Latest / Event Industry News Podcast / How AI and Data Are Rewriting Event ROI — Rainfocus CMO on the Frontline

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How AI and Data Are Rewriting Event ROI — Rainfocus CMO on the Frontline · Event Industry News Podcast

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  Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Event Industry News Podcast with me, James Dixon,
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  wishing you all a very good morning, afternoon or evening, whenever or wherever you tune into today's podcast from.
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  And I'm delighted to say that I've got a guest today that's joining me from across the pond.
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  I always get excited when we get some of our guests from North America on there to talk about what's happening in the industry over there.
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  Always great developments, always great insight from podcast guests who join us from over in North America.
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  And I'm delighted to say that joining me today is somebody who's from a company that I'm sure many people on the podcast will have come across at some point.
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  It's a really, really well-known name within the event tech space.
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  CMO of Rainfocus, Ashley Cook, joins the podcast today.
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  Ashley, a very warm welcome to you. Thank you very much, James. Really appreciate you having me.
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  Not a problem at all. And as I said, Rainfocus is a big name in that space.
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  I've known of the brand and I've spoken to some of the people in the organization several times, I think,
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  over the last five or six years in different jobs and roles that I have within the events industry, actually, with the trade show and indeed with the podcast.
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  But it's great to have you on the show today.
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  Before we kind of get into the sort of the detailed conversation, some of the topics that we wanted to cover on today's podcast,
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  could you frame yourself and Rainfocus, first of all, and give us a little bit background into your own career?
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  Of course. So Ashley Cook, CMO of Rainfocus. I've been with Rainfocus for just over six years.
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  And prior to that, I spent the majority of my career in the research and advisory space.
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  And I'd say one of the really exciting things that actually brought me to Rainfocus is I had seen throughout my research and advisory career
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  that events were always one of the most effective channels within the marketing, within the marketing discipline.
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  And it was easily the area to acquire new customers, to accelerate your pipeline,
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  but also accelerate those conversion rates that you are seeing and eventually build lifelong advocates for your brand.
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  So events were always something that was extremely meaningful to me.
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  And that ultimately brought me to Rainfocus in working with many leading brands to do the same for their customers.
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  A bit about Rainfocus. So we are an event marketing and management platform. We were founded in 2013.
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  We were fundamentally founded to really looking at data as the core infrastructure needed for marketing teams to power and activate programs
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  and really looking at what event data can be captured over the course of those experiences,
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  including demographics that you were tracking on those individuals, but also all of the behavioral attributes.
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  What sessions were they attending? What were the demos they were interested in?
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  Buying groups, tracking that behavior. Were you seeing certain trends in different buying groups across organizations
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  and how they were engaging throughout your event?
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  So we were really transforming this space, looking at data as the core that you needed to get out of the event
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  and really using that to personalize and elevate the experiences that you have over the course of your event journey.
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  So that's always been core to our mission to really accelerate those business relationships.
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  And that's founded on getting the right data so that you can use it and activate it,
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  but also personalize those experiences so that they become more measurable outcomes for your brand that you're driving.
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  I'm really interested that you mentioned that you had a research and advisory background prior to Rainfocus,
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  because there's been so much talk, particularly in the last decade, of data in the events industry
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  and how much more we are privy to and the sort of the luxurious position that, you know,
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  in the last decade or so with the boom in event technology, event organizers are finally actually being able to see metrics
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  and actual measurable sort of statistics to show if they're making progress or which areas of their event need attention.
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  And I'm interested that, well, for a start, a lot of people, because they don't have a research background,
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  weren't used to seeing all of that data and actually being able to create anything meaningful from it.
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  Was it a sort of a big strength of coming into the event technology space, having that research background,
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  that you were conditioned to look at data and look at long term analysis of things and be able to draw meaningful conclusions from it?
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  Yes, absolutely. So that was always part of the core.
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  So I was with Serious Decisions and Forrester,
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  and we worked with many leading brands where we were helping them through our analyst expertise,
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  helping them really measure and quantify success of really all of their channels across marketing.
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  And so that ingrained just in me what was possible and what teams should be looking at.
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  And so being able to correlate and getting the data integrated into your core marketing and sales tech stack,
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  but being able to look and leverage who are the folks that not only attended your event,
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  but how did they engage throughout the event? What sessions were they going to?
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  So incorporating some early discipline around creating campaigns that you would be able to add certain members to
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  and then being able to track that behavior over the course of the event,
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  but then also providing that in an easy to digest fashion for our sales team so that they could follow up in real time with the right,
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  timely content for those individuals based on the interests that they had shown at the event.
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  So we also looked at key things like retention correlation. So of the accounts that attended your event,
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  what was the retention rate for those versus those that did not attend?
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  So really helping in terms of the term prevention there. And then we also measured key things like velocity.
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  So looking at the velocity of those deals where they had members that had attended your events versus members that didn't attend those events.
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  And you always found that there was an accelerated conversion rate as part of that.
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  So those were just some of the key metrics that we were always looking at,
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  but really going beyond those vanity metrics and ensuring that you're driving towards measurable outcomes for the business around velocity,
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  churn prevention, the ROI that you're seeing from increased deals in those accelerated rates for sure.
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  Even though I sort of referenced the fact that, you know,
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  your research background will have given you an idea of how to understand those data streams and then support clients to analyse their data more effectively.
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  Inevitably now, the conversation has turned to the use of artificial intelligence and how that can help leveraging some of this data and make that more meaningful for attendees, for organisers.
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  Are we at a stage now where with the amount of data that we have available through platforms like Rainfocus,
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  AI actually becomes a really, really important tool to support that analytical process?
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  Yeah, it absolutely does. And I'd say there's a couple of key areas.
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  So certainly there's elements within the attendee experience that help make those more efficient for attendees in terms of maximising their time.
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  So concierge agents that enable them to provide some real time prescriptive guidance on sessions they should go to and areas that they should engage in throughout the event.
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  So kind of those recommendations.
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  But one of the areas that I'm really excited about that we're starting to see a lot of folks lean into is the ROI metrics or the modelling as part of some of those,
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  the data analysis that can be done at scale with AI.
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  So I remember a time as an intern when folks would have an event and you get those paper feedback evals.
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  And I was the person that was entering those all in into an Excel sheet and then coming up with all the ratings at the end to see how the event resonated.
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  That is one of the areas, especially on Rainfocus platform, that you can actually you can scale at length.
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  And we have AI sentiment analysis based on that, where it will generate insights for you based on, hey, here were the overall ratings based on the sessions.
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  And then instead of all of the qualitative input where folks would enter paragraphs and paragraphs and you have to analyse, hey, what are some of the core themes as part of that?
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  AI can be used at scale to identify what were some of the core themes.
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  Was the content on point?
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  Were the content sessions too long?
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  Was it the right amount of networking?
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  So really honing in on those themes so that folks can optimise for that.
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  And I'd say one of the areas of innovation that we've seen in terms of really transforming the space is not just waiting until after the event to do that,
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  but having folks that are able to review that in real time at the event to see if they need to make some real time adjustments to have the event resonate better
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  or make some changes so that folks are better engaged and have a much better experience.
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  So those are some of the areas that we're certainly starting to see when it comes to the event analysis,
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  and then certainly trending going into your event.
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  So what can you expect?
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  I know a lot of folks look at the weeks out based on prior years,
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  and that's something that taking some of the patterns, especially as they've now normalised a little bit over the last few years once again,
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  is that you can look at just what are the patterns and the registration trends
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  and what to expect just based on that correlation to build some confidence in the numbers
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  and the expectations of the numbers of folks that you would have there.
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  Absolutely.
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  And when we're talking about marketeers leveraging AI to make these sort of operational improvements,
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  something I just scribbled down quickly here is to optimise and speed up,
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  because the speed at which you can now generate the results and the analysis.
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  Now, you know, in the past, you may have had the data, but you might have had to say to the marketing team,
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  right, for the next two weeks, you're going to be looking through all of this data and come back with all your conclusions,
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  and then we'll shape how we're going to do things for the next event cycle.
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  And that two-week sort of analysis period now can be condensed into a matter of minutes by using these AI tools,
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  which means they can make quicker, faster decisions.
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  That means they could actually integrate and deploy their next marketing cycle sooner
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  and stay in the focus and the attention of their attendees.
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  So it's not just the speed at which it analyses the data and you can go, right, well, they're the results,
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  but it's the speed at which you can then follow the next steps of your event cycle.
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  Exactly. It really puts you in the driver's seat of driving the strategy and spending less time on the monotonous,
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  tedious work of trying to work out all of the data and what it's actually telling us.
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  So, yes, it certainly shifts us into more of the strategy component, which is where humans,
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  especially when it comes to events, provide the most value,
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  which is creating and architecting those experiences that builds off of the data that you're collecting,
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  the trends that you're seeing and what your audiences are expecting out of those experiences.
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  Absolutely. And I mean, a term that rears its ugly head often in the events industry is the term return of investment, ROI.
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  And the reason it gets mentioned so often is because, cliche or no cliche, regardless of what you think of it, it is vital.
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  It's something that has long been a bugbear in the events industry and all walks of the events industry,
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  whether that be a trade show, a conference, a music event.
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  But we are in a situation now where marketing teams and financial teams can have meaningful conversations with each other now
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  because that data will actually stack things up.
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  So a financial officer, a CFO could actually see genuine results based on what the marketing team have achieved with events.
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  Yeah, for sure. So I think there was a time where event teams, it was OK just to look at the vanity metrics of,
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  hey, did you fill all of the seats that you were expecting? What were the registration numbers?
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  Did you have a great turnout? And that's it. You move on to the next event.
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  But now just the expectations around demonstrating the ROI on what you are getting for those experiences.
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  And I heard not only ROI, but return on objectives, because certainly those can change based on the type of event that you're running
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  and what the intended goal and purpose is for that.
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  But yes, the expectations are much, much higher around what you can actually show coming out of an event
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  and how you can connect that to the outcomes that you're looking to drive as a business.
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  So it's really taken out a lot of the opportunities that you can really streamline as part of that.
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  So being able to integrate that data directly into your sales and marketing tech stack,
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  to be able to enrich contact data that you're looking to connect to that, and then monitoring it in real time.
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  I think it just becomes it's become a lot easier in terms of doing that,
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  but then also creating the dashboards that help you show what are the leading indicators for that particular event
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  and what you're expecting to see over time.
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  So that's one of the areas that we've seen a lot where oftentimes it's been hard because you have an event,
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  but then the real return or the conversions may not come until nine, 12 months later when you're already on to the next cycle.
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  But I think this is an area where it can look at prior trends or historical trends
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  and really quantify where are you going to see most of the impact from that particular event
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  and being able to extrapolate that out for your upcoming event.
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  That's some of the areas that we've seen as well.
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  But I think it just does come back to some of the core principles around thinking through your data strategy.
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  How are you going to connect the key folks and buying group members into respective opportunities
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  and being able to track that and correlate that to sentiment or other areas that may show increased satisfaction
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  as a result of interacting in those experiences.
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  So those are certainly some of the areas.
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  And again, it has been manual in years past.
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  I think AI provides some incredible opportunities to really unleash the potential for marketing teams
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  and event teams to really see the value of what they're providing through those experiences.
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  Can things be retrospectively analysed through platforms like Rainfocus?
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  And I suppose an example would be an event organiser that has historically worked off traditional methods,
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  like just spreadsheets, like they've got historic files full of Excel spreadsheets with their event data.
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  Can they retrospectively go back and actually bring that data in somewhere to use the tools
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  that are now available with platforms like Rainfocus?
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  Yes, we do. So in platform, we also offer a retrospective dashboard.
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  So you can look at year over year trends, you can look at year over past five year trends,
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  you can look at it from programme to programme or across the entire portfolio.
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  And then there's also opportunities from a data migration perspective that we actually find is a best practice
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  so that you are able to leverage that data and customise or personalise the experiences
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  that those individuals are having based on the types of things that they engage with,
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  the type of information that they've provided to you within the past.
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  So I know we all hate going to those blank registration forums where it doesn't pre-populate
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  and you have to go through the 20 or so forums again to ensure that you have a curated experience.
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  And that's one of the areas that platforms like Rainfocus help to personalise,
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  where it reduces the friction through those key processes and really helps to curate the experiences
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  so you can maximise your time in going through those events.
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  If you don't mind me asking, I wonder, just on the subject of data migration,
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  again, it was a pain point of organisers, excuse me, for what I would say in the infancy of what we call now the event tech sector,
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  was that when they would experiment with different platforms, you know, in the early days,
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  that they might use one platform one year, they go to another one next year,
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  when they realised that, oh, actually, we could use this data from previous years and from a different platform,
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  the pain point was the migration of that data and integrating into a different platform
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  where certain data streams didn't talk to each other. Has that process become smoother?
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  Have we seen improvements on a wider level amongst other event tech suppliers
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  where now if a client of yours has worked with a previous company or has data from somewhere else,
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  the migration of that is a little bit of an easier process?
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  Yes, so I think it definitely is an easier process, provided that the team has the right mindset going into it in terms of the full data strategy.
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  So thinking through, I'm not just going to migrate all of this data just to migrate it and ensure that I have it.
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  It's thinking strategically around what is the data I actually need to look at throughout the event programme?
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  How will I use that data to ensure that it is personalising the experience?
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  But then also ensuring that you have the right attributes that you are standardising on,
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  not only in this particular event, but thinking more holistically across a lot of the digital marketing channels as well.
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  So ensuring that it's one to one with your marketing automation platform or your CRM and thinking about those pieces strategically.
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  And again, not collecting data just for data's sake, but and just moving it all over.
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  It's kind of like move into a new house instead of purging those boxes,
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  just moving everything over and then creating downstream effects that way.
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  It is really around how do you ensure that you're being strategic around what you want to do in terms of organising all of the data?
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  How will you use it? What are the downstream teams and other programmes that will be recipients of that data as well?
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  So thinking about that process holistically, start to finish.
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  I'm thinking of the old term just because you can doesn't mean that you should.
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  And I'm wondering if you ever or if you do have to speak to clients on a case by case basis and say to them,
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  look, just because you can capture all of this data,
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  the nature of your event actually suggests that capturing just these elements is going to be just as beneficial to you.
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  You know, every event is completely different.
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  And whilst one might be really complex and you want loads and loads and loads of different data points,
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  another event using your platform could be really simple.
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  Sometimes people just need to be reined in a little bit. Pardon the pun.
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  Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We see that a lot.
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  So a lot of folks will, you know, stick to, hey, I need my 2030 field registration form.
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  And there's a couple of elements where we help to guide or coach that.
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  Again, what are you intending to use throughout the experience?
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  How will you personalize that experience for folks and what do you truly need to do that?
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  Because there's ultimately a cost because the more form fields that you have in throughout those processes,
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  you're creating more friction in the process. So you see more abandonment as part of that.
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  One of the areas that we have seen help dramatically with that is pre-populating information that you have on that individual
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  based on what you have in your CRM or in your marketing automation platform or your CDP that you can stream into Rainfocus,
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  platform like Rainfocus, and showcase, hey, here's what we know about you.
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  Has anything changed? And this is how we are going to use it to better curate an experience for you
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  that maximizes your time, connects you with the right content, right exhibitors, right connections throughout the event.
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  And again, so long as you are upfront on how that data is being used,
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  we found phenomenal success in terms of really driving that and getting more adoption in terms of the conversions there.
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  It's so important now because as human beings, we're constantly being asked to populate something somewhere.
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  And that could be something as simple as just doing your online shopping from the supermarket to order a delivery.
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  You know, when you think about booking a flight now on the airline apps,
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  it's so easy to do now because if you have an account and you're logged into the app,
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  you can pre-populate your name, your information, your passport number.
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  And these are things that people would have to go rummaging around in a drawer somewhere usually to find it,
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  to get the number out and input it again, wrong digit, input it again.
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  You know, I think as event organizers, we need to understand we might want to ask loads of questions because we think it's useful to us,
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  but we also have to take a step back and think, well, as a consumer, as an attendee,
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  how many other contact points are they having every day with different apps, with different levels of technology?
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  Like I said, something as simple as doing your shopping.
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  So we'd have to put ourselves in the position of the attendee and think what else would they have been doing on any given day
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  and how seamless can we make that process for them?
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  Yeah, James, that's a great call. And I think especially within the broader marketing channels,
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  you're collecting data on your customers every single day.
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  So thinking more around what are the data points that I'm already collecting through other mechanisms
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  so that I don't have to ask this individual this question once again.
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  So, again, pre-populating, but looking more holistically at not just your event or your events program,
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  but what can I use from my digital marketing team on the data that's being captured through, say,
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  a LinkedIn or white paper downloads and others?
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  And how can you think more holistically around the data that's being captured?
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  Also, as part of that, like the topics that are of interest to that particular customer based on how we're seeing them engage
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  with certain topics or themes throughout those tactics as well.
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  So that's just another area as you think through some of the content and the personalized content recommendations for individuals.
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  Those are key areas that certainly help fuel that.
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  Absolutely. My guest today on the Event Industry News podcast has been Ashley Cook,
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  the CMO of Rainfocus, talking about some of the developments, the interactions that they have with their clients,
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  how AI is playing a really important role in the analytical side of the data that we all have available to us as organizers.
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  Ashley, before we let you go and carry on with your day over the other side of the pond,
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  important that we give out the website. How do people find you if they want to research and maybe get in touch with you?
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  Absolutely. So feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. So Ashley Cook, you can find me there.
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  And then also feel free to visit Rainfocus.com. And we look forward to hearing with you. Thank you.
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  No problem at all. It's been a pleasure talking to you today. It's been a while since I've had an event tech conversation, actually.
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  And it's funny how sort of like the guests on the podcast, you know, we go in sort of cycles and phases sometimes.
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  And it's been a while since I've had an opportunity to get my teeth into a good event tech and a data related conversation.
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  And it continues to play a really important part in the organization of any type of event.
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  That could be a wedding, a business conference, a music festival.
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  We're all using these tools to us and people, regardless of the type of event you're organizing,
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  will have the same pain points and suffer the same issues of looking at the data and migrating it, moving it from one place to another.
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  So, you know, if you've got something that you want to get in touch with the Venture News about that relates to this, tell us what you're up to.
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  Tell us how you're using it and tell us how the conversation that we've had today with Ashley affects you.
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  So, yeah, please do get in touch. On that note, if you've been watching today's podcast on the EventIndustryNews.com website,
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  My thanks again to my guest today, Ashley Cook from Rainfocus, and we'll see you all on the next edition of the podcast.
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  Thank you.