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Checked In with Splash
Keeping Events Creative with Elaine Lee
In this episode, host Camille White-Stern is joined by Elaine Lee, Senior Manager of Field and Event Marketing at Writer. Elaine has over 7 years of experience in the B2B software and technology space and is passionate about staying at the forefront of marketing trends and using analytics to deliver results and enhance brand visibility.
Tune in to hear Elaine and Camille discuss:
- The changing needs of event audiences
- Creative event ideas to engage attendees
- Metrics for measuring event success
- Getting internal buy-in for new programs
- Tips for using Writer to expand the value of your events
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This is Checked In with Splash. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Checked In. My name is Camille White-Stern and I lead experiential marketing here at Splash. I am so excited to be doing another live podcast recording. We're here in Austin for the Forrester B2B Summit and today I'm joined by Elaine Lee, who is the Senior Field Marketing and Events Manager at Writer. So before I introduce Elaine a little bit more to you, let me tell you about Writer.
Camille White-Stern:If you don't know now you know, Writer is a generative artificial intelligence company based in San Francisco that offers a full stack generative AI platform for enterprise businesses full-stack generative AI platform for enterprise businesses. At Writer, Elaine is responsible for the development and execution of field marketing and event strategies that bolster customer relationships and, of course, drive revenue. Elaine has a very impressive background, with over seven years of experience in the B2B software and technology space. She's super passionate about staying at the forefront of marketing trends and leveraging analytics to deliver impactful results and enhance brand visibility. Who doesn't love that? Prior to joining Writer, Elaine was a senior field marketing manager at Amplitude, a digital analytics company, and she also holds a degree in journalism from Indiana University. Elaine, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?
Elaine Lee:I'm great. Thank you so much for having me.
Camille White-Stern:It's really an honor and a treat. I love to get to interview people like you, who have such a deep background and experience in this space, and I think our listeners just find so much value from getting to learn about your strategy. So let's go ahead and dive right in. Tell me a little bit about your career journey today. I know you were at Amplitude previously before Writer. How did you end up in field marketing and events? How did you end up at Writer? Tell me about what you love, about what you do.
Elaine Lee:Absolutely so funny story I actually went to college to study to be a classical pianist. So, yeah, I was going to be a classical pianist, concert pianist didn't make it to Carnegie Hall, but post-college I still wanted to pursue my passion for music and so I ended up with a gig as a production and event coordinator for the city of San Jose, california, for some of their major concert venues. So that was fun for a little bit. And then, being in Silicon Valley with all the tech opportunities, I actually just bit. And then, being in Silicon Valley with all the tech opportunities, I actually just found my way into the tech space and then took those skills that I learned from live events and married them with the tech industry. So I did several years at a company called ThoughtSpot and then Very familiar with ThoughtSpot as well.
Elaine Lee:Yes, they used to be. They're a big Splash customer. Yes, yeah, and then moved to Amplitude and then I just recently joined Writer six months ago.
Camille White-Stern:Well, congratulations. I love that. I think we talked about when we first connected that shared background in kind of like the music live event space and finding our way into the tech kind of B2B world of events. So many transferable skills. Tell me a little bit about how what you do, your work with field and event marketing for Writer plays into the kind of overall the broader marketing and business strategy for Writer today.
Elaine Lee:Yeah, absolutely. I always say I think with events as a you know, as a field marketer, we have this tool belt right and on that tool belt are all these different ways that you can help your sales team, and events is a really great tool on your tool belt for, along with so many other pieces and with events, it's to help with the brand awareness, to help with the brand visibility, but also with generating pipeline, the attribution and I will say in Q1, actually our marketing in general. We generated 85% of the pipeline for our target accounts.
Camille White-Stern:Wow, that's impressive. Recently was reading some stats that, like the average company or marketing team at a company, will be probably responsible between 30 and 40% of pipeline.
Elaine Lee:So 85% is massive Kudos to you and the team, and I want to highlight that 85% it's our target account. So I think it's really a testament to not just our field marketing events team but our broader marketing team that you know we're really, really getting that ABM really focused and making sure that we're amplifying the right story, the right branding, doing the right events and getting the right people to our events as well.
Camille White-Stern:Yeah, you mentioned brand awareness, brand visibility. Tell me about some of the things you look at to kind of gauge that success. How do you know that your events are working to help amplify your brand?
Elaine Lee:Absolutely so. Actually, we in Q1, our field marketing events team, in Q1, our field marketing events team we pulled an average and on average we had a 95% in attendance rate. Yeah, and I think when I looked at the benchmark for it, it's a 52% attendance rate right now. So it's a big shout out and testament to the writer events team it's a 95% in attendance rate. So I guess we must be doing something right.
Camille White-Stern:Yeah, you're getting the right people to your events. Tell me a little bit more about how you measure success. You mentioned measuring pipeline. Tell me, unpack that a little bit for me. First of all, tell me what goes into generating that pipeline and what are some of the other metrics that you're kind of looking at to be able to say to your leadership team like you know, you said 90, 95% attendance or in attendance. That's amazing. That's a really key metric. What are some of the other KPIs or kind of ways you're measuring success?
Elaine Lee:Yeah, absolutely. I think for us, you know we really right now, currently the way our marketing or field marketing event strategy is set up is around I would say 70% of our time is dedicated on a bottom of funnel and middle of funnel type of programs. No-transcript. We got a bunch of leads from this event right, and I always say, well, let's look at the conversion rates right, and let's look at how fast they're moving through the pipeline funnel. Where are they? Are they getting stuck in certain stages? If they are, how are we making sure that we're helping them move that? So we look a lot at the velocity and I think with events it's never just one size fits all. Right, the size of the event, the type of event fits in different parts of the funnel, and so that's really how our team really looks. We try to look at the metrics that we have as a team, we try to look at the conversion rates, we try to look at the velocity and then that's how we plan the types of events that surround it.
Camille White-Stern:I love it. You're really demonstrating a pretty sophisticated, event-led growth, go-to-market motion and strategy. We talk a lot about that. I'm super passionate about that. You know when other marketers will ask me like, who maybe don't have such a sophisticated program or strategy? Where do they get started? It's exactly that Looking at where are the leaky parts in your funnel, do you have a brand awareness problem? Are your deals getting stuck somewhere? You need to help accelerate or increase your ACV or your win rate or decrease your days to close right. Ultimately, I think, as field marketers, we are Someone said, days to close right Like. Ultimately, I think as field marketers, we are someone said earlier to me like we are like the quarterbacks for the sales team. So we have to set up these plays, set up these event programs so that they can crush their quotas and then, as a revenue team, we can hit our goals.
Elaine Lee:Yeah, absolutely.
Camille White-Stern:I love that. I want to pivot a little bit because I think you can have the most thoughtful strategy, make sure you are kind of prioritizing your leakier parts of the funnel. But I'm sure that a key aspect of driving the right people your target accounts, to your events is also dependent on being creative and kind of thinking outside of the box. And I'm just curious, like how you think about fostering more innovation in your event strategies and where do you find inspiration? How do you know what's right, what's the right content, what's the right experience to deliver to these different buyers who, depending on where they are in their buying journey with you, they might have vastly different needs and expectations? So how do you think creatively about kind of rising to the occasion and meeting those expectations and delivering exceptional experiences for your attendees?
Elaine Lee:Yeah, that's a great, great point. I love this question because I think so many of us field markers when we get together, we're always trying to share ideas on what we're doing, and I really feel like the event space has changed so much since 2020, with that huge pivot that we you know. Before that I felt like everyone was doing so many events and then there was kind of shifting to the virtual. Now then it's hybrid and I'm seeing that we're going back to live events again. But what I'm seeing is in the industry right now is that the events are getting way more creative, and I'm also seeing that now, with a lot of people working remotely, you got to really have something compelling to get folks to come out of their houses to your event, and so it's not just anymore oh, come and enjoy a steak dinner or we'll take you golfing, right. It's what am I going to learn. Thought leadership is what am I going to learn? Who else is going to be there?
Elaine Lee:A lot of times, too, with events is you think about your customers. I think of them as partners. Many folks are trying to build their own brand as well. So, speaking getting knowing who the customers are that are trying to build their brand as well, helping them using your events as a place for them to do that as well, helping them using your events as a place for them to do that. And then the amount of creative events I've seen is just it's mind-boggling and really inspiring.
Elaine Lee:I would say we actually recently at Forrester on Sunday, we did an event at Mofre here in Austin on South of Congress. How did it go? It was fantastic, and we invited our customers and prospects to come. They worked with a personal stylist and they actually got to brand and customize their own Stetson hat Stop, yeah. And we recently, at the Shop Talk conference, we did an event at Suit Supply where folks could come and they would get a custom blazer fitted, working with a personal stylist.
Elaine Lee:And I think it's events like that that get us that 95% attendance rate, because the customers come, they get to learn from their peers, they get to hear what's going on in the industry, but they also get to come away with something for themselves, which is interesting, that maybe they wouldn't do in their own time. And I think people are really looking for those custom experiences now, too, on top of the learning, yeah, and I think there's so many. You know, just at Forrester I've seen so many cool events and I love your podcast as well. You've got some great speakers. I love the recent episode that you did with Alex Reynolds, the CEO of Vendelux Some great ideas there too. So field marketing and field marketers it's just such a tight-knit community and everyone's so willing to share. There's so many Slack groups out there, so that's definitely where I draw my inspiration from.
Camille White-Stern:I love it. I totally agree Sharing is caring, and we're all peers in this space with very similar goals for ourselves personally and for our businesses. I would love to hear a little bit more about the AI Leaders Forum that you mentioned. How did that come to be? What does that program?
Elaine Lee:look like yeah. So the AI Leaders Forum is our. It's our tentpole program at Ryder. It's a one-day event. We actually started running it First. One actually was launched in December of last year in San Francisco and it's kind of like a roadshow, but it's really focused on customers. And we just did it in March in New York and actually we're going to be in London in the next three weeks hosting our third AI Leaders Forum. How exciting Running that in Mia Market. Are you going to London? I am going to London, Absolutely.
Camille White-Stern:Love that for you. That's so fun. So tell me we were talking about metrics of success. What are some of those key indicators for that specific program? What are you really trying to achieve?
Elaine Lee:Absolutely Before each AI Leaders Forum is launched, we are really strategic with our invites for not just AI Leaders Forum but all of our events. So we really look at what's the end quarter pipe, the end quarter deals, who are our customers. We look at renewals, expansions, of course, and we want to make sure that we get those folks there as well. And then we also, you know, second tier is looking at our target list right and pulling those contacts in our database and making sure that we're getting those folks there to the events as well. Kpis that we really looked at, of course, is the pipeline generated, the pipeline that is attributed from the event. I think that the AI Leaders Forum for us has definitely been one of those events. That's a huge velocity pipeline velocity event for us.
Camille White-Stern:I love that as well. Of those events. That's a huge velocity pipeline velocity event for us. I love that. Well, last question on the AI Leaders Forum With a program like that, how did you kind of I know you joined relatively recently in the last six months but based on what you know of how the program started and just in general, if you were to start a new program, how do you kind of think about getting the internal buy-in to launch a new program like that, whether it's from your leadership or even just rallying the rest of your revenue organization to be able to support an event like that? Because I think you would probably agree, events are not just something that happens in a silo within the marketing team now. They're really a strategic go-to-market motion, or I always like to say events are a team sport. So how do you get the rest of your team rallied behind your events? In general, if you have any specifics around the AI Leaders Forum, how you just get people hyped up internally to make a program like that successful.
Elaine Lee:Our AI Leaders Forum. So many folks, not just in the sales department, everyone sees the value from, especially from San Francisco and from New York. They've seen so much value from it, not just internally but externally, like we have customers that are raising their hands saying that was such a great event. I learned so much. The networking was fantastic. When's the next one? Can I speak?
Elaine Lee:You know, an event is great when customers are coming to you saying, hey, how do I get, how do I become a part of this? And so the sales team hears that and they they see the value in that, and one of the ways that we help to drive that is making sure that we amplify those stories that customers share. Share. And leading up to AI Leaders Forum, we just work very closely with our sales team, help them with the invites. We have a dedicated Slack channel for each event that we host or we're going to be at or sponsoring, and we just make sure that we really support not just the sales team but the entire company get them excited, help them with the enablement, help them with their strategy, understand their pipeline and just make them know that we're lockstep with them to make sure that the event is a great experience for their customers and prospects.
Camille White-Stern:I love that. It sounds like you're super aligned. I feel like it's another evergreen topic for marketers. It's like how do I achieve better alignment with my sales counterparts? So it's just great to hear how you're doing that successfully at Writer. To hear how you're doing that successfully at Writer. I'm curious. You know, I am a marketer who gets to market a product that I use, which I love. Being in that position, I'm curious, like how do you leverage AI in your role? How are you using Writer to make yourself and your team more successful with your programs?
Elaine Lee:Absolutely so. At Wr iter I say we drink our own champagne. We drink our own champagne. I use Writer every day.
Elaine Lee:I think right before I came onto this podcast I was catching up. I was actually working on some follow-up emails for Forrester and then leveraging Writer. It's fantastic. I don't know what life is like before using Writer. It's a game changer for me, I think, especially from an event standpoint.
Elaine Lee:You know we have a small but mighty field events team. We do a lot of events and I think, as every field marketing and events person knows, the event is not over. When the event is over, that's just the middle. You know there's a whole nurture, there's a whole follow up. Otherwise the event is just it's a whole nurture, there's a whole follow-up, otherwise the event is just it's a moot point, right. And so how do you leverage the conversations, the content that has been created at that event and make sure that you're still pushing that and amplifying that forward, and Writer has helped that in so many ways. I think a big headache for a lot of event and field marketers is you're going back to back from events, sometimes, right, and so you're trying to grab the sessions, you're trying to follow up the leads. Everyone knows, if you don't follow up with the leads in 24 hours, there's just no point. They won't remember you.
Elaine Lee:And we have these custom templates in Writer and one of the ones that I love using is called Recaps Builder. So just recently, you know, there was a customer session that we have. I just drop in the YouTube link in there and in seconds it not only gives me the transcript which there's a lot of tools that can just give you the transcript but it goes a step further. It gives me just an outline of these are the speakers. This is the kind of the main agenda of it. These are quotes like star quotes from it, and here are three, five key takeaways from it. And that's fantastic because I can just something that would have taken me hours to do. Now it takes me minutes, and then I can take that and then I can revise my email, make sure I'm putting my own voice or spin to it and, speaking of voice in writer, you can upload your own brand and style guide into it too.
Elaine Lee:So another great example is the other day I was writing a piece of content and the writer icon pops up and recommends and says you are no longer using this term as of January 1st. Please make sure that you use this term instead. And that, to me, is amazing because, as you know, as you scale an events team and you start having field marketers all over, I've had that so many times where a VP comes up and says, hey, who did the landing page for this? This messaging and positioning is out of date, and so writer takes away that stressor and makes sure that we're all aligned and it makes us more efficient. But not only that it's made me a better writer and a better storyteller.
Elaine Lee:I think as marketers, we're all storytellers. But when you're trying to push content and try to meet deadlines and moving so quickly while things are also moving quickly, it's really tough to. Then, you know, you start to kind of maybe go on autopilot sometimes, which is not good. And with writer, I think it really makes me not only more efficient, but it makes me a better marketer and a much more creative storyteller.
Camille White-Stern:I love that. Well, I'm sold. I'm like I need the recapping I need. There's so much work that goes into making an event successful, let alone a whole event program or multiple event programs, so just being able to find those areas of efficiency without sacrificing quality is huge. So it's just helpful to hear how you're using your own tool and leveraging AI to. I know everyone's probably sick of the phrase like work smarter, not harder, but I mean we have to right.
Elaine Lee:So true yeah.
Camille White-Stern:So I'm curious if you have advice for marketers who are maybe, as I kind of mentioned earlier, besides just getting buy-in right, like any marketers who are listening in and wanting to develop a more mature, sophisticated event program. You know you said you run a lot of events. What would be your advice to them to kind of help them get started in terms of building out their own event-led growth strategy?
Elaine Lee:Yeah, I would say definitely, not just your field marketing team's metrics. The companies know those pipeline numbers, those goals, like the back of your hand. Know your sales teams, your AEs, whoever you're supporting. Know those numbers. Because I think what ends up happening a lot of times most event people will hear oh, let's do this event, let's do that, let's do this. There's so many things that everybody wants to do all the time and you just have to. You have to know the data. The data is so important and you've got to really know your business, know your data and ruthlessly prioritize. And I think a lot of times we can fall in the trap of okay, yeah, let's do this, let's do that.
Elaine Lee:And a big question I always say is I never say no, but I always say okay, why? Why are we doing this? What are we trying to achieve? How does this tie to our pipeline and our goals? Is it something that we're trying to achieve this quarter? Does it fall into our top three to five priorities? If it doesn't, then where would it fall? And I would say that's something I've learned from personal experience, you know, throughout my career is you are basically at the mini CMO of your region or your team or your vertical or your industry, whichever you're supporting from a field marketing standpoint. But really, really, I look at our metrics dashboard every day and just know those numbers and always ask why.
Camille White-Stern:Why do we want to do it? I love that Ask why and always ask why. Why do we want to do it? I love that Ask why. When I kind of first got into field and experiential marketing, someone told me, like you're going to have to learn how to creatively say no. But I love that reframe of it's not about just saying no, it's about first asking why and making sure you're tying the vision, the mission of your events to your broader business goals and objectives.
Camille White-Stern:And, as you said, I'll just ruthlessly prioritizing, because most of us don't have endless budget Wouldn't it be nice if we did? But we have to maximize those budgets. We have to produce ROI, because that's how you defend your budget for next year. Yeah, so I love to just hear that advice. I think that's really wise, sage advice for anyone a little earlier on in their career or more seasoned marketers who are finally realizing the value of leveraging events as not just a marketing tactic but truly a revenue growth channel. Elaine, thank you so much. I have just a couple of but truly a revenue growth channel, elaine, thank you so much. I have just a couple of final questions to wrap us up. What is the best way for folks to get in touch with you and stay connected to your work.
Elaine Lee:Absolutely Add me on LinkedIn. Okay, happy to include that.
Camille White-Stern:Just your first name Elaine Lee Elaine.
Elaine Lee:Lee 88. Elaine Seeley 88.
Camille White-Stern:Okay great Love it. Find her on LinkedIn, folks. Any final words or thoughts you'd like to share with our listeners? Any like parting pearls of wisdom?
Elaine Lee:I would say be bold, be creative. Right now, I'm seeing just so many cool events. Don't be scared to propose an event, as long as you back up with the data and the metrics and the ROI, of course. But there is no such thing as that event is too crazy. I feel like I'm seeing just a plethora of really interesting personalized, customized events. Everyone's just doing some really cool stuff out there, so if you have an idea, don't be afraid to share it.
Camille White-Stern:I love it. One final, final question for you, besides your own really creative events that you've shared which I'm now feeling kind of like FOMO that I missed your event the other day but what has been one of the more creative events or activations that you've seen recently? It could be one of your own too, if you haven't gone to a lot of your backpacks.
Elaine Lee:Yeah, you know what I will say at Amplitude, one of the biggest events that we did, that was very popular. We invited folks to Lululemon. And again it's this I don't know what it is, but these personal stylist type of events, they just work so well with the audiences. So, amplitude, they would do it at Under Armour, they did it at Lululemon, but folks would get to come. They would have a little stage set up, you could hear from some customers or industry speakers and then they would get to shop with a personal stylist on Amplitude and I just thought that was really really cool. And some other things that I've seen are, I know another event that I've seen is someone rented out the Melrose Rooftop Theater in Los Angeles. Really, yes, and what was cool about it was they did a winter event. It was a holiday event and they allowed the prospects to bring their wife and their children or their husband, partners and their kids and they played a showing of Elf.
Camille White-Stern:Oh, I love that movie.
Elaine Lee:Yeah for a holiday and that was a great event.
Camille White-Stern:I thought I love that.
Elaine Lee:I think folks again, you know they're looking for ways to, they want to learn, but also that's an experience that they probably wouldn't have had otherwise have had.
Camille White-Stern:Yeah, yeah, I love that. Well, thank you for sharing. Always just like to crowdsource creative ideas. That's one of the questions I get most often is like, what should I do for my next event? Like, what are some of the creative things that you're seeing out there? So had to ask you that final question.
Camille White-Stern:Elaine, this has been such a treat. Thank you so much for joining me here today. Folks, don't miss out. Connect with Elaine on LinkedIn, follow her, follow her work. She knows her stuff. She knows what she's doing. Elaine, again, thank you so very much. This has been such a treat for me, and until next time, folks, take care. Thank you All right, folks. That's it for today. If you enjoyed today's episode or are a fan of the podcast in general, please let us know. Support this show by subscribing on your preferred podcast platform and, while you're at it, leave us a rating. We so appreciate feedback we receive about the show. So if you ever want to get in touch, you can email us at podcast at splash thatcom or, better yet, join our Slack community where you can message me directly. Last but certainly not least, if you're a marketer using events to help your business grow and want to learn how Splash's platform can take your events to the next level, like we have for MongoDB, UCLA, Okta, Zendesk or even Sweetgreen, visit our website at www. splashthat. com. Until next time, take care.