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Event-led Growth Best Practices (Hint – It's Not Just About the Event!) · Sales Pipeline Radio

• 0:15
  Matt Heinz: All right, live on the Forrester B2B Summit Marketplace floor.
• 0:20
  So thankful to the Forrester team for making this possible.
• 0:23
  Get some great interviews here.
• 0:24
  Kate, we've been talking to Forrester analysts, we've been talking to CMOs.
• 0:27
  We've been talking to ROI winners and just covering a wide gamut.
• 0:32
  Of go to market strategies, tactics, a little bit of AI, 'cause you know,
• 0:36
  it's 2025, we have to talk about it.
• 0:38
  But I'm excited to talk to you about event led growth.
• 0:40
  So very excited.
• 0:40
  Kate Hammitt, who is the VP of Marketing at Cvent, CMO at Splash, event led growth.
• 0:46
  What is that?
• 0:49
  Kate Hammitt: It's something that's been around.
• 0:50
  Yeah.
• 0:50
  We're starting to really put a label on it as marketers love
• 0:54
  to do, get some parameters around what is event led growth.
• 0:58
  Yep.
• 0:58
  Thinking about like product led growth.
• 1:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:01
  Partner led growth, enter event led growth, essentially
• 1:05
  how you use the event channel.
• 1:08
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:08
  As a true marketing channel to drive pipeline, revenue expansion,
• 1:15
  and be really strategic about it.
• 1:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:16
  So, you know, the one-off event moving into event programs.
• 1:22
  Yeah.
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  Instead of just doing, you know, things ad hoc.
• 1:24
  Yeah.
• 1:25
  Really, looking at your pipeline and saying, how do I need to augment here?
• 1:30
  Where do I need to engage prospects?
• 1:33
  Where do I need to engage post-sale?
• 1:35
  Yeah.
• 1:35
  And bringing that all together and making sure that it aligns with strategy.
• 1:38
  Matt Heinz: It totally maps.
• 1:39
  I mean, as we get more and more AI doing jobs at a digital level, as AI
• 1:44
  makes it easier, faster, cheaper to send messages out, we're actually creating
• 1:48
  a bigger problem in marketplaces.
• 1:51
  I mean, as a CMO, I'm sure your email inbox is even worse now because of AI.
• 1:56
  Kate Hammitt: Absolutely.
• 1:57
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 1:57
  Yeah.
• 1:57
  And, so when we overcrowd those channels, we need to invest in places
• 2:01
  where you can have real meaningful interactions where you can create
• 2:05
  real, meaningful relationships.
• 2:07
  And I think that's where events really come to play, where you can
• 2:10
  have that multisensory experience.
• 2:13
  Kate Hammitt: Exactly.
• 2:13
  Matt Heinz: Where you can differentiate something that is for individuals
• 2:16
  and then where you can think about it, not just as that point event.
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  I loved your comment about programmatic versus ad hoc.
• 2:21
  Mm-hmm.
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  And thinking this is not a random acts of events.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  But really creating a sustainable, repeatable program around that.
• 2:26
  Kate Hammitt: Exactly.
• 2:27
  Yeah.
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  And that human connection is so much more important now.
• 2:31
  Yeah.
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  And there are ways of using AI within, deploying events and mm-hmm.
• 2:35
  And managing that channel that are effective.
• 2:37
  But anytime, we talk to practitioners or I talking to fellow CMOs
• 2:41
  who aren't onboard with events.
• 2:43
  Yeah.
• 2:43
  I'm like, is a digital touchpoint?
• 2:45
  An ebook gonna be more impactful than, a sit down with your most important
• 2:50
  prospects or your most critical customers.
• 2:53
  Seems like a no brainer.
• 2:54
  Matt Heinz: But Kate, it's a lot cheaper just to send an email.
• 2:56
  It scales a lot better.
• 2:57
  Email's way more efficient.
• 2:59
  These are some of the things I hear from people that say, well, I'd rather use some
• 3:02
  of these digital channels, but do those really create the differentiation you
• 3:06
  need and want to be able to break through the clutter and actually create real
• 3:11
  differentiation and value with the people you're trying to engage and sell to?
• 3:15
  Kate Hammitt: Yeah, and I mean, a Forrester analysts will tell you
• 3:17
  it's at least 30 touch points mm-hmm.
• 3:20
  That we need to do.
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  So there needs to be that multi-touch, there needs to
• 3:24
  be that omnichannel approach.
• 3:26
  Mm-hmm.
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  Not one or the other.
• 3:28
  But we have yet to see events not adding to pipeline when
• 3:31
  they're embedded in the strategy.
• 3:33
  Yeah.
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  And adding value there.
• 3:34
  Matt Heinz: Can we talk about the difference between in-person events, like
• 3:36
  we're at here today and virtual events.
• 3:38
  I mean, they both have their value.
• 3:39
  I hear a lot of folks say like, you know, webinars are dead.
• 3:41
  Virtual events are really hard to differentiate.
• 3:43
  I completely disagree.
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  What are some of the elements of good virtual events that can help
• 3:48
  you really maximize the experience and relationship value there?
• 3:52
  Kate Hammitt: Yeah.
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  I think first and foremost, like the webinar virtual event is so critical for
• 3:59
  that mass brand awareness and of course you can tie that directly to pipeline.
• 4:04
  But when I think about where virtual events can really accelerate a strategy,
• 4:09
  mm-hmm, it's mostly that top of funnel.
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  And so when you're thinking about the KPIs there, you're looking at, how
• 4:15
  much interaction with an ICP, whether they're in market or not, are you getting
• 4:21
  within your markets and making sure that your message is reaching there.
• 4:24
  Mm-hmm.
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  Another great use case for webinars that I love is, taking messages out for a spin
• 4:30
  and getting that feedback from the market.
• 4:32
  Yeah.
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  That was how event led growth came to be, sort of our mission.
• 4:36
  We were hearing messages from the market and then realizing that this content
• 4:40
  around event led growth was getting the response from the market of, Hey, this is
• 4:44
  helping me be better at what I'm doing.
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  Another great, way for, I think, webinars to fit within the strategy
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  appropriately is that post-sale engagement and education, and so the KPIs there
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  would be the product adoption and engagement metrics customer marketing
• 4:59
  and community really care about.
• 5:02
  Matt Heinz: I think a lot of companies fail when they think about the event as
• 5:04
  the be all, end all of the event strategy, as opposed to thinking about the event
• 5:09
  itself as a component of a broader motion.
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  Like talk about the importance of the pre-event and the post-event motions
• 5:16
  to really round out the experience and maximize the return on that
• 5:20
  investment in events in the first place.
• 5:22
  Kate Hammitt: Yeah, so I think one great takeaway from
• 5:25
  pre-event is the data capture.
• 5:28
  Yeah.
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  So understanding the hearts and minds of your ICP.
• 5:32
  Getting that into your systems of record, being able to action on that, either in
• 5:36
  content messaging, future sales motions, but there's no better way to start to
• 5:42
  understand and get that first party data.
• 5:44
  During the event, from a content perspective, this is
• 5:48
  like the content amplifier.
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  So, when you're taking that message out at the event, it's a repurposer's dream,
• 5:56
  how do you get that mm-hmm event snippet into your digital ads, into podcasts, into
• 6:01
  white papers, infographics, what have you.
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  That's where so much content is generated.
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  We did this a lot at Splash, everything, revolved around our events, and
• 6:11
  then we amplified that elsewhere.
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  And then the follow up for the event I think is absolutely the most important.
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  If you're engaging during the event effectively you can get that hand
• 6:22
  raiser, understand who might be dealing with specific challenges, start to
• 6:27
  basically create a personalization strategy that you can follow up on after.
• 6:31
  Yeah.
• 6:32
  And then, create those lanes appropriately.
• 6:34
  Matt Heinz: I just wanna reiterate the repurposable factor for events,
• 6:37
  whether you're doing things in person or whether you're doing them
• 6:40
  remotely, like a good videotaped event.
• 6:43
  A video tape that this shows my age, a videoed event, a
• 6:46
  tape recorded event of that.
• 6:49
  You think about all the ways you can repurpose that, like you have
• 6:51
  it live, you can promote it live.
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  It's gonna be live.
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  You can promote that it is live.
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  You've got something on demand, AI tools can break that into snippets,
• 6:57
  into audio only snippets into video snippets into a transcript.
• 7:00
  And so over and over again, you can use that so often.
• 7:03
  And I think that too often marketers, like we do the event and then we're
• 7:06
  immediately onto the next event.
• 7:08
  Yes.
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  Right, and we fail to leverage this high value asset that you just invested
• 7:12
  a ton of effort in the long tail, and not just in terms of the follow up
• 7:15
  from people that may have attended that event or didn't attend, and then your
• 7:18
  sales follow up, but the long tail of leveraging that content for the people
• 7:21
  that couldn't attend, for the people that did attend, but need to hear it again.
• 7:24
  Right.
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  For other people in the buying committee that couldn't make it, but you're
• 7:27
  trying to build consensus, so there's components that they need to hear as well.
• 7:30
  Mm-hmm.
• 7:31
  If the event and the content is tied tightly to a good editorial
• 7:34
  calendar tied to your buying journey and your buying committee, the long
• 7:37
  tail is like, does it ever end?
• 7:39
  Kate Hammitt: It really does.
• 7:40
  And.
• 7:40
  You can reuse that year over year.
• 7:42
  I mean, there's so much evergreen content that comes out of it.
• 7:45
  Yeah.
• 7:45
  I love always you talking about kind of random acts of marketing.
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  I feel like if you're going through an event cycle and that event
• 7:51
  content just lives once, yeah.
• 7:53
  You need deep reflection.
• 7:56
  Matt Heinz: Yeah, you do.
• 7:57
  Yeah.
• 7:57
  We're live on the Forrester B2B show floor with Kate Hammitt.
• 8:00
  She's the VP of Marketing at Cvent, CMO at Splash.
• 8:03
  Combining teams is always a challenge, right?
• 8:05
  Like bringing two teams together.
• 8:07
  You've got two event teams, but talk about sort of just, you know, one plus one
• 8:11
  equals three when you can bring good teams together and the challenge and opportunity
• 8:15
  of change management when you're doing so.
• 8:18
  Kate Hammitt: Yeah, acquisitions are always lumpy and bumpy.
• 8:22
  We've definitely been doing our best to make it smooth
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  sailing as much as possible.
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  But I think the cultural fit between our teams, the people that are really
• 8:31
  driving it with Splash and Cvent has made this really successful.
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  I mean That's right.
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  We started activating together immediately.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And just seeing our sales team and our entire go-to market
• 8:41
  team embrace each other.
• 8:42
  Yep.
• 8:43
  One thing that's been great about the one plus one equals three
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  is, a lot of our gaps were Cvent strengths, a lot of Cvent's gaps were
• 8:51
  areas where Splash really shines.
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  So it's been fun to see what our brands together can do.
• 8:57
  Matt Heinz: Well.
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  It's great to hear that there's a culture fit across those teams that becomes
• 9:00
  really foundational to making sure that works and then recognizing as well that
• 9:03
  like, hey, listen, there's never a purely smooth path to the integration, right?
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  There's always gonna be bumps along the road.
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  But when you've got a values match and when you can be focused on the North
• 9:13
  Star and say, we're all gonna work on getting this there together, like
• 9:16
  that's really meaningful and that can be rare in those M&A kind of situations.
• 9:19
  Kate Hammitt: Yeah, and I think Cvent has done a good job in recognizing
• 9:22
  Splash's work with marketers and that was an area that with Cvent's
• 9:26
  acquisitions of Jifflenow and iCapture that happened prior to Splash.
• 9:30
  They've really embraced our presence within the community, our work with
• 9:34
  marketing to marketers, and it's been a really great value add for the
• 9:38
  Splash people at Cvent and vice versa.
• 9:40
  Matt Heinz: So, one of the cool things I know you're working on is really better
• 9:43
  leveraging the tools at your disposal.
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  And so you've got the ability here to sort of drink your own champagne
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  with some of the event tools you have.
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  But even as great as those tools are alone, they probably aren't sufficient
• 9:54
  to really manage the overall event experience the way you want to.
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  So what are some of the key components of the tech stack you think are really
• 10:01
  driving greater event experiences for your customers and buyers?
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  Kate Hammitt: Yeah, so a lot of times Cvent has talked about
• 10:07
  like the total event program.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  When we think about different events, I mean, we're here at Forrester,
• 10:12
  Steven is powering this, you checked in our badges and all the things that
• 10:16
  you've been doing within the app are powered by Cvent and it's great to
• 10:19
  have a big third party event presence.
• 10:22
  Yeah.
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  We've got a lot of ancillary events.
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  That's where, Splash would be typically used by customers to get
• 10:29
  their private dinners together.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Get those fun, happy hours outside of the event.
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  There are lots of teams here using Jifflenow.
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  Mm-hmm.
• 10:37
  So, was over at Club6 with 6sense, and they're power users of Jifflenow, and
• 10:42
  so those meetings and that serendipity that happens, at these third party
• 10:46
  events and your hosted events all coming together within this stack.
• 10:50
  And I think, on top of that, your integrations are mission critical.
• 10:55
  Obviously all of these tools are pushing back into Salesforce, HubSpot, wherever
• 10:59
  your single source of truth is kept.
• 11:02
  Yep.
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  So you can then action on that.
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  So we really like to think about all these tools coming together for marketers to be
• 11:08
  able to cover their full event program.
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  So you're not leaving programs to chance and you're getting that ROI
• 11:14
  back in the systems that matter.
• 11:16
  Matt Heinz: What do you think is gonna drive the next phase of event led growth?
• 11:18
  What are the components, what are the strategies, the integrations,
• 11:20
  what should we be looking for?
• 11:22
  For those that are buying what you're laying down here and also
• 11:24
  those that are already following an event led growth playbook, what
• 11:27
  should they be looking at next and prioritizing over the next year plus?
• 11:31
  Kate Hammitt: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 11:32
  So I think two big themes there.
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  One being AI and how AI is going to augment this whole process.
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  And particularly around personalization.
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  So when we all go to events, we expect them to be more and more accustomed
• 11:45
  to who we are and what we wanna learn about, what we care about.
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  So I think, for events that we keep upping the ante and the next technology
• 11:54
  advancements are gonna help us really get there in terms of these custom
• 11:58
  experiences that feel really personalized and allow for direct follow up that is
• 12:03
  impactful and that ultimately results in that revenue or expansion opportunity.
• 12:08
  Matt Heinz: Why do you personally continue to prioritize events like this?
• 12:11
  I know Cvent's a sponsor, this is a key part of your own pipeline activation.
• 12:15
  But to be able to spend time with other marketers, be able to spend time with your
• 12:18
  peers, like why is that like prioritizing that time and place of doing it live?
• 12:23
  Why is that a priority for you?
• 12:25
  Kate Hammitt: Yeah.
• 12:25
  I think it's how we're wired as humans from a biological perspective,
• 12:29
  from a memory perspective.
• 12:31
  It's really amazing to see people coming by the booth and saying,
• 12:35
  Hey, it's our annual meeting.
• 12:36
  I was here and met you last year.
• 12:38
  Yeah.
• 12:38
  See those connections being made, you and I are in communities together.
• 12:42
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:42
  And I feel like putting that face to name getting out of the zoom box.
• 12:45
  Yeah.
• 12:45
  And, and into real life.
• 12:46
  Even though you can still forge those relationships certainly
• 12:49
  virtually, I feel like it solidifies so much more in the human experience
• 12:54
  to have that relationship.
• 12:55
  Matt Heinz: A hundred percent.
• 12:56
  Kate Hammitt: And I think we recognize that from an internal events
• 12:59
  perspective, it's really meaningful to meet with your team and interact
• 13:03
  and have an experience together.
• 13:05
  And it's no different, I think, in a buying journey.
• 13:08
  Humans still wanna buy from humans, and I think as we get more digital, we
• 13:13
  crave more of that human interaction.
• 13:14
  So we just need to be smart about it.
• 13:17
  Matt Heinz: Love it.
• 13:17
  Kate Hammitt, VP of Marketing at Cvent.
• 13:18
  Thanks so much for joining us.
• 13:20
  Kate Hammitt: Thanks Matt.