How event marketers are going digital — Marc Sirkin // Third Door Media

Quotes

• “It’s really been challenging for event marketing and I think that is how it’s going to be for the foreseeablefuture. As we sit right here today, a lot of cities are debating about re-opening and we don’t necessarily even know what that means, how long it might take or what kind of impact it might have.” -Marc “I absolutely believe that in-person events will be back. We believe that they have huge value for marketers and there are great things that marketers can use to drive the customer experience to lead generation that they want. The challenge that we have is when, how long is it going to take and what is it going to look like on the other side.” -Marc “The environment is really interesting because you are seeing a collision of experience in delivering digital experiences. A webinar is not a new thing, online content is not a new thing, a video call is not a new thing but it is coming together where a lot of event organizers are trying to figure out how to take the traditional 3-4-day event with networking and breakfast. Like, how do you bring that online.” -Marc “Everything starts with, can we deliver a value proposition for marketers. In this case, the MarTech conference brings a really explicit promise that when you come to our event, whether it is virtual or digital, you are going to learn some things, get some new ideas, walk away with tactics and strategies and have a great experience that can help you become a better marketer.” -Marc“It doesn’t change. Whether you’re doing it online or in-person, that value proposition has to be delivered. The question of how you do that in the digital space with the current technology is interesting.” -Marc“The first place we went was to our marketing services group who does hundreds of webinars a year. So we asked, ‘What can your platform do for us for something that is three days long with 30 to 50 sessions, what does that look like?’ So they came on-board as a sponsor and helped us learn that part of the technology, get it up and running.” -Marc“But once you pick a technology platform, unlike a physical event, you are kind of stuck with it. So we use ON24, you are stuck with their things and we picked it because in the 4-week time that we have to get things up and running, there is just no opportunity to pick a different platform. That’s how we ended up with themand it performed, we didn’t have one technology-related issue.” -Marc“In the four weeks that we have, we said ‘how can we reduce some of the risks here?’ This was a really risky proposition to announce both for the cancellation of the MarTech show andthe creation of the other and we have 4 weeks in between those two things.” -Marc“It was a risk-reward thing. Like, yes we can do it live but we still have to talk to the speakers and get everything in place, and then they all have to show up and perform. So, we said if we could get everybody to record their stuff and reduce and removeall those risks, and the answer was, yes. We pulled it off. I think it was a good decision. Can you imagine if the eastern C-board internet goes down in the middle of a conversation with 8,000 people registered?” -Marc“Smart event marketers don’t put salespeople on stage. They put the product guy or the head of the customer service. They put the right people with the right message and come to it with an education mindset and this is something that is changing in the event world.” -Marc“Now the expectations in these events is that they are going to tailor it with more content. It’s exciting because who do you want to hear from? Do you want to hear from brands? Great. I get it. But if I can hear from a Product Manager of a platform that I really want to understand more about, that’s great.” -Marc“We are really committed to giving those people a platform and let them talk about what they want to talk about and hope that they don’t sell because that is not what people want. They don’t want to be sold to, they want to learn.” -Marc “It was a free event and for a reason. What is so cool about what’s going on, competitive or not is the amount of innovation that is happening right now in the virtual event space. You are seeing incredible new technology that provides really cool networking opportunities, personalization of content, and really just a huge amount of innovation because there are no events right now and we don’t know how long that is going to last.” -Marc“It’s showtime for MarTech event vendors. This is their opportunity to shine. There are so many people rushing right now to the virtual space for an event because the truth is, the economics for it is different.” -Marc“Conceptually, you can run a virtual event a lot less expensively. The question of monetization is a great one. Because these technologies are so easy to access, everybody has the platform and the tools, you’re banking on brand and amplification and partnership to drive attendance to put those butts in the seats.” -Marc “Idon’t know why an event sales team can charge insane amount of money for a virtual event as they can for an in-person event. I was like, ‘Really? Isn’t this just about getting the leads?’ At the end of the day, your sponsored events is a lead gen channel.The question is if the quality is the same, then fair enough.” -Marc