s not already a key part of your marketing mix, you’re missing out. Events not only help deliver the mission of your marketing campaign but they help deliver the mission of the company as a whole. On today’s episode, we sit down with Rodney Siebels, Global Events Director at National Instruments. His company seriously values the face-to-face interaction that an event offers, and we do too. “...enabling our customers to touch and feel our hardware and software will convert them to a sale or to become a partner because they develop an emotional attachment.”  At the beginning of the event planning process, they ask: what are the core goals and objectives of the current campaign? This allows them to report on deliverables from the time their onsite to the end. When it comes to decision-making, they’re a data driven organization.  They use key performance indicators to evaluate and adjust event marketing plans. And they use data before and during an event to make decisions around how to provide the best customer experience.  Tune in to learn more about how NI using data to create events tailored made for their customers.

EP 1: Why Events Need to Be a Key Part of Your Marketing Plan w/ Rodney Siebels

Many companies use events as their primary channel for marketing and engaging with their customers. And for good reason. Events are a wonderful place where people can meet face-to-face, which is important now more than ever. Companies use events not only to meet with their customers but to share their vision, showcase what’s new and get a pulse on their community.  And Kristen Alexander, chief marketing officer at Certain, loves to take those events to the next level with our event automation platform. Certain’s platform helps people extract data from their event strategy-- from the planning to the execution and post nurturing. And that’s why we’re so excited to finally launch the Masters of Events podcast!  We’ve been capturing data signals from event engagement and using it for smarter marketing for years now, and we’re ready to start sharing those insights. Tune into our podcast to hear from leading event marketing professionals and event planners as they share their best practices. We’ve noticed a real need to create community within the event marketing strategy and event planner world-- and we’re excited to lead the charge.   Tell us what you want to hear about on our new show!

EP 0: Why You Should Listen to Masters of Events

Masters of Events is a podcast dedicated to helping you deliver memorable events with measurable business results. Join our lineup of world-class marketers and event planners as we explore delivering exceptional event experiences, and cover best practices for using data to build relationships and drive pipeline. Each episode features topics like event planning, running conferences and global events, marketing and promoting events, using event technology, developing a data strategy and success metrics, personalization, attendee engagement, event ROI and more.