On today’s show – a CMO perspective on events and marketing.

Subscribe to Don’t Forget Your Name Badge!

Apple Podcasts – http://bit.ly/DFYNBpod

Google Play – http://bit.ly/DFYNBdroidcast

I recently spoke with John Ellett, Founder and CEO of nFUSION, an agency that’s helped Samsung, Microsoft and other leading companies to drive demand. John’s also the author of The CMO Manifesto: A 100-day Action Plan for Marketing Change Agents and a contributor to the Forbes CMO Network.

I’ve long wanted to get more insight into what it’s like to lead a marketing organization. Marketing executives are in the tough position to balance what seem to me like opposing priorities, and I found it intriguing to hear John talk about it. 

John has written extensively about being a marketing leader and about event marketing. Like a lot of guests we’ve had on the show, John sees event marketing following a similar path that digital marketing has traveled. When the tools became available to track and measure the performance of digital marketing tactics, digital marketers responded by becoming more disciplined and strategic. That’s because you could now see which tactics were working and which weren’t. Events are now undergoing a similar transformation. We now have tools to track and measure attendee engagement at every step of an event, and that mean event producers are becoming more strategic when planning and promoting events.

John also talks about his experience writing about the executive experience and some thing’s he’s learned along the way. We talk about the qualities that make a good CMO, and how marketers and event professionals can better collaborate with executives.

Help us grow DFYNB!

Share the show with your friends and colleagues – via Facebook, Twitter or the social medium of your choice.

Subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Google Play.

Email us at [email protected]. I love to get your questions and comments about the show.

Today on the show – Measuring event success.

Subscribe to Don’t Forget Your Name Badge!

Apple Podcasts – http://bit.ly/DFYNBpod

Google Play – http://bit.ly/DFYNBdroidcast

We could do a whole podcast series on event results. As event professionals, we can boost attendance, create great content, drive networking and engagement onsite, and pull it all off on time and under budget. But none of that matters unless we can measure it and report is back to our internal stakeholders.

That’s why I’m so happy to have Ebony Venters back on today’s show to discuss event goals, KPIs, metrics, ROI and more.

Ebony Venters is the Director of Marketing Operations here at Cvent. It’s her job to implement and refine the processes and technologies that the marketing department needs to function efficiently. In our conversation, she talks about developing goals for live events that roll up into higher-level business objectives and how to build key performance indicators (KPIs) around those goals.

We also talk about marketing operations more generally. Ebony discusses ways that marketing departments can become more effective by optimizing their internal processes. We talk about roles and responsibilities, accountability, and why the term “startup culture” is problematic. If you’re looking to get into the weeds of what makes marketing departments function, then I think you’ll really like this episode.

Help us grow Don’t Forget Your Name Badge!

Share the show with your friends and colleagues – via Facebook, Twitter or the social medium of your choice.

Subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Google Play.

Email us at [email protected]. I love to get your questions and comments about the show.

On today’s show – planning events for millennials, creating personalized event content and agile event management.

Subscribe to DFYNB!

Apple Podcasts – http://bit.ly/DFYNBpod

Google Play – http://bit.ly/DFYNBdroidcast

I sit down with Sean Lynch, a Product Manager and Digital Strategist at Huge. When he was seventeen years old, Sean began his career producing events for BBYO, an international non-profit organization for Jewish teens. Today he shares some of the lessons he’s learned from that experience, and how we can apply those lessons to make our events more engaging for the younger generation of professionals.

Sean also discusses his eclectic mix of expertise as both an events professional and a product manager. He talks about what the events industry could learn from product development and vice versa. And we discuss whether an “agile development” methodology can be employed in event production.

Sean is a voice of an emergent and passionate generation of event professionals, and we can all learn something from his unique perspective. I hope you enjoy this conversation.

Help us grow Don’t Forget Your Name Badge!

Share the show with your friends and colleagues – via Facebook, Twitter or the social medium of your choice.

Subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Google Play.

Email us at [email protected]. I love to get your questions and comments about the show.

On today’s show: harnessing the power of event influencers.

Subscribe to DFYNB!

Apple Podcasts – http://bit.ly/DFYNBpod

Google Play – http://bit.ly/DFYNBdroidcast

Until recently, I knew next to nothing about influencer marketing. I figured it boiled down to paying celebrities to talk about your brand on social media.

Fortunately, Lisa Marcyes set me straight. Lisa Marcyes is the Senior Social Media Marketing Manager at Marketo, and she called into the show to talk about influencer marketing and why it’s important for events.

Influencer marketing plays an essential role in developing engaging content for events – from choosing the right keynote speaker, to ensuring that your breakout sessions are relevant, cutting edge, and deliver a message consistent with your corporate brand.

Lisa shares her tips on identifying influencers and where to find them, how to leverage people within your organization, and how to discover who your attendees are already following. We talk about credibility and how you can distinguish a true influencer from a pretender with a large twitter following; the importance of reciprocity in an influencer relationship; and how to leverage an influencer’s social following. After all, we often choose speakers and keynotes for our events because they are known experts in their fields. People listen to them. But how do we get them to talk about us?

Help us grow Don’t Forget Your Name Badge! 

Share the show with your friends and colleagues – via Facebook, Twitter or the social medium of your choice.

Subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Google Play.

Email us at [email protected]. I love to get your questions and comments about the show.

Today’s show is all about professional empowerment.

Subscribe to DFYNB!

Apple Podcasts – http://bit.ly/DFYNBpod

Google Play – http://bit.ly/DFYNBdroidcast

My guest today is Heather Mason, CEO & President of Caspian, an event production agency.

Heather is an outspoken advocate for the events industry. At Cvent CONNECT 2017, she gave a presentation entitled, “Positioning for Power” which wrestled with a problem that many event professionals will find all too familiar: that despite the tremendous amount of effort, stress and professionalism that goes into today’s corporate events, individual event professional often don’t get the respect (or the money) that they deserve.

We begin our conversation with why she hates the term “event planner.” Then Heather teaches me what steps event professionals can take to earn more respect within their organizations.

She says that the events industry needs to modernize and adopt a standard set of procedures, tools and methodologies the way other professions, like accounting or project management, have done.

Heather is a fantastically compelling speaker, and I just know you’ll find this conversation to be a real treat. I certainly did.

Help us grow Don’t Forget Your Name Badge! 

Share the show with your friends and colleagues – via Facebook, Twitter or the social medium of your choice.

Subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Google Play.

Email us at [email protected]. I love to get your questions and comments about the show.

Check out Heather’s Girl’s Empowerment Project, SUREFIRE, at www.surefiregirls.com.

On today’s show – Fostering connections and being a better networker.

Subscribe to DFYNB!

Apple Podcasts – http://bit.ly/DFYNBpod

Google Play – http://bit.ly/DFYNBdroidcast

My guest today is Jessica Levin, President and Chief Connector at Seven Degrees Communications and author of “The Art of Connecting People: Why Planners Should be Master Connectors.” Jessica’s made a career out of bringing people together for mutual benefit and by teaching others to do the same.

Jessica has a very interesting approach to networking. Sure, she goes to meet & greets and cocktail hours like the rest of us. She uses social media and other tools to expand her social network like we all do. But what makes Jessica’s approach unique is what happens next. She actively identifies people’s resources, strengths and challenges and then matches them up with others  in her network who can complement them in some way. And by setting people up for success in this way, Jessica believes that her entire network benefits. As event marketers, this is a tremendously important skill to understand and Jessica speaks to it very well.

In our discussion, Jessica teaches me the difference between networking and connecting – how networking is quite passive compared with connecting, which is more of a problem-solving activity. We talk about the inadequacies of the basic cocktail hour and what event professionals can do to foster more profound connections at their events.

Help us grow Don’t Forget Your Name Badge! 

Share the show with your friends and colleagues – via Facebook, Twitter or the social medium of your choice.

Subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Google Play.

Email us at [email protected]. I love to get your questions and comments about the show.

On today’s show – Captivating event experiences.

Subscribe to DFYNB!

Apple Podcasts – http://bit.ly/DFYNBpod

Google Play – http://bit.ly/DFYNBdroidcast

For those of us in marketing, our live events are the rare occasions when we get to meet our customers and prospects face to face, where we can put our brand and our message front and center. So it’s crucial that we make the most of that opportunity by creating an experience that our attendees will remember.

At the same time, the competition for people’s attention has never been greater. It’s not good enough to get your audience to attend – once they’re onsite you’ve got you captivate them. And provide them an experience that’s more tempting and more engaging than whatever they’ve got on their mobile device.

Today I’m speaking with Jay Guilford from Cirque du Soleil SPARK Sessions. Jay works on a team that has taken aspects of the showmanship that Cirque du Soleil is known for and has applied them to the world of corporate live events. We talk about the different types of events that they’ve offered in the past as well as way that event professionals can incorporate a little spectacle in their events. We also talk about audience participation. When it works, when it doesn’t and how you can tell the difference. Jay is an interesting guy with a very interesting job in marketing, and I really enjoyed our conversation.

Help us grow Don’t Forget Your Name Badge! 

Share the show with your friends and colleagues – via Facebook, Twitter or the social medium of your choice.

Subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Google Play.

Email us at [email protected]. I love to get your questions and comments about the show. And if you’re events or marketing professional with a story to tell, I want to help you tell it.

Check out Cirque du Soleil SPARK Sessions

SPARK’s Trailer –  https://vimeo.com/176531804

The KÀ Theater Experience Trailer – https://vimeo.com/219390841

On today’s show – getting more VIP attendees at your event.

Subscribe to DFYNB!

Apple Podcasts – http://bit.ly/DFYNBpod

Google Play – http://bit.ly/DFYNBdroidcast

You know, a lot of event producers and marketers are under pressure to increase attendance at our events year-after-year. But just as important as overall attendance is having the right mix of attendees. When you’re using your live events to drive demand for your products and services, or to generate leads for your sales department, it’s especially important that you attract decision makers to your events – those prospects who can ultimately cut the check to your business.

Most of the time, that means executives, and executives can be the toughest folks to get to your event.

So in this episode of Don’t Forget Your Name Badge, I’m joinded by Kevin Lau, Senior Manager of Customer Marketing at Marketo. Kevin and his team used focused event content and a cross-channel marketing push to get over 550 VIP attendees to their 2017 Marketing Nation Summit. Today we talk about how they did it and the lessons that we all can learn from their experience.

We also talk about Customer marketing and the strategies that Marketo uses to convert its customers into advocates for their brand. I learned a lot from our conversation and I think you will, too.

Help us grow Don’t Forget Your Name Badge! 

Share the show with your friends and colleagues – via Facebook, Twitter or the social medium of your choice.

Subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Google Play.

Email us at [email protected]. I love to get your questions and comments about the show. And if you’re events or marketing professional with a story to tell, I want to help you tell it.

Welcome to Don’t Forget Your Name Badge, a podcast about events, marketing, and the business of bringing people together, recorded at the Cvent Podcast Studio. Hosted by Timothy Mercer.

Subscribe to DFYNB!

Apple Podcasts – http://bit.ly/DFYNBpod

Google Play – http://bit.ly/DFYNBdroidcast

In our debut event marketing podcast, I’m joined by Cvent’s marketing operations expert, Ebony Venters, and our event producer extraordinaire, Robin Rankin. We discuss the important role that events play into an organization’s overall marketing strategy, how events and marketing teams can work together more effectively, and how to get along better with sales.