Checked In with Splash
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Checked In with Splash
Turning Third-Party Events into ROI Powerhouses
In this episode, Splash's Haley Kaplan sits down with Sendoso's Head of Growth and Customer Marketing, Austin Sandmeyer. With over 10 years of experience in the event industry, Austin's hosted everything from small dinners to county fairs to comic-cons to business trade shows and conferences and beyond.
Tune in to this episode to hear him share:
- Strategies for setting goals and expectations for your third-party events
- How to align with your executive team on a wraparound event strategy
- Methods for assigning different roles and responsibilities to team members at your booth versus those taking part in your smaller, owned events
- The most effective strategy for getting buy-in from your sales teams
- How to prep your on-site team to have quality conversations that build relationships
- Best practices for capturing and qualifying leads on-site
- Different tactics for engaging with prospects on the conference or trade show floor versus at your wraparound event
- Follow-up strategies to maintain and grow your connections post-event
...and much more.
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Learn more about Splash: https://splashthat.com/
Connect with Austin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinsandmeyer/
Follow Splash on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/splashthat-com
This is Checked In with Splash.
Haley Kaplan:My name is Haley Kaplan and I'm on the experiential marketing team here at Splash, and I am so thrilled to welcome you to today's fireside chat. As we explore strategies to turn every third-party event into an ROI powerhouse. From hosting killer wraparound events to mastering the art of follow-up, we are diving into how you can maximize your brand's presence at the industry's largest events. We frequently discuss the go-to-market motion of event-led growth. Event-led growth is all about strategically using events to drive revenue, growth and expansion.
Haley Kaplan:With an event-led growth approach, events are the heart of your marketing efforts and while that once a year big industry event is important part of the marketing mix, it's not really enough to capture your modern buyer and bring them through your funnel. Today's buyers expect bespoke experiences in exchange for their time, and that's a tall order for that annual conference with thousands of other attendees. You really need to drive connection, value, trust, engagement and learning in order to impact pipeline. This is where having a holistic event-led growth strategy becomes critical. You need the set of event programs that are repeatable and scalable, events that allow you to nurture buyers on their journey to becoming brand champions.
Haley Kaplan:This brings me to the power of wraparound events. You know those owned events that you host adjacent to a third party event. By using your onsite team at the industry's biggest gatherings, you can drive real value for your prospects and customers. Tapping into wraparound events just allows you to amplify your brand's presence at these conferences and connect more meaningfully with your prospects and customers, beyond just scanning a badge at a booth or handing out swag. That is why I'm so, so excited that we have an event expert in the house today, mr Austin Sandmeier, who is the head of growth and customer marketing at Sendoso. Hi, Austin.
Austin Sandmeyer:Hey, yeah, hey, hey, hey, Haley. Super excited to chat with you all today. I am jazzed. I just came out of a team like company offsite, so it is going to be a great time and I know I already see the chat blowing up. It's going to be super fun to chat. This is like one of my favorite topics and I get to chat with splash team, so this is going to be great.
Haley Kaplan:Oh my God, and we're just so honored that you have chosen to spend your afternoon with us, and I just cannot wait to pick your brain. You just have so many awesome insights and I really can't wait to dive into it. But before we dive into the questions, your career background is just really impressive and I'd love for you to just take a moment, brag about yourself. Give the audience a little sneak peek into the experiences that got you to where you are today and what type of events you run at Sendoso. Give us some context.
Austin Sandmeyer:Yeah, I'll give you a little background on me. So today I'm at Sendoso. I am the head of growth and customer marketing. Inside of growth, all things events. So you know all the trade show, conferences, dinners. You know that style of events. They fall into that growth side where we focus on net new pipeline. Last half of my title is customer marketing and so that is all about our customers. So think customer events, customer conferences. I work on turn mitigation.
Haley Kaplan:I work with customer strategy. I do all kinds of different stuff in that second part of the title. I'm sorry. That's just a little bit, you've just got like a small amount of things under the umbrella of events that you do.
Austin Sandmeyer:Just a little bit, a little bit of fun. I get to play in all the style events, which I think is really fun, and I like to think about it as event marketers and marketers. I think will appreciate this. And I like to think about it as event marketers and marketers. I think we'll all appreciate this. But I get to play at the earliest prospect level of like you don't even know us to. You are our customer, you are loving us, you want to stay with us forever, You're going to your next company, you're bringing us with us and that entire life cycle I get to play in.
Austin Sandmeyer:So I get to have a pretty fun job, in my opinion. So that's what I take care of here at Sendoso. Historically, in the background, I have done events for 10 plus years. I've worked on events from intimate dinner events to county fairs, to comic cons, to business trade show conferences and like kind of everything in between. So I've gotten to play in a lot of fun events and a lot of different styles and structures from B2C to B2B, and I found my niche in B2B and I've been living here for a little bit, but I love it.
Haley Kaplan:Oh my gosh, see, I'm so excited to pick your brain. You have every experience under the sun, have done a little bit of everything and so a little bit of all fun stuff A little bit of all fun stuff, oh my gosh.
Haley Kaplan:Well, thank you again for being here and if you guys have questions, feel free to drop them in the chat for Mr Austin. Here let's dive into the good stuff with our wraparound events, specifically when it comes to those larger trade shows and industry events. So, starting with like a topic that's very crucial for any event, and more than half the battle, in my opinion, is the event preparation and what goes into actually setting up these events like not so much logistics but like selecting the right trade shows to show up, to getting your team aligned, charging after similar goals and promoting. It is really like the meat and potatoes when you are doing a wraparound event or an ancillary event at a conference. So what strategies have you really found most effective and setting really clear goals and expectations for your onsite team that's attending these larger trade shows? How do you set and communicate these goals and expectations for the owned wraparound events, too? Like? How are you aligning your team and setting goals and expectations?
Austin Sandmeyer:Yeah, I mean, I think like if you have a lot of experiences and you know just doing booths or conferences in the background, you probably have already learned that like preparation and understanding and getting everybody on the same page and trying to download your brain into every single person, that's going brain. Biggest thing that I like think about is making sure that they know what you know for sure, the critical information, and trying to give it to them in as many places as possible. And so when that comes into play, it's coming into meetings. I'm sure all of us already are doing like pre show meetings and eight weeks out meeting, four weeks out, six weeks out, and you're like doing briefings as you go into it. So there's meetings. There's Slack, so Slack channels, slack groups depending on your structure of how you guys do this or teams or whatever you know your communication method is. There's calendar invites that you can use communication. So making sure everybody has the calendar invite and you're linking to a briefing with all of the core information. So everybody knows I often send out like little loom videos with a lot of the information in it. So our sales people are busy and all of our you know people that attend events are very busy. Executives only have, you know, two seconds at sometimes to review these documents, and so loom is very helpful. It's like giving them a boiled down version of what they need Google slides, emails those are some of my like big go-tos when I'm trying to get everybody on the same page of like okay, you're coming to this conference to do this and this is your output and why you're going to be here and how we're going to get you to get to your success, and so that's kind of what I come down to from a logistical perspective of how I think about getting everybody on the same page, and then, like I think another moment into that is like making sure everybody is there for a reason and that they like know how to get to their point of like where they're going.
Austin Sandmeyer:Like you know, you often bring salespeople and they're there to have sales conversations or demo the product, or maybe you have an AESDR relationship. You often bring your CX leaders. They're there to talk with your customers. Maybe they're talking about upsell or they're talking about renewals you know usage often and then you have your executives. They're, you know, locked up in an executive meeting somewhere with you know, some other partner of a conference team and the schedules can be a little wild.
Austin Sandmeyer:So making sure that you align that from the people that are going, but not just the people that are going, but the people that are their bosses, so, like their executives, so you're aligned with the VP of sales about why that AE is going and what they're supposed to be doing there, and aligning their outcomes and their goals of booking meetings beforehand, communicating beforehand, you know, the chief customer officer, the CCO, whatever you're doing there, making sure that the CSMs that are attending have a plan, they're going to talk to their customers, they're doing whatever. So you're aligned not just with the individual but with, like, their bosses or you know, so everybody is on the same page of knowing what's going on there. And obviously, I think my favorite one that is not just an event specific thing but is like marketing and I feel like specific thing, is setting realistic goals, which is kind of hard sometimes.
Austin Sandmeyer:Yeah, the challenge of a lot of things, yeah yeah, because you know you want everything to produce crazy amounts, and so I think like thinking about realistic goals. You're going to go to a. You know we're going to a trade show of 20,000 people. Are you going to get 15,000 leads? Probably not, so what is the right number? What makes sense? And if you're going to get like, if you anticipate 20,000, how many people are going to stop by your booth? Do you have the right number of AEs or demo conversation people? Are you staffing things correctly?
Austin Sandmeyer:I've been at conferences all the time where it's like one side or the other or especially as you talk about wraparound stuff, like things are weirdly outdated but you know the company has their entire team here and then there's like five prospects or the inverse. It's there's way too many prospects and there's, you know, one sales rep or one rep from the actual company. So trying to find the right balance there is really critical.
Haley Kaplan:Yeah, I kind of want to double tap on the wraparound event goal piece because, you know how, like you have boots on the ground and you have a booth, like you have a stationary place to kind of really out like, it's easier to set goals when you have that insight as a sponsor. But if you're coming in kind of more guerrilla and you're setting up just a wraparound event, how are you kind of thinking about these goals and the goals for a wraparound or ancillary event, as opposed to on the ground conference sponsorship per se?
Austin Sandmeyer:Yeah, I think, like in that vein, goals are super important and I think wraparound events so I like to think of like booths as, like they are the broadest of the goals at conferences. You know, these are where oftentimes you're going to lead, scan as many people as you can, you're going to maybe try to get them to demos beforehand, but maybe you get the pre-show list, maybe you don't get the pre-show list, maybe you get the post-show list, maybe you get none, because you know marketing and the world and so there's everything in between, and so that is where, like, your broadest conversations frequently happen, and then the wraparound motion, in my opinion, really comes down to what is the goal of that individual event, like what is the key need there? To give you an example, we're going to be going to inbound, so we are going to have sales dinners, we are having customer dinners, we are having mixture dinners where there's like advocates and prospects together, there is executive dinner, there's partnership dinners. We are doing many different aspects of wraparound activities. We're doing, I said, dinner and all those, but we also have like breakfasts and day event things, and so we have a lot of different activations going on and each one, like, has a different purpose and I think like that's pretty critical.
Austin Sandmeyer:When you're thinking about, wraparound is like okay, so the booth is our broader goal. What is the wraparound motion? Are we getting deeper in relationships? Are you getting like? The analogy that I kind of like to use is like and you're gonna have to bear with me here, because it kind of comes back to like dating and stuff so your booth is like dating. It's like sliding into the DMs. You know they might know some information. They really don't know that much that you saw them. You're like I think I like that person. So you're sliding into the DMs in theory, and then the answer to the wraparound event is often your first date or date number two or three or four.
Austin Sandmeyer:They're often a little bit more intimate. You know there's a higher cost in the matter of the prospect or the person coming. Like it's not like I walked by your booth and that took me 10 seconds. It's like oftentimes wraparound events are at a different place they're at a different dinner location, like that person has a more buy-in and so I like to think of it as like a date. It's a little bit further down that dating relationship and the relationship kind of model.
Haley Kaplan:I love that analogy. That's great. We should use that for everything. So easy to understand. And yeah, it's so. So true.
Austin Sandmeyer:On like your wraparound, events do serve a very different purpose and like a more specific goal in mind and I think, like for the wraparound events, in my perspective, like one of the reasons there's like two biggest reasons why we Sendosa has pivoted a lot to wraparound events. I don't like I'm sure we'll chat about it later, but I wanted to dive into that Like one of the reasons is cost. I can't afford a $50,000 booth on the show floor anymore. That's just not realistic, so I can't do that. And then Sendoso is in a different position in the manner of like why you might need to do that. There's times and places and company strategies on why you do need to invest in that. I don't think every company needs to, but like there is a time and a place for you to invest in that.
Austin Sandmeyer:And then the other one is really around, like the relationship that I'm trying to get out of these events. Like when I'm going to an event, one of the things that I was noticing when I would go and do a bunch of booth events was like at the end of the day, I'm trying to walk away with as many confirmed demos, s1s, like the salesperson is ready to rock and roll, like we are all on the same page, and like that can be really challenging to do at a booth. It can be really challenging, no matter how many demo stations you have set up, how much pre-outreach you've done, it's just like the salesperson oftentimes isn't ready to say yes, or they're ready to say yes and they're like you didn't really qualify this thing and so like for one of the other reasons on why we kind of went to adding these wraparounds around it is it allows us to get deeper in relationships. So it allows us as we're going back to that relationship metaphor it gets us deeper on the first date, which is often like the discovery call, and that means we're walking away with like a more confirmed S1 or approved pipeline or a deal, versus like yeah, you know, they swung by my booth, they were there for 15 minutes.
Austin Sandmeyer:I kind of demoed them. It wasn't a real demo. I need to have more conversation. I would get that all the time and I was so frustrated with it and I was like, okay, I need to make this occur at the event so I can walk away and say, yes, this is where it occurred. It happened here.
Haley Kaplan:Here's what sort of result is oh my gosh, ancillary events this past year, because we just see the ROI from them is so much more impactful. Not that traditional ways aren't, but you're able to really foster deeper relationships in cool ways with people who you want customers, prospects, whoever that may be. I want to quickly chat through promotion behind it Because again you're hitting certain people, certain markets, certain prospects that you will want to foster that go on a date with. How have you been able to prioritize the promotion for the different activations or all of those different wraparound events? Is it more on your sales team? Is it an even split between CX sales marketing? Is it you leave open spots at some of these wraparound events while you're on site and try to get people to them while on site? Like, how is your team tackling the promotion piece of having all of these different wraparound activations, which I think is also so cool?
Austin Sandmeyer:I'm so yeah, I think. I think it's really. This isn't going to be a super great answer for anybody, so you can call me out in the chat, but it really depends on what you're trying to do and oftentimes it depends on your marketing tech stack like classic marketing answer.
Austin Sandmeyer:You know it all depends. It all depends on everything. It depends on what you're trying to do and, like what you're trying to activate and how that results in. Like you reaching out to the list. If you're trying to, you know you're going to use inbound, because we're kind of talking a little bit about here. But, like, if you are going to inbound and you want to have a dinner event and it's for you know your prospect side, maybe you have a customer in Boston. They're probably going to take a couple of seats and then you're looking at okay, do we have any open pipeline from that open pipeline? Do they have anybody in Boston? You know we're matching this data. We're looking on LinkedIn. We're trying to find, you know, their event marketers in Boston. You know their head of demand gens in Boston. You know whoever is in Boston.
Austin Sandmeyer:Like they don't need to be going to inbound to be doing these wraparounds. And that's like one of my really I love things about wraparound is like you get a twofold. It's kind of like a city event without with activities coming into it. So it's like instead of if you ever were like I want to do an event in Boston because I think my target accounts are there and I think it's fine, like, do it around inbound because you're going to get everybody at Boston and you're going to get potentially the extra traffic from that. Yeah, and so, like, that's where it comes down to a lot of times.
Austin Sandmeyer:A lot of times, a lot of our wraparounds are you know they're ancillary to an event, they're involving the event. You know, identify who's going to inbound if we're not an official sponsor and how do you identify people that aren't an additional sponsor? You can look on LinkedIn, search on LinkedIn who's interacting on things. If your people aren't very LinkedIn savvy, okay, you know the conference or the trade show, take that out, back out the ICP that they may have given you. You know 50% of them are directors. They're in the tech stack, they're in the tech space and you know, like, if you had a conversation with them, you can kind of back this out of like, okay, I know that you know directors of marketing or directors of sales frequently attend this event.
Austin Sandmeyer:These are my target account lists. Like inbounds nature and like, if you're doing Dreamforce or whatever, you know that, like, they're probably our HubSpot customers or like are using HubSpot. You can use tech vendor data to try to like marry in that into your target account list and then you know that's your prospect list. Those are the people that you're going to try to get at your events, and so I think there's a lot of different ways to back in to getting to the right people and it depends on what your event is doing. If it's customers in Boston, are they not in Boston? Do you think they'll be there in Boston? And so I think like that's a lot of getting to that registration list and getting to butts in the seats to make it kind of the event that you'd want and find the right person.
Haley Kaplan:Oh my God, like I said, it's the meat and potatoes. The event logistics are like nothing. You know meat and potatoes is really trying to figure out. Who is that?
Austin Sandmeyer:This is where you're working with, like your SDRs and your AEs as close as possible If possible. If you're doing ABM, you're having a target account list Like this is where you're marrying the target account list and you're trying to look in LinkedIn If you have other tools like zoom info, clear, bit, ample, market, whatever you're marrying that data to see like who is located where you know how long have they been in the company, like those types of things, and you're trying to pull off your list there. I think that's kind of the biggest element. And then the other element that I like we talked a little bit about Haley earlier but like one of the things is partners wrap around events are a massive partnership opportunity.
Austin Sandmeyer:So, like Splash and us are doing a and Mobily are doing a dinner at inbound, and so you know we are partnering together to identify the right people to bring to the conference, to bring to the dinner, and we're, you know these are our open pipeline, this is our close pipeline, these are our customers.
Haley Kaplan:You know these are people we would love, like they will gladly come to an event, so like that's another component that's really critical and specifically in wraparounds, yeah, kind of like just one more little piece of the pre-event work that I kind of want to chat through and you mentioned it working really closely with your SDRs, your AEs, your CX team. That is a big struggle point for a lot, a lot of companies, a lot of teams just rallying team revenue around not only wraparound events and like third-party events, but just like events in general, improving the value that events do have because they are one of the most powerful marketing, if not the most powerful marketing channel. So do you have any wisdom, best practices, anything that goes to empowering your team to like effectively participate in the promotion while on site, just like any best practices you can, you can share.
Austin Sandmeyer:I don't know if I have wisdom, but I have thoughts. I'll share my thoughts, some of the things that I like think about there when I'm talking about getting them bought in, and I have this problem. Everybody will have this problem. Everybody has this problem. I think is a problem. You know sales is busy. They're trying to, you know, work their pipeline through, trying to find new ops. They're doing a lot of stuff, and so one of the things that I've learned, you know, a few roles ago, was to try to find one or two sales whether that's an AE or an SDR that has just like knocked it out of the park when it comes to working with you on events and creating pipeline from events and showcasing them as an example. Like you may or may not know, but Junior is an amazing. You know, worker Junior is one of our amazing AEs over here at Sendoza. He's incredible at events. You know, worker Junior is one of our amazing AEs over here at Sendoza. He's incredible at events. You know he is working. He's working the list pre-post after he's thinking about it. He's trying to think about how I can be, how he can be involved in more aspects, and so he's an example that I use with other sales leaders. All of our sales leaders have stepped up. So I'm in this fortune of where I had a sales leader that was incredible. I showcase them to the rest of the sales team to identify. You know, junior set numbers. He's doing great work here.
Austin Sandmeyer:Let's all make sure that we're kind of following and replicating because at the end of the day, we are all people, we are all kind of. We can all sit in that sales seat and say I want to do whatever I need to do and whatever someone else is doing to win, and if they see someone winning, they will do the exact same thing. That is why, you know, email back in the day was like the you know new thing and people were starting to use it for sales and they saw someone doing it and they started closing business. And now everybody is emailing and all of our inboxes are crazy stuff, and so if they see something that's happening that's working, they're going to try to replicate it, and so that kind of creates that buy-in where, like now at Sendoso, events are like when's our next event?
Haley Kaplan:When do I get to play with the attendee? Who can I see that's going to try to attend, Like they're actively wanting to be involved in the conversation. I love that. That is just so amazing for your org to have that kind of environment and response to events, and so I hope that's like really inspiring or helpful for people who might be struggling with that that are in our audience.
Haley Kaplan:I think the internal, not evangelist but like the internal heroes of events huge to spotlight and, like everyone's, got their go-to person that they want to work with and so showcasing them and their results from what has happened is such a great, great idea to show the value in like this is.
Austin Sandmeyer:I don't know exactly how everybody's BDR teams are compensated, but, like, BDRs love to book meetings, that is their job and so if they get a, you know, highly personalized, you know focus list, like great, they will take that every single day. So, working with your BDRs, working with your BDR leader if you have a BDR leader that's managing them like really diving into that and like helping identify, you know, who are all-star BBRs and how can we potentially utilize them. In some aspects, Like those are other ways to kind of unlock the deeper sales team.
Haley Kaplan:Yeah, great, oh my gosh, you're already dropping so many awesome nuggets and knowledge and I want to kind of keep the conversation going in like vein of discovery calls and tapping into that. When you're on site and you're meeting many, many, many people, it can be really hard to kind of track if you're capturing and generating qualified not only leads but prospects and people who can go into your pipeline, that's, you know, putting on these events to drive pipeline and pipeline accelerations and sourcing new ops. So what are some of your best practices for doing that on site? You know, capturing these leads and qualifying them during not only larger events but even those like smaller wraparound events for a happy hour per se, there's like 120 people that attend. Not all 120 are going to be qualified. So how is your team approaching that when you do attend large industry events?
Austin Sandmeyer:Yeah, there's multiple components. One of the components is obviously trying to have the list beforehand. If it's a wraparound, it's an owned event, you should have the list beforehand. You know who potentially is going to be in this audience. If it's a free for all wraparound event, people are coming from an event. You know you're hosting it across the street and people just float in. That's fine. You're hopefully you'll gain some registration beforehand, so something at your activity is registerable beforehand, so that you're getting a pre-show list or a pre-activity list, and so that would be a recommendation. If you're thinking about this, you're going to try to do an ancillary next to it and try to like pull from the audience. So that's a recommendation.
Austin Sandmeyer:The other thing that I like to think about is just like most of the time I run our sales team through a like how do you speak with people at events? And this isn't like crazy rocket science by any means, but I do think it's like very important, and sometimes people are, you know, not thinking about it because they're trying to get somewhere as fast as possible, and so the things that I like to think about and like what I frequently tell people in my many years of doing and talking to people on trade show floors is asking them like, what brings you here, what's your focus today? Like trying to understand what they are and who they're here and why they're here to look at. And like one of my favorite things to talk about at conferences and at trade shows and at wraparound events is, like what's your focus? Like Haley, what's your focus at this conference? Are you like looking for a new CRM? Are you looking for a new stuff? Are you just like here to go to some of the keynotes, like what's up? And so like that'll exactly right. So that'll start opening the conversation.
Austin Sandmeyer:Because, like, oftentimes, what I hear and I see a lot of SDRs or a lot of booth people say is like, have you heard of Sendozo? Have you heard of this? Her role is you don't understand anything about her to date. And so, just like pre-framing that and teaching them that, like trying to understand who they are. Because if I can understand why hayley is going to an event, why hayley is at this wraparound event, I can obviously better position sendosa, which what your actual needs are, versus, like you know, hay Haley, sendoza was a swag management platform. We can send things to all your prospects and then you find out that Haley is, you know, a customer marketer and has never dealt with a prospect in her life, it's like, oh well, that was a swing and a miss. If only you had known she was a customer, you know, marketer, you could have figured it out.
Austin Sandmeyer:And so, like I, those many meetings that are pre show or dirt, you know you could send a loom video or whatever talk to them about how to have a first interaction with someone. What brings you here? Like what's up? Like what are you excited for? And like, oftentimes you'll get under the list, like, oh, I'm here for a CRM. Oh, amazing. Like I know there's a great CRM. What are you thinking about attaching to?
Austin Sandmeyer:Like, what is your purpose for a new CRM? Oh, my data isn't dirty. It's like, oh cool, wow, that's a problem. Like I could see that you're starting to dig into their relationship and actually understand them. And so that is one of the things that I talk about to all of mine because, like, effective lead generation is effectively understanding who that person is and actually building a relationship. It's not like Haley, she works at Splash and she's, you know, an amazing marketer. That is not effective lead generation. I could find that by going to LinkedIn and Zoom info like not useful. What is useful is having Haley talk about her problems why she's here, what's her pain. Points like those things are actually impactful, and so, when it comes to lead qualification and getting quality leads, that is the first step.
Austin Sandmeyer:If I just wanted to go and get a bunch of scan leads. I could just send anybody and you know everybody would scan everybody and we'd be done. I could just honestly, I would never pay. I would just go to you know some random list builder or sell and sell by the data for 100 bucks, and so that's not the point of events. The points are to actually understand and get a relationship with the person. So that is big. And when it comes to lead qualification because oftentimes you know your list of a hundred, there's going to be a good number of on there that have problems. Maybe you can actually service their problems, maybe you can't, and you have an amazing partner that can, and when that time changes and that person needs something else, there's an amazing relationship there. And so, at the end of the day, like people are people. So I want, like my sales reps, and what I talk to them about is like, meet them as people, not as badge scanners. It doesn't matter. Badge scanners are great and they have a place as well, but they're not going to get you to your number. At the end of the day, you could have done that by just scraping LinkedIn. It's not going to help you. So that is a big component. Obviously, we have qualifying questions in our motion of having that, but I never say ask Haley the qualifying questions. No, have Haley get to the qualifying questions by herself. She will get there when you ask the right questions that bring her and learn more about her, and so those are big things that I talk to my team about and then you are smart enough to take her answers and put it into the five qualifying questions I actually have on the app, like I'm trusting you to be able to figure that out and you have the ability, so, working really closely with the sales team, to showcase that and understand that. So that's a big part of lead generation and qualification.
Austin Sandmeyer:We use different tools at all of our events. Sometimes you're at conferences and you have whatever their lead scanner tool is. My new favorite tool is a tool called Mobley. It's a great event tool for in-person events specifically like dinners or round tables or things like that, where you can take a picture of anybody's badge. It will start to identify that person runs through enrichment and then that's where they can start putting the notes, the qualifications, stuff like that in there. So highly recommend them as a tool. You don't have to buy the massive lead scanning tool at all the conferences, and one of the best parts, in my opinion, of this style of motion is like you can use it to build a relationship at the dinner, at the wraparound event, wherever, because they're probably not wearing a badge but you can type in you know Haley, from the splash, and this is the few four things that you know, so that's a big tool.
Austin Sandmeyer:The biggest thing when it comes to lead qualification is getting them into Salesforce, like getting them into your CRM, like what is the point, and getting them as fast as possible, and so that is kind of my biggest component is trying to get them from conversation to Salesforce. That's where we are with our Salesforce campaign, and so that is the process that I work to get to, and that is one of the things that I use Mowgli for. Like, if I were Haley, we're at a conference, I take a picture that is syncing you to Marketo and into Salesforce and you are now a lead in our system. Within by the time our conversation is done, you're in our system and then we can, you know, do and take all of your qualification data and put it into there. So that is a big part that I really is critical, in my opinion.
Haley Kaplan:Oh my God, it makes life so much easier for all parties involved, which is always so helpful, and I really just love the way that you're approaching enabling your team. Like you, you think some of these things might be like second nature, but approaching it in person versus a demo on the phone or email, whatever is so different because people don't come now. They don't come to an event to, like, just be sprayed and prayed with, like disco questions or things like that. They want to meet people and connect with folks. That's usually the primary reason why someone attends an event. So enabling your team, with really great resources like that, to chat to someone as people first, I think is a really great way to share and not only make sure that, like your team, because you might not be on site for every event that you have. That's a wraparound, so to have confidence in your team to really create connections that aren't just for like deal like it will do that if you like nurture that relationship.
Austin Sandmeyer:Yeah, I mean, I think, like, what I recommend everybody to do is, just like you have your own systems, your own processes. I would recommend that you, you know, document them and create a mini bootcamp. It's, you know, a little bitty bootcamp for your sales team to go through. You can have it recorded. You could have it just in document, one page of like these are the things that we focus on and I want everybody to make sure they review this in your first, you know, pre-show briefing that you have and that you know that helps get everybody on the same wavelength.
Austin Sandmeyer:Everything from you know we use this tool at this event. We use this tool at that event to like what do I wear? We wear this and we do this. And you know what is your hourly expectations. Are you, are you supposed to be on from eight to, you know, 8pm, because you're at all the events and parties are midnight, I guess at that point. Or you know, you know certain parties go to certain events, certain ones go to the other ones. You know those types of expectations are always good to level set beforehand. Otherwise it's quite a challenge.
Haley Kaplan:Yeah, totally Okay. I just saw a quick question. I can kind of take it because it's in the vein of enabling your team. When do you encourage your team to take notes with Mobley or your lead scanner and I can quickly talk? And then I would love for your piece of advice At Splash. What we always recommend is, right after your conversation, record a quick voice note of like what you talked about so you don't forget it. Like step to the side record like just chatted with blah blah, blah blah talked about this, felt this way, so that, like your team has a mental, physical note of like them chatting it through, because it's easier than trying to type it out yourself right afterwards. We use splash forms when we're capturing leads on site, so we create a splash page and then it easily goes into an Excel sheet for us. But I would love to know how you're encouraging your team to like take those notes after they do that beautiful person first chat.
Austin Sandmeyer:Yeah, we do the exact same motion of voice notes or after. One of the things that I did and I think it's successful. You just need the right manpower. People to do it is having another person with you overhearing the conversation. If you have enough people to kind of double up in the conversation and I don't mean you know we both come around hayley and surround her and be like hello, hayley, how are you doing? I am saying austin comes and talks to hayley and you know second austin is a little ways back but can hear the conversation.
Austin Sandmeyer:I have done that at countless times at conferences, where I'm taking down the notes, doing the things right and think or sending or sending a message via Slack to second Austin, I guess in that example and like telling them you know, this was the conversation. These are the things. These are what I picked up on. If the booth isn't busy, I highly recommend you do a tag teaming approach where you know, instead of someone over on the computer, on the tablet playing a video game or whatever, that they're actively involved in listening to the other person having the actual sales demo conversation and then you know another person walks up and you know sends it off. So that's what I really like doing because it allows you know that person to really focus, while the other person is like recording the conversation and like taking the top notes. So that's kind of one of my other like tricks of the trade, I would say.
Haley Kaplan:I love that We've done that a couple of times, because usually whenever we're chatting with people, like they'll bring in me or Camille or Chelly to chat with the field marketers, the event marketers at the booth, because we just we get it. You know, us people love talking to event people and it's so like it takes the pressure sometimes off of our sales team to like, oh, I'm, I'm listening, I'm learning so much about our audience or about our prospects or customers, just by, like, tuning into the conversation and it provides a second set of years.
Austin Sandmeyer:One thing I recommend as you prepare your team for conferences and for these types of things, is making sure if you have call recordings for discovery meetings or first calls, like you are having those salespeople or those customers or whatever, listen to those recordings, because a lot of the questions that they're going to get in those conversations are the exact same ones are going to get on the trade show floor or the wraparound booth those are the same thing. So letting them know, like having them, you know like we can prepare a list of questions of like these are very common questions at conferences. I usually try to record that in a pre-show briefing, but I would say, like you know, I recommend that you listen to Gong, because I can't document every question under the sun, and that, like they can listen at two, three, four, x, whatever, and they can understand the conversation and the questions that they're going to be coming into. I think that's really critical.
Haley Kaplan:I also love like sending lots of like hearts and applause from the audience. I mean I hope you're doing it.
Austin Sandmeyer:I love it. This is the stuff I nerd out about. So another thing that, like I love you know doing is having reps that are fairly new, do a lot of that like gong training and those things beforehand, but they're coming in their tag teaming at an event with a more experienced person. Because one of the best things that events in my opinion, especially as you bring on a new SDR they are getting so many reps on the conversation of the talking points that work, the talking points that't work, the things that matter to these people, and they're like riding backseat or like listening. They would be great people to take the notes oftentimes and then you know, halfway through the conference they're able to come up and actually have the conversations. Or you know, at the wraparounds or halfway around the conversation and come up and start having them. Those are great, you know. Learning, leveling up events, in my opinion.
Austin Sandmeyer:Oh my gosh, I'm just so grateful we get to hear from you today.
Haley Kaplan:I'm learning so so much. Thank you, I love it. It's amazing. Okay, so I want to continue the conversation, be mindful of time and shifting gears a little bit to chat really solely about our wraparound events and maximizing their impact at these large industry events. So what are some? Attrition's a big thing. What are some of your top tips when you're planning and promoting these events to boost your attendance? And then, kind of, how does that fit in? We kind of chatted a little bit about like your bigger promotion plan or like the on-floor versus the many, many wraparound events. But what are your top tips for trying to minimize attrition at your dinners or at your wraparound events, using that attendance?
Austin Sandmeyer:Yeah, I think there are some really fun tricks of the trade that I would love to share kind of with you as I think about this. To start off, the process is like making sure that they're gonna have good conversations, that they're setting themselves up for a good conversation, and that that oftentimes comes into like, you know, level setting on the registration page or on the invite card. Like, what is the point? Why would someone want to be here, especially when it comes to dinners or wraparounds, like and like this is not something that I would recommend. Like someone that's never talked to their ICP or doing like you want to really know what these people care about and understand this, and so oftentimes you're talking to such a matter of experts or you're, you know, head of sales. Try to get this information. If you aren't, you haven't been adapting this. You know language yet of the industry you're selling in because you want to really put yourself in those shoes and say, like why would I want to come to this center? Like, why would I want to be at this event? Like, what matters here? Like and one of the things that's like a little bit of a hat code to that and I will like I will preface this, but it's not perfect, but it can help.
Austin Sandmeyer:You is like having real conversations and trying to bring down the wall of fake conference land. We've all been at conferences all the time. We often walk down the gauntlet of booth and it's just like blah, blah, blah. Have you heard of this? Have have you heard of this? Have you heard of that? Have you heard of that? And you're like you're answering the same seven questions all day.
Austin Sandmeyer:One of the things that's like a little bit of a hack code is trying to bring and break people out of that motion. Like come to our dinner, because we're actually going to have real conversations about your pain points, haley. And like you're going to learn from John and Jake and left and light, whatever these people's or how they're not solving this issue and they're also in the same boat as you. And so like, honestly, what occurs at a lot of wraparound events when you get people into be real, actual, honest conversation, is a little like group therapy. It's a little like I have this pain and I do not know how to face it and then someone maybe has the solution, but oftentimes other people are also facing the same pain. Hopefully someone around there has it, but it's a lot like group therapy and letting people be in an environment to have group therapy is kind of like a pretty interesting you know hack code of like getting people to be raw and real and actually care about what you're doing.
Haley Kaplan:Actually, we just started like a virtual series. That's kind of strategy sessions for marketers, and our description is like one part strategy, one part like solution sharing, in one part therapy session. Because, like when you just bring people together and our spark connection dinner that's going to be an inbound is also very much positioned the same way, it's marketers coming together for an event that's just for them, where they can chat, vent, like, let out their frustrations and hopefully get some really good insights from people who are facing similar frustrations or who have, like, completely aced their frustration. And so I love positioning it with the value of like why it's different and what you're going to get from it is just so brilliant nobody wants to go all day at a conference.
Austin Sandmeyer:They've gone to a couple keynotes, they've walked around the booth and then they go to a dinner where there's a presentation and they're being sold to and they're just like I am just at another booth. It's just different shaped and there's better food here. It's not a good use of anybody's time. So definitely don't try to do that. Don't use the exact same strategy of those things which you shouldn't be doing in the first place, but don't bring that out of the conference. Leave that in the conference. We do not want that there. That is not good stuff. The good stuff is is the sharing.
Austin Sandmeyer:We did a real retreat at B2BMX, which was like a wraparound event at B2BMX, and it was a super successful event. We had an amazing time and one of the tricks that we brought to reduce attrition and make sure people were able to join is we made friends with a lot of the keynotes. I'm not talking. We made friends with Serena Williams and you know Ryan Reynolds and you know whoever they're paying $50,000 to come and speak to. We made friends with the practitioners that are in their same seats, that are giving their keynotes, giving their you know sidecar, you know room events. We brought them to our events and we said, hey, we'd love to be happy to come at our event, we'd love to host you and we'd love to just be like a conversation with people that are in the audience.
Austin Sandmeyer:Because, like one thing that's like for that keynote speaker is like bringing them off the stage and letting them actually talk to their you know friends and their colleagues and their peers about the problems, and letting the peers ask questions, because they're not. You know, there's only so long of a line at the keynote for someone to be able to ask a question, and so bringing them out of that environment to an actual relationship was one of the hack codes that we did. So we brought a lot of those you know speakers that are like industry thought leaders or experts that were speaking at the conference. We brought them to the real retreat and we had coffee chats where, like, we had coffees and cookies and we were just it was a little you know eight to 10 people around a table talking to the keynote speaker and saying like, oh well, they love this part of the presentation. I'm having struggling with this. Or, like you know, they're asking and answering real questions with an expert and you know they're actually problem solving, which was like a really big unlock, I think.
Haley Kaplan:That's so cool. I love that y'all.
Austin Sandmeyer:I knew that event was really really memorable and really great and I didn't even realize you did that piece and that's just a little bit of it's like it's bringing like the you know environment of why you would go to a conference and the events and their things to a more intimate environment where you actually get to interact. The other last thing I'll say, in like trying to confirm attrition, especially around like dinners and things like that, is if you can help showcase who else is going to be there, like I kind of talked to, alluded to it, with the influencers and stuff. Like with dinners, an example is like we have at multiple dinners we've showcased, you know, this is who will be at your table. This is, you know who's going to be at your dinner. These are the people that will be involved. That like gets that buy in as well from them is like, oh my gosh, I want to speak with Haley.
Austin Sandmeyer:I didn't know she was going to be at the dinner or I didn't know. You know, if the dinner's at six and they're at five, like do I even want to call an uber? Like do I want to do that? And then they like, then they get an email or they get a thing with like who's going to be there, who's going to be at their table? You know, the amazing marketing team at splash is going to be there, why would I want to miss having a conversation of dinner with them or like those types of things? So, so, giving that information, it starts to create that little FOMO of like why would I want to not be here? I've got, I gotta go now.
Haley Kaplan:Oh my gosh. Okay, now this is just like a selfish question that I've just thought of just in this moment what is your cadence for letting people know that information? Like, are you securing a couple of key customers and that's who you're like baiting out as like, oh, they're going to be at this table, so you have those confirmed attendees? Just because we were listening yesterday and someone mentioned that, like, they always plan for 50% attrition. And so if you're reaching out to people and saying like, oh, austin from Sendoso is going to be here, and for some reason you don't show up, like how are you kind of handling your cadence of baiting out that FOMO piece Because it absolutely works and will get me in the door? But like, what's, what's your balance there? Just selfishly.
Haley Kaplan:I don't know if anyone else in the audience is trying. Great question.
Austin Sandmeyer:We frequently say or announce that there is going to be an announcement, there's going to be, a group of people will release it a week before, ahead of time, typically releasing about a week before so people can see all who's going to be there. They make sure they didn't double book stuff, things like that. So we frequently release it about a week before the dinner or the activation and then we are leading up to that in the pre show of like we're going to release this at that point, we're going to do this at that point, like giving them insights of like oh, I'm going to know this is happening. Then, like I'm assuming everybody knows this, but like making sure that you know this information is on the Google calendar invite or like the invite, that's that way. So, like when they go to their calendars and they you know it's everybody's busy week they can see, okay, I have a dinner, click it. Oh, my gosh, these are the people that. So we're updating the calendar and doing that motion and we have, thankfully I definitely understand 50% attrition. We're more in the 20, 25% attrition when we start doing that type of stuff and like that is much more secure and safer. There was a couple of dinners where we had like 10% attrition at that stuff, so like really good attrition and it all comes down, yeah, and like I think one other component like this is more of a dinner conversation versus like a wraparound which is part of dinners.
Austin Sandmeyer:In my opinion is like one of the fun things that we've been doing at conferences or at dinners is, you know, doing a two-part dinner. So like you know the first part you get to meet XYZ people at with different people. Love that. You know it's typically like the purple is all together at this table and then the triangles all go over there and then you know you're a purple triangle. So these are where you go, if you're thinking logistical stuff. But like that's been super fun and like it allows people to meet and interact with people and then meet and interact with more people, which is kind of the challenge with dinners is like oftentimes dinners get stuck in one area and you're talking to the two people next to you at most, but mixing it up allows them, you know, a bit more exploration.
Haley Kaplan:Oh, that's such great advice. I love that. The purple triangle sounds so fun. I love our idea. Okay, I didn't even realize how fast time is going and we're at the top of the hour. We're just crazy. So I want to make sure we cover, like our last little little bit of questions and then hopefully we have time for some Q and A too, because I've seen quite a few questions come in. So as much as I said, preparation is meat and potatoes of your event. I think the follow-up after your event is like truly just as, equally as important. It's like your dessert, you know, like it's just as important to your meal and it's like even sweeter when it's the best dessert ever. I don't know if that analogy makes sense. It wasn't as great as the dating one, but it was amazing.
Austin Sandmeyer:I loved it so.
Haley Kaplan:I want to kind of dive into what happens after your wraparound event, after your conference presence, and why it's so crucial when it comes to the ROI from your programs. So we'll kind of start with talking about success, or let's start with follow-up campaigns. How are you tailoring your follow-up campaigns to maximize the impacts of those quality qualified prospects that we had talked about? Like you, you chatted with these people, you took notes. You have all that insight. How is your team doing and tailoring follow-up campaigns after your presentation?
Austin Sandmeyer:That's a great question. I think many of you are already doing this. So no rocket science here, but two-part follow-ups One HTML or like a thank you, and it's more broader. It's more like we thank you so much for coming, we're so excited you were able to make it. We're like we love you. You're blah, blah, blah, you're so great.
Austin Sandmeyer:Here's some notes from the event. Oftentimes in those you want to give some type of activation or share. Like you know, we had great conversation around X, y, z, elemental P. You're incorporating that Maybe did at the dinner. That was like super insightful that you want to throw into that one. That's the more like generic. So everybody gets a good touch point. Everybody has a touch point that's following up as fast as possible after the event. So that is, you know, night of or day morning of the next day, and oftentimes in the morning we're like oftentimes sending coffee gift cards to our. Obviously we're so like you know, thanks so much for your dinner. We hope you can grab coffee while you reviewed some of the takeaways from last night's dinner or something. That's a very common email process that we'll do for our general.
Austin Sandmeyer:One step, first step there. Second step is when we talk about getting them back into the Salesforce and they're going into the right person. So making sure obviously the post is responsible for the pre or the pre is responsible for the post. So hopefully, beforehand you have already developed your sequences, or like at least your general default sequences that the people are dropping into, that have, you know, insights or information that these people are going to be going to? And, like I think one of the takeaways here that I want to make sure that I drill on is, like probably not everybody is the right person to have an actual, like really intimate conversation with. After like, I know there is the world where, like, everybody was amazing, it was perfect, it was like a hundred percent of the people were read they're ready to buy next week, like we're let's put them on the phone.
Austin Sandmeyer:Yeah, exactly, I need to figure out more of them and register to more of them, but that's just not the case for most of us I would anticipate. But there is the conversation that was had those Hopefully you're sending them through the notes. Whether that's in notes and that's a field in Salesforce, that's a notes in whatever tool you're using, those are actively being used. If you're using qualifier questions at some of these events, you're wanting to throw those in as well. And then the next step is you know, the day later or the next day later is the next touch point from the rep. Whether that's an AE or an SDR depends on you know the conversation level, their target accounts, like there's lots that can come into post-show follow-up.
Austin Sandmeyer:But as long as you have your first main touch followed up done and that's like your blanket, I like to say, then you can start going into all the other finer details, which is, like you know the conversation that was had the X, y, z thing that has, and those are one-to-one, like that's not coming from austinmarketingsendosacom, that is coming from austinsandme, it's the real me, 100% there type in the words and so that's the follow-up process that I like want to make sure that everybody has in place at least a two-step follow-up. The other things that are super impactful that we've seen success on, because we sell to certain audiences. Obviously everybody in you know this. We don't, you don't all sell to people that are chronically online like you know, massive area and opportunity.
Haley Kaplan:Who attended LinkedIn and just like a little tidbit about what they did and everyone so far has like had really positive responses about it because that's why they attended the dinner in the first place. Like it gave them an opportunity to foster community and connect with folks and it's an easy in for us to be like oh, it was so great meeting you last night, so glad we're connected on LinkedIn and just makes the process even easier to continue that follow up and follow through.
Austin Sandmeyer:Yeah, I love that. I'm a huge fan of those, especially when you go to the dinner and then you get the post show and you're like, oh yeah, I didn't connect with any of these people at dinner because I was, you know, having conversations, but I do want to click their LinkedIn and connect with them now and, like, I had a great conversation as an attendee of those dinners often.
Haley Kaplan:Oh, totally Okay. We have a couple of chats and I just want to like get one or two of them in before we round out today's discussion, so I think this kind of goes back to when we were talking at the beginning. Vanessa asked I'm curious how to effectively manage and align the varying visions of different C-suites or executives when planning wraparound events, especially when last minute pivots are necessary. Do you have any strategies or best practices for handling these challenge?
Austin Sandmeyer:Yeah, vanessa, it's a group therapy time. I hear you. I have been there so many times, you know, like this perfect wraparound event that was designed for our sales leaders. But like, why can't we just incorporate a bunch of customers into it? Like, why can't we just throw them in? They'll be fine and that comes back to you know, like, I 100% appreciate the idea of making sure that we have a bunch of customers.
Austin Sandmeyer:But like, talking, you know, at the end of the day, each event needs to have a purpose and needs to have a desired outcome and often, sometimes, you know, there is the opportunity to have double things. You can have prospects and customers there. You probably don't want your prospects talking to your customers that are super unhappy or have never used your platform because you're trying to run a customer event on the side here that's trying to get them to use your platform. There's the right motion for the ocean and, I think, talking to the executives around the opportunities of, like what you know, this event is for this. Like, unfortunately, this event is for this. We could do a separate event. It requires additional budget, it requires additional planning, because I think probably, vanessa, you've been in my seat as same as ways, like you know, you develop this great event. You talk about it to the team, your head of sales, sales head of CS they're doing this awesome event.
Austin Sandmeyer:Head of CS comes back to you and like I want to bring customers, or I want, like, how many customers can we bring? Or how many? You know, why don't we get an event and stuff that you know, like I've been there and the answer is, like we can do an event. Talk to me about the motion that you would want there, because it's going to be different than what we're doing over here. Because, like you know, I let me make an event for you. Like, sure, let's do it. You know you're trying to create customer pipeline Cool. You're trying to create retention Cool, amazing things. Like I want to work with you on those two. But relationship doesn't make sense and you know, unfortunately, you really can't split a table in half and just say you can't talk to these people. These people can talk to these people.
Camille Arnold:I mean it could work that way.
Austin Sandmeyer:There you go. If you you could do it, just like making sure, check it out. You know you're going to need a lot of purple triangles, maybe some of those plexi COVID walls so nobody can hear each other. I think that's probably a good trick. That's kind of my recommendation, vanessa, is like talk to them in the briefing that you guys are planning. When you make an event like this, you should have the outcomes that you know we're trying to drive pipeline how many meetings do we need to have. You know how many people are inviting, and that should be crystal clear. And then you know at this event this is the briefing. Unfortunately, like your desired request can't fit in that. Let's do something different and then work with the head of CS. Okay, you want budget? Let's go find budget to get you more pipeline of like what this is, cause we can do it, but it's not. It doesn't fit in the same circle.
Haley Kaplan:Oh my gosh, austin, you just have shared so many gems and helpful tactics today and this has been a therapy session, and a little bit myself too. It's been so nice and I've learned so much. I know I'm walking away from this chat and I hope, our audiences as well with just so many new strategies and things we want to try and just such insightful knowledge and things that we can put into practice for inbound dream force all of the crazy conference season coming up. So, austin, do you have any other last minute words of wisdom you want to impart on our audience?
Austin Sandmeyer:I am just super happy to be here. Thank you, I hope this was helpful. I just put my LinkedIn in the chat. Feel free to connect with me. My DMs are open. I am married, so you know it's all about DMs and a strictly business. It's none of that motion, but I'm always open to you know, VMs and conversations about how to make events better, and I would love to learn from all of you guys as well.
Haley Kaplan:Oh my gosh. Well, we are just so grateful that we got to chat with you today. I am so grateful, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here, austin.
Haley Kaplan:I will bring you backstage and, on behalf of the entire Splash team, thank you so so much for joining us today. We live for creating opportunities for marketing and events professionals like you to learn with us and with your fellow marketing peers. I hope y'all join our Splash community so we can keep these kinds of discussions going beyond. If you're going to be inbound, make sure you connect with myself or Austin. We're so excited to see you there. Thank you so much for hanging out with us and until next time, take care.
Camille Arnold: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 that. com 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, visit our website at www. splashthat. com. Until next time, take care.