Does the pandemic feel like a distant memory already? For many organisations, they're still finding their way around the new playing field.

During the pandemic few organisations were quick to adapt and adopt different ways to engage with their audiences, at least successfully, but those that did planted very strong community seeds that are now paying rewards.

Influence group led by Michael Owens and Michael McCarthy is one of those very organisations and this post summarises the key takeaways from a very thoughtful conversation with Michael on what has been their approach to stay connected to their audiences, partners and key stakeholders.

Today, influence group is going really strong, their approach to engaging with their audiences, building communities and the unique way in which their events are run, has led them to form a partnership with CloserStill Media.

We would really recommend watching the full interview when you have time.
Check out the full interview here.

For the high level summary and key takeaways from our conversation, read on.

We've been keeping our ears close to the ground and over recent months we've come across these six companies that have really embraced change and made a positive shift in the way they run their virtual events. Companies that have pulled out all the stops to ensure their digital events are way above the standard.

In our opinion they've put a stake in the ground to secure a market segment they felt very confident was theirs with physical events and recognised that if they wanted to claim the same spot with their digital events, they needed to raise the bar and deliver a digital experience beyond their audience and partner's expectations. 

What's the answer to a digital event experience beyond expectations? Yep B2B digital broadcasting! Seen by many as the future of virtual / hybrid events, here are the six companies that have taken the steps forward in this direction.

We'll be showcasing what sets these companies and their leaders apart and their approach. If you want to delve deeper we're actually talking to one of them live this week, and if this is something you've been thinking about, then you should save yourself a spot.

• What are the key traits of the leaders that have done it?
• Who are the companies that have done it
• Key learnings from the pros

This is a long post and has tips / methods / videos / interviews all revolving around the Digital Pivot for Events.

Jump to the place you see fit:

Nowadays, it has become a constant struggle to catch up with the market and increase productivity to help execute the aggressive growth plans B2B and more specifically companies have. Needless to say marketers very often find themselves doing the same work over and over without having any time to actually execute new and fun marketing ideas.

In anyone's to-do list, work will constantly be postponed or piled up because budget couldn’t be extended to hire more staff, the tasks at hand are time-consuming and it is becoming harder to come up with fresh new ideas to plan and execute.

There are many resources at the marketer's fingertips to grow productivity without much budgetary requirement and leverage tools in the market to make way for new initiatives to come to fruition.

After making a list of the tasks that are most time-consuming in a marketing department, these are the best sites we've come across to help get the work done. These sites have experts working in every field possible, from design to content and finance. We’ve made a list of the top 4 sites that will surely help increase your marketing productivity and reduce your headache.

This post was updated on Sept 2020.

Recruiting is a time consuming and painful process. Recruiting outstanding event marketers and event sales professionals is even harder. Why? Because some event leaders are simply using the wrong approach!

If you’re someone responsible for marketing recruitment, it will come as no surprise to hear that things are pretty tough out there. We don’t think it’s too far fetched to say it’s a bit of a nightmare.

72.8% of employers are struggling to find relevant candidates. Fewer and fewer quality candidates in the active job market, those that are asking crazy salaries and being courted by lots of different firms.

Do you think your events company is digitally smart? Have you kept up with the evolution of digital? Or do you just want to find out what "getting" digital means? Whatever your reason for reading, you’ve made the right move. Events companies can’t afford to fall behind the curve with digital. After all, the events we produce are supposed to show our delegates what the latest and future trends look like in their industry, it’s only natural that they expect our event marketing to follow that pattern.

We love Stephen Covey’s book “7 habits of highly effective people” and often get asked if there’s an equivalent “7 habits” for event folk. So, here they are, our 7 top healthy habits for the digitally savvy events company:

Recently I received a request from B2B Marketing to fill in a survey and it was titled "Does marketing own the customer journey?" It was a provocative header (I'm a marketing geek if you didn't notice) that made me take action, fill in the survey and then write this post.

My strong view and answer to this question is:

Absolutely! Marketing definitely owns the customer journey. If they don't, they're just not doing their job.

How to attract an event audience, and how to keep them

Is there really a secret recipe for event success?

And then a secret sauce to keep them coming again and again?

Not really, it is not rocket science.

This was the opening line from Ashley Friedlein from econsultancy at the recent PPA Breakfast connect event.

I couldn’t agree with Ashley more - there is no silver bullet for achieving event success. So if there is none, what is the magic that some successful events like the Festival of Marketing enjoy?

Everyone knows the formula for event success and the most common mistakes to avoid.

The way you will attract an audience is through the “promise of the experience” and the experience you deliver. This is what Ashley thinks is the secret sauce. Successful events like the Festival of Marketing have the following elements:

In a recent survey, Adestra explored the attitudes of marketers towards emerging technologies, and their feelings towards adopting (or ignoring) it. They predicted that the research would unearth two distinct personas – the technophobes and the technophiles – and were surprised to discover that there were actually three separate camps. So which category do you as a marketing professional fall into, and what, if anything, should you do about it?  

I was recently interviewed by Events Uncovered TV, to share my observations on the ever changing shape that B2B event marketing is taking. The premise of my argument is that while some traditional marketing techniques may have worked superbly in their heyday, the industry is undeniably evolving (and some event marketers are struggling to keep up). Enjoy the interview and please comment away if you have views of your own.