Event Marketing: Redefined

Event ROI keeps getting blamed on the event team, but the real breakdown often starts once leads land in sales' hands. This episode traces exactly where that handoff falls apart, and who should actually own it. 

What we get into:

✅ The sales handoff moment where most event pipeline quietly dies

✅ Burnout as a structural failure, not a personal one

✅ A one-line test for whether your team is actually ready to exhibit

Event marketers are asked to prove revenue impact from programs they don't fully control, and this episode goes straight at that tension. Matt is joined by Annalee Addesso (Global Experiential Marketing Manager at Caterpillar) and Erin Lease Hall (Director, Event Strategy and Experience at DrFirst).

Erin's take is blunt: marketing can hand over the numbers, but if sales doesn't track or follow up on the leads, "our hands are tied." Annalee adds the leadership layer, describing executives who love events but keep asking teams to do "less with more." 

Together they dig into what it actually takes to turn event ROI into a shared business metric instead of a line item event teams defend alone. 

If your post-event debriefs keep landing on the event team, this episode makes the case for asking a different question first. 

Your CMO wants strategy. Your trade show is in three weeks. Your team just lost a headcount. Sound familiar? 

Ashley Keating runs the entire events and field marketing function at CallMiner: trade shows across the US, Canada, UK, and now Central Europe after a 2025 acquisition, plus webinars, field accelerators, and a newly expanded multi-city customer conference. 

All of it with a team of three. 

In this episode, she gets specific about the tension most senior event marketers live in daily: expected to think at the CMO level, but still deep in execution. She and Matt talk about how that reality shapes everything—who you hire, how you measure success, and how you keep your seat at the table when budgets are scrutinized.

Learn:

✅ What "agile" actually means when hiring for a lean events team and why traditional event experience can work against you

✅ The field accelerator model: how Ashley uses intimate, targeted micro-events to move key accounts and protect her budget 

✅ Why strict pre- and post-event process is the only thing standing between your program and a budget cut 

Stop running events. Start running outcomes. 

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Connect with Ashley Keating
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akeating7/ 

Connect with Matt Kleinrock 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/ 

Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/ 

🚨 Register for the show: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined 

Most event marketers know when a stakeholder's direction is off. Few have the line that turns that instinct into influence. 

In this episode:

✅ The strategy session Felicia interrupted to ask one question, and how it reshaped the entire agenda 

✅ A hard number versus a changed conversation, and why she'll defend the second one to a room full of CFOs 

✅ Her exact sentence for challenging stakeholder direction without starting a fight 

Felicia Kaban, Director of Event Experience & Production at Kenvue, spent years going along with stakeholder direction even when her instincts said no. That changed once she started asking a harder question in planning meetings: what are we actually trying to change? 

She tells Matt about the leadership strategy session that forced that shift, why she measures event ROI in decision speed instead of dashboard metrics, and the specific line she now hands to event professionals who want to move from stakeholder alignment as a checkbox to stakeholder alignment as a strategy.

Tune in if your next planning meeting needs fewer order-takers and more advisors.

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Connect with Felicia Kaban
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/feliciakaban/

Connect with Matt Kleinrock  
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/     
Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/     

🚨 Register for the show: https://eventmarketingredefined.com    

Your event wasn't the problem.

Ask any event marketer to be honest, and they'll tell you exactly how they'd build a stronger show if they had the budget, the runway, and the right people in the room saying yes at the right time.

But shrinking resources, last minute executive pivots, and stakeholders who show up late with big opinions are quietly wrecking programs that were never broken to begin with.

This conversation echoes what senior leaders spent two days saying out loud at Event Marketing Congress 2026.

In this episode, Matt Kleinrock and Coty Adams get honest about:

✅ Why leadership keeps chasing the shiny object instead of sticking to a plan

✅ The sales and marketing gap nobody wants to name out loud

✅ Who actually owns event decisions and why the answer is usually nobody

It's the conversation event marketers wish they could have with their own leadership team. 

Tune in live August 5 at 1 PM ET. Bring your own war stories, we're reading comments live.

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Connect With Us

Matt Kleinrock: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/ 

Coty Adams: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cotykadams/ 

Our Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/  

🚨 Register for the show here: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined 

Customer events are not prospecting campaigns, so measuring them by leads alone misses their real business impact. The better questions are whether customers become more loyal, engage more deeply, and strengthen their relationship with your brand.

Inside this episode:

✅ The customer-event metrics that reveal more than attendance and satisfaction scores

✅ How attendee-versus-nonattendee comparisons can uncover revenue, retention, and participation trends

✅ Why host books, peer interaction, and voice-of-customer sessions lead to more meaningful connections

Ashley Claborn (Senior Manager, Events & Incentives at Lennox Residential HVAC) joins Matt to explain how customer feedback, attendee data, and thoughtful interactions can reveal an event’s influence on loyalty, retention, and business growth.

From comparing attendees with similar non-attendees to preparing internal teams with meaningful customer insights, this conversation offers a smarter way to define success. 

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Connect with Ashley Claborn
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyclaborn/ 

Connect with Matt Kleinrock  
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/     
Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/     

🚨 Register for the show: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined    

Your VP asks why events deserve more budget next year. You could defend every line item. Or ask for something else entirely. 

Matt says fighting for more money is usually the wrong fight. Alignment first, results second, budget third. That reframe is what separates event marketers who get taken seriously from the ones stuck justifying their existence every cycle.

Part 2 of our summer Q&A series covers what event marketers actually lose sleep over: booth psychology, credibility with leadership, and which KPIs are real versus which just look good in a slide deck.

Still poolside. Still surprisingly tactical.

✅ What Matt actually watches on a show floor once the booth design stops holding his attention

✅ Why leading metrics tell you the story while you're still in it, lagging metrics only tell you the ending

✅ The one detail from post-show debriefs most teams skip: pairing the numbers with what sales actually felt in the room

Oh, and the hot dog versus hamburger debate. Some things matter as much as pipeline. 

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Connect with Matt Kleinrock  
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/     
Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/     

🚨 Register for the show: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined   

What's the point of a stunning trade show booth if nobody inside it knows why they're there? 

Casey Smalley, Director of Global Events at Avetta, joins Matt Kleinrock to make the case that the smartest line in your event budget isn't the build. It's the briefing.

In this episode:

✅ Why treating booth staffing as a "scheduling exercise" quietly costs you pipeline, not just optics

✅ The one trait that separates a floor-ready team member from a liability (it has nothing to do with product knowledge)

✅ Inside a secret shopper program that graded booth staff posture with photos and why it worked

Most event teams obsess over booth design, tech, and swag, then leave staffing decisions to the final 48 hours, if they think about them at all. Casey brings 20 years in event marketing to explain why that gap is more expensive than most marketers realize. 

She and Matt swap stories from the floor: a secret shopper program that once graded booth staff on posture, and the beautifully built booth with nobody working it.

What surfaces is something every senior marketer already suspects but rarely says out loud. Attendees forget the screens. They remember the humans.

Tune in to find out what actually separates a booth that converts from one that just looks good.

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Connect with Casey Smalley
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseywalkersmalley/ 

Connect with Matt Kleinrock  
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/     
Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/     

🚨 Register for the show: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined    

Too many events still rely on the same booths, the same activations, and the same “safe” playbook. The result: experiences people walk past, forget, or never meaningfully engage with in the first place.  

Ashley Nuske, Director of Field & Event Marketing at Goldcast (now Cvent), joins Matt Kleinrock for a candid conversation about what’s broken in event marketing today and why safe strategies rarely produce standout results. 

Ashley shares how she approaches audience-first event design, builds experiences around business outcomes instead of assumptions, and pushes teams beyond repetitive execution. The episode explores everything from creative field event concepts to executive buy-in, experiential trends, and why immersive experiences matter even more in an AI-saturated world. 

Learn: 

✅ What stale event execution actually looks like in today’s market

✅ How thoughtful personalization creates stronger audience connection and recall

✅ Why event marketers need market awareness, not just internal opinions, to innovate

Tune in for a practical conversation on how modern event marketers can create experiences people actually remember and results leadership can actually measure. 

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Connect with Ashley Nuske 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleynuske-expmarketing/ 

Connect with Matt Kleinrock  
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/    
Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/    

🚨 Register for the show: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined   

Are you heading into fall events the same way you did last year? Same booth, same playbook, same hope that something sticks?

Most event marketers aren't lazy. They're just busy. And busy has a way of turning strategy into autopilot. That gap between teams who show up and teams who show up READY starts forming right now, in summer.

As part of The Summer Circuit, we're dropping a special compilation episode where host Matt Kleinrock shares the unfiltered advice he'd give any event marketer preparing for the back half of the year. 

(Yes, Matt filmed this from a kiddie pool. The advice is still dead serious.)

Here's what you'll walk away with:

✅ Why chasing a perfect ROI calculation before you have any measurement at all is the fastest way to measure nothing

✅ How a real event theme works and what it has to be rooted in to actually move through your entire execution

✅ When to stop order-taking from internal stakeholders and start asking the questions that get to the why

Fall is coming faster than most strategies are ready for. Give this one a listen.

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Connect with Matt Kleinrock  
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/     
Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/     

🚨 Register for the show: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined   

Your booth traffic looked good. Badge scans were high. Leadership wants ROI numbers. But none of that fully explains whether your event actually moved deals forward. 

In this episode, Matt talks with Cynthia Montalvo (Regional Field Marketing Manager at Steno) about the growing gap between event metrics and actual event influence. 

Cynthia, an event strategist known for pushing teams beyond surface-level reporting, explains why signals like stakeholder expansion, deeper conversations, follow-up meetings, and peer validation can tell a far richer story than lead volume alone. 

Together, they explore how event teams can become more intentional about designing experiences that create momentum across the customer journey—especially in complex B2B sales environments. 

Learn:

✅ Why conversation quality often matters more than booth traffic

✅ The signals that reveal trust, deal acceleration, and buying intent

✅ How to design events around influence instead of activity metrics

Listen in for a practical conversation on how modern event teams can better understand what’s really happening at their events and how to prove the value of it. 

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Connect with Cynthia Montalvo 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthia-montalvo/ 

Connect with Matt Kleinrock  
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/    
Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/    

🚨 Register for the show: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined