Checked In with Splash
Welcome to Checked In with Splash. Consider this your VIP backstage pass to learn from experts about how to create meaningful experiences that drive ROI, boost engagement, and tip the scales in your favor.
Checked In with Splash
How Events Fuel Growth Across the Funnel
In this episode of Checked In, Splash's Haley Kaplan shares how companies can bring the highest-performing marketing channel into every phase of the buyer’s journey.
Tune in to hear:
- How to strategically use events throughout the buying journey
- Examples of high-performing events for each phase of the funnel, including ones from Splash's very own playbook
- The most important metrics to measure for every event (aka the numbers to report on to prove revenue impact and impress your leadership team)
- Tips from a sales leader on how to effectively motivate and engage your sales team around your event strategy
...and more.
___________________________________________________________________
If you enjoyed today's episode, let us know. Support our show by subscribing and leaving us a rating. If you want to get in touch with our team or be a guest on our show, email us at podcast@splashthat.com. We'd love to hear from you.
Learn more about Splash: https://www.splashthat.com
Sign up for the Event-Led Growth Masterclass & Certification: https://splashthat.com/elg/podcast
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 am on the experiential marketing team here at Splash, and I am so thrilled to have you join today's virtual chat. We're diving deep into key metrics, practical tips and real-world examples of how to prove event value throughout the buyer's journey and just how events at each stage can impact your business's pipeline. If you've attended any of our recent Splash webinars, you know that we frequently discuss the go-to-market motion of event-led growth. Event-led growth is all about strategically using events at scale throughout the buyer's journey to drive revenue growth and expansion. This time of year, everyone's talking about their marketing and event strategy for 2025, and with good reason, because in today's saturated market, merely just doing events is no longer enough. The evolution of this event-led growth has completely transformed how B2B companies approach their go-to-market strategies and when events are executed strategically throughout the funnel, they can be very powerful drivers of revenue, connection, trust and engagement. Today we're going to be walking through the funnel from top to bottom and all the way through, to help you build a plan for next year and to set you and your teams up for event success. But before we get into the good stuff, let's run through a few housekeeping items. At Splash, we support marketers worldwide, including those from leading brands, in driving more pipeline from their events. Our tool helps to reduce event setup time by 85%, enabling you to reach your buyer more often and making it so easy to unlock event-led growth through fully branded, repeatable event programs that power tangible business results.
Haley Kaplan:When you're using a holistic event-led growth strategy, you're not just driving value for your stakeholders, you're fueling growth for your entire business. If you think about it, there's no better way to gain brand awareness, establish trust or engage your audience. Events can be the highest performing channel across every phase of the buyer's journey, because they give you the power to own your audience and create relationships with real, lasting value, way beyond what a digital ad or an ebook download could ever offer. That's exactly why event-led growth is thriving in today's business landscape, because the buyer has drastically changed over the last five years. On average, it now takes around 30 touch points to move someone through their buying journey, and brands need new tactics to meet buyers on their terms. Today's buyers want to do their own research and most don't even want to talk to a sales rep until they're ready to buy. So let's be honest events are those connective tissues that move buyers forward in their decision-making process and are proven to speed that process up.
Haley Kaplan:Now I want to be clear. Simply doing events can have positive results I'm not saying that they can't. But if your company's events are occasional, siloed to just one team or aren't even tied to specific goals, you're not using an event to its fullest potential and you're leaving money on the table. And, at the end of the day, the success of your event program truly hinges on building the right event for the right audience at the right point in their journey. Before we dive deeper, I'm just going to give a quick, shameless plug for a brand new event-led growth masterclass and certification course. Our waitlist for this upcoming course is now live and you can sign up to be the first to know when it officially launches. Back from my shameless plug, let's dive into exactly what events work best across the funnel to drive growth for your business. All right Now, when we talk about the buyer's journey, I'm sure this is not news to anyone here, but we like to think about it in four stages, or what we call buckets.
Haley Kaplan:So this is your top of the funnel, the middle of the funnel, the bottom of the funnel and then beyond the funnel, At the top of the funnel. It is all about brand. What events build brand awareness and how can you make your events or experiences get onto your audience's radar? As we move more towards the middle, we're focusing on demand. As we move more towards the middle, we're focusing on demand. We're using events to create interest in your product or offering and making sure that people understand exactly what it is that you're offering. Then, as we near the bottom of the funnel, your events at this stage should focus on landing those buyers. How can you use events at this point in their journey to turn pipeline into paying customers? And finally, that last little bucket, beyond the funnel.
Haley Kaplan:Your events at this stage are all about expansion retaining, renewing and growing the relationships that you've built. Basically, expand demand for your brand. Now, everyone say it with me expand demand for your brand. And then say it three times fast. I'm just kidding, I'm not going to do that. I don't want to embarrass myself too much today, but feel free to do it at home. I can't see you All right. So we're going to go ahead and we're going to break down each of these stages or buckets and explore the events that work best for each. We're going to talk about key metrics you should be looking to measure and some real world examples. So we're going to talk about those metrics, measures of successes, real world examples, and so you can walk away with fresh ideas for your 2025 strategy.
Haley Kaplan:And the goal is, like I've mentioned, to create right events for the right audience at the right stage in their journey and fuel that revenue growth. So let's go ahead and start at the top of the funnel. When someone enters your pipeline, they're usually coming from the top. They've just heard about your brand and are curious to learn more, or they're seeing your product offering or your name for the very first time. Events at this stage are rooted in creating buzz and generating interest for your brand. These events are going to be goal, differently from those further down the funnel, because at this point, it's all about positioning your brand as a thought leader. You don't need to dive deep into what it is that you do, but you should focus on showcasing your unique perspective and expertise.
Haley Kaplan:Think of top of funnel events as ways to pave the path for your solution or your platform. So what events are we talking about here? Well, we are looking at things like webinars, conferences, trade shows, networking events, product launches, social media events, sponsorships, partnered events, just a couple. These events are broader and less targeted than what you'll see further down the funnel, and one of the challenges with events in the top of the funnel stage is that it's hard to tie them directly to revenue goals. But don't worry, we're still measuring the success of them, just a little bit differently.
Haley Kaplan:So let's break down how we look at the success of events in this stage, and I look at it in two different areas your marketing metrics and then your event metrics itself. So when you're looking at measuring the success, or KPIs, for the top of the funnel events for marketing, you want to look at things like your email engagement, your opens, your clicks, your RSVP conversion rates, things like that. When you think about your event page activity, you can measure things like your website traffic, bounce rates, conversions, and then, obviously, you've got social engagement. That's one of the best ways to assess your brand awareness when you host one of these top of funnel events. So, did you increase followers? Did people tag your brand, comment Like are there people sharing your event? All of those touch points are really great KPIs for those events that happen at the top of the funnel.
Haley Kaplan:Now for the event itself, really great KPIs to look for your registration and your attendance rates, your ticket sales and then, when it comes down to it, your leads. So these leads are something very important. You've got lots of different kinds. I'm going to focus really quickly on the ones that you get from conferences. So your lead scans or your meetings booked. Those ones are always going to look a little differently and I want to note something about them. When you're measuring success at this stage, it's not just about the quantity of these leads that you're getting, it's about the quality of them. So when you scan a ton of badges at a trade show, how many of them are actually qualified? So this is where you kind of want to look a little bit deeper and our great KPIs for this specific level. So you're looking at your marketing qualified leads, your sales qualified leads, and then you want to see how many net new or reactivated leads did this event take? So it can really help you assess the real, real impact. Now I want to provide some examples of what these kind of look like and explain how they're effective in driving growth at this stage in the buyer journey.
Haley Kaplan:So I'm going to start with webinars. Webinars are incredibly cost effective and a great way to fuel your pipeline. They're designed to position your brand as a thought leader on key industry topics. For example, exposing ourselves here, Today's session is all about helping event marketers understand what works, how to prove it and how to execute event strategies that drive success. We're slightly hinting at how our platform can help, but the focus here isn't about Splash. It's about educating and providing value to our audience about things that are top of mind for y'all. The goal of these webinars is to get in front of your ideal customers and stay top of mind. When you have a great webinar topic and you pair it with very compelling copy, it can drive leads straight to your front door. So, beyond hosting your own webinars which I know they can be a little time consuming, content heavy and can be sometimes really hard to spin up at scale Something that you can do is consider partnering with companies that share your target audience. When you co-host these webinars, it allows you to tap into a whole new set of leads and usually is minimal extra work, which we are all for.
Haley Kaplan:And then the other type of event that I want to dive a bit deeper into are conferences and trade shows. These are gold mines for capturing the attention of people who are already interested in topics that your company or your brand know really well. As you start thinking about which trade shows or conferences to include in your strategy next year, think about where your ICP is likely to be whether that's attending the event, sponsoring the event or speaking at the event and make sure that you're there too. There are some really helpful tools to help you source what events to attend, but you can also crowdsource that information, and, while we love data, sometimes trial and error is also an appropriate option for determining which trade show you should go to. And you don't have to show up with a crazy investment in these trade shows and conferences. Just being present at the trade show can still create a perfect opportunity to engage your audience and make meaningful connections. So don't worry if you don't have a hefty investment to put behind those. You can still do a really great brand awareness play while keeping your costs low. All right.
Haley Kaplan:So, moving right along, we chatted through some of the things on top of funnel, some KPIs to look for some examples of events. Let's keep it rolling and we're going to move on down into the middle of the funnel and focus on events that are designed and best for driving and capturing that demand. So now, at this funnel stage, we're focusing on events that help convert leads into real opportunities. Once you've been able to spark some interest in your brand from your top of funnel experiences, now the middle of the funnel is their opportunity to formally link their pain points with your exact solutions. So this stage is where you really start to connect these dots for your ICP. You're using this opportunity to create events that address the challenges you spoke to earlier at that top of the funnel level in specific ways that your company can solve. So events at this stage truly tend to be more product focused, more educational, and remember how I said that buyers today don't really want to talk to someone unless they absolutely have to. Well, these events are the ones that are designed to help guide them down, down, down the funnel. By showcasing your product in a very low pressure and low stress environment, You're giving them the information that they need without pushing for a hard sell. Some examples of these events look like your workshops, product demos, seminars, educational events, Q&A sessions, panels, sponsorships or even micro conferences. In just a moment I'm going to bring on Haley Pelazon, our product marketing extraordinaire to talk about an event program that she's scaled. That's perfect for this stage, helping us educate our audience on exactly what Splash can do and how we can support marketers.
Haley Kaplan:Now for some backstory. A few years ago, we launched a program called Meet Splash. We noticed that a lot of qualified leads weren't booking time to meet with a sales rep. Maybe it was a budget issue, competing priorities or simply that they just weren't ready for a face-to-face conversation. But this was a real problem because our sales teams needed a way to help accelerate these opportunities while still giving leads the space to explore our platform and make informed decisions on their terms. So we created Meet Splash. It is a bi-weekly 30-minute virtual demo of the Splash platform. It's low pressure, low commitment and a way for prospects to see exactly what we offer, led by one of our marketers instead of one of our sales reps. Plus, the whole promotion process is pretty much set on autopilot, with a set of retargeting emails that helps pull stalled leads back into the funnel. Now, who better to talk about the success metrics of this program than Haley herself? So let's give her a warm welcome, bring her on the stage, Our audience. You're in for a treat because we have Haley squared here. So hey.
Haley Kaplan:Haley. I love the Haley collab. We love Haley collab. How are you doing today? I'm great. How are you Doing so well? Thanks for taking the time to join us and chat through your program Anytime.
Hayley Pellizzon:I love to talk about Meet Splash.
Haley Kaplan:Oh my gosh. Amazing, I love it All right, so let's dive in. With this being a middle of the funnel event program, I want to know what KPIs are you focusing on to measure the success of this event, and at scale, and how do you prove that value? And then, on top of that, how are you reporting these results internally and externally? Yeah, thanks, michelle. Oh, thanks, michelle.
Hayley Pellizzon:Yeah, so attendance rate is actually a really big one. Mainly that's because Meet Splash just serves as such a crucial piece of the sales process. Like you mentioned, prospects they want to see your product without having to talk to sales. Sometimes, no shade to our sales friends, they're amazing. They want to know what the product can do at just kind of a foundational level, so that when they do meet with sales, they can get right into the nitty gritty on how it could work for their specific needs, their use cases, the type of events they're throwing. So, yeah, just have that available to them is super important. So that's why I'm typically looking at attendance rate.
Hayley Pellizzon:A lot, of course, though, I look at influence opportunities. I'm looking at the lead to opportunity conversion rate Since, like you said, those. I'm looking at the lead to opportunity conversion rate since, like you said, those attendees are typically right at the middle of the funnel and ideally we want them to move through and land a new deal or expand on an existing deal, maybe have a new team join us. But then, every time I host Meet Splash, I'm immediately sending out a Salesforce report to our sales team so that they know exactly who attended, they know who to follow up with all in their safe space of Salesforce. So that's always going to be available for them immediately.
Haley Kaplan:But then it's a game changer. When you quit right.
Hayley Pellizzon:But then too, Meet Splash is such a frequent program we run it every two weeks, so 20 times a year, and we actually really encourage on demand viewing from our attendees. So that means that we're typically doing more quarter over quarter reporting, so that gives prospects some time to attend and meet splash, maybe watch it on demand, maybe even send it to like a colleague who's also on the buying committee, and then every quarter, every couple months or so, we'll also look at the trends that we're seeing from viewing live on demand, who's attending, who's not, the types of personas where they are in the funnel, and that's when I kind of identify what's working and what isn't. But I like to look at it more on a quarter basis. I also do work pretty closely with our sales team just to make sure that we are covering the themes that they're hearing from prospects and it's a product demo right. So I want to make sure that I'm including all the newest products, the newest features, to give attendees just the best view and the most current view of Splash. So every time we're releasing new things I'm incorporating that into Meet Splash as well. So it's kind of constantly changing but also kind of constantly staying the same in the same aspect.
Hayley Pellizzon:But then one other thing too that I just wanted to note. I had just mentioned that on-demand is encouraged, and the reason for that is we don't want to slow the sales process down for anyone. So let's say that someone registers for the meat splash that's taking place tomorrow. Let's say, but they don't attend. We don't want to have them wait for the next one that's going to be in two weeks, to get their demo. We want them to keep moving through. So we want to make sure that we're sending them that recording, or sending them everything that they need, so that they can have meat splash, the product demo, available to them when they need it, just to make sure they're informed, and then again they can ideally move through the next stage if it works for them that is just such a game changer and, honestly, so smart when it comes to doing what the modern buyer wants.
Haley Kaplan:like they sometimes can't join because they get caught up in another meeting or a different call or they have tons of other priorities. But they want to learn and it's so great that you're not being that bottleneck in that sales process through on demand and it's really refreshing to hear that you've seen results from enabling that and that it's just continuing to accelerate deals through the funnel, which is so great.
Hayley Pellizzon:We can't be a blocker to our own sales process. No, we can't be.
Haley Kaplan:I don't think you're going to be very happy with me.
Haley Kaplan:I'm glad you're not. That's great because you are hitting that middle of the funnel stage. So I think you kind of touched on it. But what do you think has really set you up for success in scaling this program and what tools have you found to be really helpful? Obviously you said you know chatting with the sales team and incorporating different elements people want to see when they come to a demo of Splash. But what do you think has set you up for success to scale it? Do it bi-weekly, things of that sort.
Hayley Pellizzon:Yeah, you mentioned it talking to sales, making sure that I'm super connected with them, but also I run it through Splash and there's a couple of key features in Splash that make it possible to do this by myself around 20 times a year. It's kind of, but it's really not, I swear. First is our marketing design team made an amazing Splash theme for me and it's the one I use for every webinar. It has everything in there there's the copy set, there's branding across every touchpoint and then a huge time-saving feature is theme-level email scheduling. So I set up my full email sequence. So it has three reminder emails and then two thank you emails. So we send one for those that attended and one for those that didn't. That's all on the theme, the template, but every time I create a new Meet Splash webinar, that's all set up for me. It's truly set and forget it. I think it takes me a minute and 24 seconds to do everything and then I just I'm sorry, have you timed yourself?
Hayley Pellizzon:I wanted to see how time-saving it was. So basically, the answer is everything is templatized. Same thing even just in the Salesforce report. It's already built. I'm never creating anything from scratch. I have Slack messages scheduled that go out, so everything has been templatized for me and makes it so easy.
Haley Kaplan:That is kudos to you. So impressive. Yay for having a platform that makes it really easy to do that. But you are a one woman show and it's so impressive to see how you're able to scale this event to be 20 times a year Amazing. My last quick question for you, haley, you kind of touched on it a bit, but I would love to hear a bit more about the impact that you've had that you've seen since you've been able to scale this program so much, cause I know when we started it it was not as frequent and it were, it was just. I want to know the impact that you've seen over the past couple of years that we've done it.
Hayley Pellizzon:Yeah, I would say more informed buyers going throughout the rest of the sales process because they saw at least the basics right. They don't have to start from zero. They've seen what Splash can do and now, like I said, they can get right into the use cases, the questions that apply directly to them when they're talking to their sales team. They don't have to, like I said, start over. But then also we've seen some faster deals, especially when it comes to expanding a deal which I kind of brought up earlier.
Hayley Pellizzon:So sometimes we'll have a new team within a company that already uses Splash. They're interested, so they join Meet Splash. So they've kind of already heard about us. They've seen people log in, maybe at the office. They already know what the other team is doing. They seem to see it for themselves to see how it really does act, end to end, from creating an event to reporting on the event, and they just kind of need that little push to get them started and using Splash. So that's when we see those faster deals come through because they kind of got that leg up with Meet Splash.
Haley Kaplan:Expand demand for your brand. This program is bad.
Hayley Pellizzon:I love it.
Haley Kaplan:Oh well, that's so awesome to hear and it's great when you see events happening at the right part in a buyer journey do exactly what it needs to do to move them through the funnel. Yes, so huge accolades to you for saying that kind of success, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to pop on here quickly and share some of the KPIs you look at and things that you're thinking about when you're assessing the success of those middle of funnel programs. Yeah, and everyone say oh, go ahead.
Hayley Pellizzon:Sorry, chelsea sent the link in the chat. If anyone's ever interested in meeting splash, that's always the URL. You can go to share it with friends, and I'd love to see you.
Haley Kaplan:Thanks everyone A rock star amongst us. And yeah, if you're even interested in seeing how that program looks, check out the event page. It's an awesome, awesome program we run here at Splash. All right, so back to our funnel journey. So we've gone through about half of our funnel, which means that it's time to dive into the next stage of our funnel, which is the bottom.
Haley Kaplan:So events at this stage should be designed to land your opportunities. So at this point in your buyer's journey, your ICP has seen the stuff that you know. You know they've watched your product in action and now they're ready to take that next step, turning their interest into revenue for your org and closing that deal. But here's the thing Sometimes, most times, they just need a little gentle nudge to move that deal. But here's the thing Sometimes, most times, they just need a little gentle nudge to move that needle.
Haley Kaplan:And this is where events at the bottom of the funnel become so, so critical. These are the events that help secure that pipeline that you've been working so hard to build all along, and the key to doing that at this stage is personalization. The events that happen at this land bottom of funnel stage tend to be super targeted, more exclusive and crafted to seal that deal. So when you think of events that you want to kind of prep for towards this bottom of the funnel area, you want to think of events like roadshows, incentive events, executive dinners, vip dinners and even one-on-one meetings. These events are all about creating curated, high-touch experiences that just sweeten the deal. Because now in the buying journey, your buyer should hypothetically as Haley kind of alluded to earlier have all the information that they need to decide if your platform is a fit for their organization. Now, these events are designed to show buyers what they can't find on your website or in a product overview, and that's through building brand trust and solidifying those relationships. So what's a great way to make these events even more impactful? Bring in your own execs. Let them help facilitate conversation with senior leaders on that buying committee. Or, even better, mix in some really happy customers with your prospects to share their experiences firsthand. That kind of peer-to-peer interaction at this level is gold. When you hear how similar businesses are thriving with your solution, it can really move the needle. And in an environment like this, where it's more personal and curated, you're really doing your due diligence there. But one more thing to keep in mind, and this is so, so crucial.
Haley Kaplan:At this bottom of funnel stage. You want to be, and should be, working hand in hand with your sales team to really curate the guest list and host these events. No one knows these deals better than your salespeople, and they want to close them just as badly as you want to show results from your event. So show them how these events can accelerate their deals and ultimately impact the business bottom line. So I'm going to talk about our Magic Spark Dinner program, for example, for all of you out there in the audience. So our Magic Spark Dinners are invite-only dinner programs that are specifically for key prospects at the end of their sales cycle. We collaborate really closely with our sales teams on invitations for these events and we ask them questions like where is this prospect in their buying journey? Are they at the right stage to bring them to this event? Does this individual have buying power to influence that deal? And, if you're using an intent data platform like Sixth Sense, is that account ready to purchase or ready to make a decision in their journey? These insights are usually right there in your CRM, so use them to invite the right people and curate an experience that truly matters.
Haley Kaplan:Now I want to quickly run through some key metrics that we track at this stage. So some things to look for. You've got your total close one revenue, your win rate, your average contract value of that close one business time to close. So what was that deal? Acceleration and then your ROI.
Haley Kaplan:Now I think one of the biggest challenges that comes with nailing these KPIs, or nailing these events, is something that a lot of event marketers face every day, but especially during this stage in the buying journey, is how are we getting buy-in from our sales teams? What ways are we looking at to get your rev team excited about the potential that these events can have on their pipeline, and how do we get them to share the word about these events with our prospects or pipeline? So the program and value of this event just goes so swimmingly. That's a big problem, and so we wanted to kind of give some perspective and insights from someone really dear on our team, and so I'm so excited to bring on the stage with me one of our amazing account managers, matt Flattam, to come and give you some sales perspective on what's been the most effective at driving deals with these kinds of events. So, without further ado, let's give him a warm welcome. Hey, matt, how's it going?
Matt Flattem:I'm good, I'm good. Thanks, haley.
Haley Kaplan:Yes, long time listener first time caller, so thanks for having me. Well, we're so happy you're here. Thank you for taking the time to come and speak with us and our audience. So I want to kind of dive in. Like I said, marketers are always. The biggest challenge is getting our sales team to buy in with events that are at this stage in the funnel. So how I want to know, from your perspective as a sales professional, how do you see the role of these really highly targeted bottom of funnel events in helping to close deals and can you share an example with the audience of one of the times where one of these events really did help you accelerate a deal with the audience of one?
Matt Flattem:of the times where one of these events really did help you accelerate a deal. Yeah, I can say I've seen it firsthand. You know how much these bottom of funnel events have helped out me in particular and the team just in general. But as far as that go, I mean you've touched on a few of the things I wanted to chat about here early on in terms of social proof.
Matt Flattem:So two different versions of the bottom of funnel ones that we typically see of course, the magic spark dinners that Haley mentioned before. As far as having prospects in the room and also existing clients, there's nothing like hearing from somebody who's using the tool that has a use case like what you would like to implement Splash with, and hearing it from them of how they use it, how successful they've been, and then, on the flip side of that, hearing and talking to other prospects along the same line and what their experience has been as well. I don't want to throw sales reps under the bus, being one of them myself, but at the end of the day, we love sales here, we love sales here, we love sales here.
Haley Kaplan:You always have a lot of things on your plate, so it's always Of course, of course, but Of course, of course.
Matt Flattem:But yeah, I mean, of course, there's nothing like hearing from a peer that knows what your day and day in is like and understanding those struggles, the challenges, much time on every single day.
Matt Flattem:So you can take your guesses at that. But working with this company and we had lost a little bit of momentum in the deal and ultimately suggested a dinner where their HQ was, so ultimately went out there, saw them posted a dinner and the key piece for me is it essentially brought the momentum back to the conversation, the deal as a whole. But I met a lot of people that were kind of in the background as stakeholders but ultimately hadn't been part of a lot of the eval process and brought forward previously. So hearing their perspective and also hearing how much they already knew about things so, like my points of contact, we're going back internally and saying this is what Splash could do, this is what they can't do, that type of stuff. Hearing from them directly and hearing how much they were actually involved and I didn't even know about that was very cool. So that brought out a lot and of course, we engaged the right stakeholders there and pushed everything forward.
Haley Kaplan:Oh my gosh, such a game changer to get some FaceTime and interaction with everyone who has seen what your product can do and is really interested and engaged. That's awesome and I'm glad that that helped to move that deal forward and ease some apprehension that was maybe there before. That was no longer there because they got to interact with others and talk it through. So thank you for sharing. Moving along to my next kind of question and I think this is really big for even just getting buy-in is what is one of the most important things that marketing teams can do to ensure that your team, the sales teams, are fully bought into these events and how do we make sure that the value of these events and experiences are kind of seen firsthand when you work close in tandem with marketing?
Matt Flattem:Yeah, it's a great question. Obviously there's always like this give and take in between sales and marketing. One doesn't work without the other. So, very true, working hand in hand helps out a lot. But, kind of playing off what Haley P said earlier, with her Meet meat splash program, you can see that she has her process down and that's exactly what I wanted to mention about this area is having real intent and a real process that's repeatable. The reps know exactly when meat splash occurs, when Haley is going to send out that Salesforce report, and immediately they know what the process is to follow up with all those items. So from that standpoint, that's where I think it makes it a lot easier and you truly do see the buy-in.
Matt Flattem:But I've been to plenty of events where they see how we operate with our magic spark dinners or meat splash and they're like how do I get my reps to buy in the way that you're interacting with us too? If you're really struggling from that perspective, I would say go to the sales leader, the sales manager, whoever it may be. Say, give me one rep that has a deal in motion that might be towards the later stages and ultimately show them what you can accomplish with a bottom of funnel event, or any event for that matter and really set the precedent for ROI on that, create a plan with them and then, of course, execute on that plan and of course, hopefully, like we talked about earlier, that accelerates the deal, gets more people involved and you have a clear case study to then bring to all the other reps. We're obviously all chatting a ton in our internal chat systems, so once you have that use case down and that proof internally that it works, I think more and more people will be willing to step up.
Matt Flattem:Everyone's pulled in so many different as possible on them. We're creatures of habit, so knowing exactly where everything's going to be, what the copy may be suggested, I love that. This team always does that super well. Hey, this is what occurred in this event. Here's the copy that you should send out. Put your personal spin on it and then fire away.
Haley Kaplan:That's so awesome, the enablement piece. It's nice hearing that it's being used and helpful for y'all. It's being in lockstep with your sales team, especially once you get that one who sees the value that an event has. It makes it so much easier to continue building on that, iterating on that. But we're so grateful that you, with all the different things, spent some time with us here today, so thank you for being here. One more little quick question to kind of round out this advice piece with Mr Matt Flattem In your experience, how can sales teams best leverage the momentum that they get from these bottom of funnel events to close those deals faster, and what are some of those key follow-up strategies that you've yourself found effective?
Matt Flattem:Yeah, I would say time is of the essence, of course, following up as quickly as possible from the event. Hopefully your reps are trying to schedule follow-up meetings during the event as well. So just getting them on the calendar immediately. No time like the present from that perspective. But I will say following up from the event. And then anybody that from the splash side or your company's side becomes a familiar face to them Say Haley Chelsea, haley P as well is at the event. Bring them to your next conversation with them. It's a familiar face, they understand that perspective. Familiar face, they understand that perspective.
Matt Flattem:I'll go back to one of my first points of being like you want to be able to talk to a peer and bringing them into those conversations through the rest of the way I think helps out a lot. Us bringing in a few more of their peer style colleagues should engage them to bring in some other stakeholders as well. So I've typically seen that where the deal accelerates from that side, getting a few other folks involved. So it's not like a one to many conversation. But yeah, there's no time like right away following up with exact pieces of items we talked about. So it's relevant, of course, funny references from the dinner or whatever it may be. I think just you know reminds them of the time, great time, that they had at the event.
Haley Kaplan:I think that's awesome and I love the immediate action following it, because that is key when you're trying to move the needle, especially at that stage in a journey. Now we got a kind of fun question and I think we have time if you are up to answering it, but how do you get your sales team engaged in participating, inviting prospects?
Haley Kaplan:I'll add my little two cents and then I'd love for you to also give some thoughts too. I think something that could be really helpful is doing some incentive work. So, like the person the sales rep that invites the most prospects, gets to go or gets to host three different types of events or activations, or gets tickets to go to that conference. That is one really great way to get them to rally behind it. But also just having one real MVP on that sales team to really push their teammates to also do it is really helpful as well, from what I've seen. But I'd love to hear what you have to say to Matt.
Matt Flattem:Yeah, I completely agree. It's one of those things. A little healthy competition never hurt anyone and no salesperson should be shy of that. So I love that piece of it. The other side is I would just again try to make it as easy as possible Anybody who's in marketing that's working with sales. Again I'll go back to the essence of we all have our priorities. We all have our marching orders. Every day we're trying to close deals as quickly as possible and of course that's the priority. But from an ROI perspective, if you're seeing that and can prove that even if it is going back to that example of bringing one rep in, so you can show that that's where they'll start to believe, engage a little bit more and know that it does work.
Matt Flattem:If you're still in the early stages of trying to gain that trust within sales, I would certainly lean on just making it as easy as possible. It sounds silly but ultimately saying like hey, matt, looks like you have a deal and going on with a point of contact in Boston, let's run a dinner with them. Here's the ICPs that we have in that area, A couple other clients that we can maybe invite to a dinner, stuff along those lines If it is a larger one and you're sending out to the whole team, of course, just trying to segment that out. I think Haley P mentioned earlier just the reports within Salesforce to say this is the list that we feel is in this geographic for this ICP, for this use case, whatever it may be. Here's your list of folks that you should reach out to and why. Kind of makes it a whole lot easier than us trying to going in there finding a needle in a haystack, not knowing exactly who should be invited or what not, to but yeah, just try and make it as easy as possible.
Haley Kaplan:This has been so illuminating and helpful and it's always nice to hear from your perspective or from sales perspective, because so much we're living in our own worlds that it's really nice when we overlap and align and do what we can to make it work really well. So thank you. Matt is such a great partner and we are so grateful for him and his team, so thank you so much for taking the time to come and join us today. Really really appreciate your insight and we'll see you around, thank you.
Matt Flattem:Thank you, thanks Haley. Yeah, of course I mean, of course, anyone on here happy to chat, happy to get those pesky sales reps engaged. So yeah, contact Haley and let me know if anyone wants to follow up and chat about it a little bit more.
Haley Kaplan:Oh my God, he's the nicest human being on planet Earth. Chat about it a little bit more. Oh my God, he's the nicest human being on planet earth. Thank you so much, Flattem. We appreciate you immensely. All right, folks, that was so great and really love.
Haley Kaplan:When you have really good dialogue between you and your sales teams, it just makes getting these events off the ground so much easier and more streamlined. So let's keep on moving forward. We have landed the deal, so we are at the end of our funnel journey for today. Now what happens after our deal has closed? Now, this is what we like to call what we do beyond the funnel. So event programs that are at this stage are designed to both expand and retain your current customers. So events that expand demand for your brand remember, event programs at this stage are designed to expand and retain and they are really key when it comes to building strong and long-term partnerships. So our revenue team actually recently took a course where they explained this phenomenon of engaging your customers in a bow tie like funnel visual, which you can see here. So our team found this incredibly insightful and a really wonderful way to look at the buyer's journey.
Haley Kaplan:So, as you can see on the left side of that deal section. It's your typical funnel, just kind of flipped on its side. So once there's that mutual commitment or that deal, that's when you move on over to the right side. So first there's your onboarding and then there's your retention and then there's your expansion. So here's the thing A lot of companies really focus on that first part of the funnel, which can be a huge miss when it comes to keeping and growing your customer base, because, let's be real, it's much more cost effective to retain customers than it is sometimes to chase new ones. So events at this stage are essential for that continual revenue growth, because reoccurring revenue equals that reoccurring impact. So if a customer experiences impact and you keep delivering that impact, they're going to keep buying.
Haley Kaplan:So what type of events are we talking about when we talk about this beyond the funnel? So things that happen here are events like your user groups or community events. You've got training sessions, you've got product update webinars, customer events, networking events, user conferences, some of those ABM events, so kind of how Haley and Matt alluded to expanding current accounts. These events not only foster a sense of identity and value within your organization, but they allow the customer to feel important, heard, valued and appreciated. Now, user conferences are typically ones that those events that you automatically kind of think of when you think of this piece of the funnel.
Haley Kaplan:But, like we've said, you can't put all of your eggs in one basket when it comes to an event. You should be able to scale your customer events just as easily as you do your prospect events, especially because customer engagement happens every single day of the year. So here's the best practice Put yourself in your customer's shoes. What kind of events would they find valuable? Is it connecting with other users on a regional basis? Is it enabling those customer champions to host events for other customers? Where does that peer-to-peer learning thrive for them and how can you tap into that? Because we've learned that it's one thing to show customers how to use your product, but it's so much more powerful when they teach each other how they've been able to make it work for them. Every customer really does bring this unique perspective, and these events give you the opportunity to learn about new workflows or ideas, challenges or things that you wouldn't discover otherwise. It's truly a great feedback loop for your brand and, bonus, it builds brand loyalty and trust. So what KPIs should we be looking at or tracking when we're doing events beyond the funnel. So things that we're looking at are your renewal rate, your expansion rates, your product adoption or even your NPS score. It's clear that events beyond the funnel are all about deepening that customer relationship. They're not just about the initial sale. They're about that retention, expansion and long-term success. By consistently delivering value, your customers will keep coming back for more. They'll not only stay loyal, but they're going to become brand advocates.
Haley Kaplan:And I see a quick question, a more specific example of a community event. When I think of a community event, I think of a more regional. Like you have a certain demographic of users in one area, like concentrated in New York. Do a little happy hour for them. That's kind of fostering community locally with your users. We have our Splash Slack community, so that's also a great way if they're set event marketer happy hour, something like that. That just is focused on bringing together your users in a community focused way.
Haley Kaplan:All right, so I just kind of walked through very high level, each of these events at these different stages in the buyer's journey and why they work.
Haley Kaplan:But here's the thing there is not a one-size-fits-all approach of the buyer's journey.
Haley Kaplan:There's a lot of different events that can serve multiple purposes and fit into so many different parts of the funnel without overlapping goals. Think of this webinar as kind of more of a blueprint and a guide to help you start planning and thinking about your events and how they can really move the needle and drive growth throughout the entire funnel. All right, everyone. As you can see, you really do need a set of programs that are repeatable, scalable and events that allow you to nurture buyers on their journey to becoming brand champions and driving consistent growth for your organization. Now, I mentioned at the beginning of this webinar that we have an exciting new opportunity for each of you to get certified in the go-to-market motion of event-led growth. I touched on just one small piece of the puzzle here today. There is so much more to uncover, not only in what we chatted through, but in every step of enabling an event-led growth motion, so I just want to give you a little taste of what you can expect if you join our upcoming course.
Zach Napolitano:Hi, my name is Zach. I've been at Splash for over a decade, giving my team and me a front row seat to the most successful event programs in human history. Our event-led growth masterclass takes all of our learnings and packs them into one fun, interactive certification program that you could take on your schedule. We'll cover everything from event-like growth, fundamentals, strategy, development, budgeting, attribution and ROI, and turning your plan into a goal-crushing go-to-market motion. It's time to deliver more revenue from events. It's time to become an event-like growth legend.
Haley Kaplan:Enroll today so fun, so flashy. I'm gonna be there. I have a couple of lessons. You should definitely sign up for the wait list. We're so, so, so excited to launch that master class and certification so everyone watching can become an event-led growth expert. On behalf of the entire splash team, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. We truly live for creating opportunities for marketing and events professionals like you to learn with us and your fellow event marketing peers. Alrighty folks, it has been an absolute pleasure, thank you, thank you. 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.