The re-birth of event marketing?

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One of the biggest changes in 2024 so far is I’m no longer the only marketer on my team! I hired Todd Clouser to head up Audience Marketing at AudiencePlus.

While I’m no longer a solo marketer, it’s still only Todd and I, so we’re still doing everything in marketing. Trust me, the multiple hat wearing is at an all time high.

What will you learn in this edition?

• Why I was a solo marketer for the last 18 months.

• Which channels have driven the most growth for us by generating real opportunities and revenue.

• Some ideas you can use to bolster your go to market strategy in 2024 and beyond.

• See one of the biggest bets I’ve ever made in my career.

I started as Head of Marketing before AudiencePlus had a product. Anthony Kennada (Founder and CEO) is a three-time Cloud 100 CMO (Gainsight, Front, and Hopin) who firmly believes in the power of marketing and the power of owned media.

They say life is too short to work for a CEO who doesn’t get marketing, well I definitely work for one who gets it (more on that some other time).

Anthony made a bet by hiring marketing so early in the company, but he knew he wanted to build an audience, an organic foundation, and plenty of demand before the product was ready.

Together we built a subscriber base of over 4,500 B2B marketers, ran a three city roadshow with 100 in-person attendees at each stop and over 1,000 virtually, and launched the product with a LinkedIn live event hosted by none other than Topanga - all in less than 6 months and with $0 in ad spend.

This initial bet has led to…

• 66% of our closed revenue has been sourced through marketing.

• 87% of closed revenue has been influenced by marketing.

But there is even more interesting data here…

I did a deep dive analysis on our channels and what was driving the highest quality opportunities for us. The results were surprising, but also make complete sense.

I’ll share some data on two key stages of our funnel. Qualified Subscribers and Opportunities. At AudiencePlus we use Qualified Subscriber as a key stage in our marketing funnel.

Qualified Subscriber - a subscriber who meets our ICP and persona requirements. Someone who could (and should) turn into a commercial conversation and eventually a good fit customer.

When breaking these two key stages down by channel, I found the following…

That’s right, events are a MASSIVE driver of high quality subscribers and opportunities for us.

And we see events as a major part of an Owned Media strategy. What do these look like?

• In-person. Hosting a “micro” in person event in tandem with another event can work wonders on your pipeline without breaking the bank. We did this with the Efficient Growth Tour last year. 

• Virtual. Hosting virtual only experiences that bring your audience together around an interested or relevant theme.

• Exclusives. Traditionally, you might call these a webinar, but that’s kind of a bad word now. Webinars were hijacked from value-driven to product pitches. Instead pivot yours to a value add for your audience. e.g. Bring on industry experts who are well respected within your audience and have a live conversation. (Examples here and here)

And of course, using an audience borrowing strategy here by partnering with brands who share your ideal customer profile and target personas is a great way to drive the most engagement.

Side note: One of the best things about events is the content an event inherently produces. When content is thought out intentionally before events, you can create an incredible amount of valuable content for your audience. This will build value for your audience and bring in new subscribers for your brand.

Goldenhour 2024

All of this brings me to one of our biggest (educated and informed) bets for 2024.

We’re hosting our first industry event called Goldenhour in Brooklyn, New York on April 17th.

It will be a full day event that goes beyond what we’re used to in B2B events.

It’s designed to foster connection and belonging, and inspire and educate around a marketer’s most important job - impacting revenue.

This is a massive undertaking for a small team - and hosting an event of this magnitude wouldn’t be possible without support from Anthony (CEO) and Todd (Head of Audience Marketing).

We put together a stellar speaker lineup from industry luminaries like:

• Colin Fleming (EVP of Marketing, Salesforce)

• Melissa Rosenthal (CMO, Insight Timer)

• Alex Lieberman (Co-Founder of Morning Brew)

• Jill Rowley (Strategy & Evangelism, Reveal)

• Devin Reed (Head of Content, Clari + Founder of TheReeder)

• Camille Ricketts (Former Head of Marketing, Notion)

• Dave Gerhardt (Founder, Exit Five)

We also decided to forgo traditional sponsorship booths and instead sell activations.

An expo hall with booths and badge scans is a pretty ineffective way to really engage an audience.

Instead, we’ve given each sponsor a camera operator and brainstormed with them creative way’s for them to showcase their solutions without blatantly pitching a product.

The goal here is that sponsors will have a turn-key way to create content and create a memorable (and fun!) experience with attendees.

The virtual experience

We’ve also decided to forgo the “set up a camera in the back of the room” and call it a hybrid event experience.

Instead, we’ve gathered 16 leading practitioners and voices to do 15 minute flash talks and fireside chats streamed live on LinkedIn and other destinations.

It’s designed to be engaging, fast paced, and cover a lot of ground for virtual attendees.

We’re also recording keynotes and workshop sessions on-site to release high quality versions of them on demand post event. Think Netflix special quality, not a static camera.

Cheers!

JK