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Webinars: where marketers splurge on everything but the most important element - the abstract.

You know this is true. 

In the rush to complete a laundry list of tasks involved in producing a webinar - landing page, speaker selection, social media promotion, email blasts, etc. - the abstract receives far less attention and care than its due. But this is a mistake that could be costing you.

A strong abstract can give your webinar the best chance of succeeding by attracting the right ICP and generating interest and curiosity, while a badly-written and poor-quality abstract will confuse or turn people off and reduce attendance. 

So we should be aiming to write really, really persuasive abstracts, instead of settling for mediocre ones.

What exactly constitutes a strong abstract?

In today’s world of information overload, people are making snap decisions about what to pay attention to and what to ignore. So think about the abstract as a big billboard advertisement: if it’s done well, it will get your ICP’s attention. 

 To “sell” your webinar to prospective attendees, a powerful abstract must:

• Communicate why this webinar topic is important and distinctive clearly; don’t write a mystery story that leaves it to them to figure out.

• Highlight why the speaker or their perspective matters - why should your ICP take it and take you seriously?

• Spell out the value that attendees will receive by attending the webinar. This sets up expectations so when people do attend, they get what they were hoping for.

Easier said than done. 

Writing this requires both creativity and strategic thinking. There’s a lot of information to pack in about the speaker and the topic, whilst playing on your ICP’s challenges, motivations and goals. But here’s a framework that can help:‍

A blueprint for crafting a powerful abstract

Step 1. The headline 

• Ask an interesting question
• Address a specific problem or goal - the more focused, the better
• Use ‘How to’ or ‘Steps’ to show the value the attendee will get
• Add personality when possible
• Convey it in 12 words or less‍

Templates:

• Is your [function/issue of concern] strategy really working?
• How to [achieve a goal] in [timeframe] without [a pain point]
• The do’s and don’t of [an issue of concern]
• How to [achieve a goal] in [number] of steps
• [Number] ways/strategies/tips/secrets to [achieve a goal] in [current year]
• [Topic] trends changing the way we [something you take for granted]‍

Examples:

• The do's and don'ts of webinar landing pages
• How to double attendee turnout at your webinars in just 5 steps
• 10 new strategies to help you easily build a pipeline for webinar guest speakers
• On-demand vs. live webinars: Which is better for MQL generation and why
• 5 ways webinars will change in 2024 

Step 2. The introduction

• Get straight to the point - no fluff or generalizations. Don’t tell the reader what they already know.
• Set the context by establishing the pain points. Your reader is looking for someone who understands their challenge or problem.
• Or prompt curiosity by asking a question that asks readers to a) re-examine the status quo b) ask themselves a question that they should be asking
• Convey this in 1- 3 sentences

Examples:

• Here’s a great example by Cloudsmith: “Containers and Microservices architectures are no longer the new kid on the block, and it may be time to take a fresh look at your ecosystem.”

• Or this by Mindtickle: “It’s time for sales leaders, enablement, and ops to align on one common purpose: increasing revenue productivity. But how do you go about doing it?”

• And this by Common Room: Building one-on-one relationships with community members is one of the most rewarding and impactful parts of leading a community program—but how do you scale to meet member needs when one turns into one hundred thousand? And how do you manage an ever-growing pack of internal stakeholders to ensure they understand (and contribute to) the value of your user community?

Step 3. The rest of the body

• Having established a pain point or prompted curiosity, use the rest of the abstract to build trust and interest

• Use bullet points to give the audience an idea of the talking points that will be discussed in the webinar. Keep it short and crisp to make it skimmable.

• Always keep in mind your intended audience - do they prefer stories or facts? Would they want demonstrations or just recommendations? 

• Use industry-specific terminology to set the expectation that you’re already attuned to your target audience.

• Highlight your speaker’s domain expertise and industry experience to substantiate credibility. If you can quote any details pertinent to the pain point/goal discussed in the webinar, even better.

Examples:

• Another one from Cloudsmith:
  
  In this session SLSA experts from across the industry gather to discuss the practical uses of the framework and address topics such as: 
  What controls are included in the specification and why 
  Real world developer approaches to software supply chain security 
  What's working and what's not working in software supply chain security 
  ‍
  Featuring: Isaac Hepworth, Group Product Manager, Software Supply Chain, Google

• And here’s a description about a webinar titled ‘Is the MQL dead? by Drift that provides background for the talk and highlights the specifics that will be covered:

• Here’s one more example that gets everything right

‍Drive better impact from a well-written abstract

We hope that if you take away anything from this piece, it’s an understanding of why your webinar abstract deserves as much time and care - or more - than the other activities in your webinar production laundry list. 

Stick to this 3 step blueprint and you’ll be able to set the stage for a compelling and engaging webinar experience that drives positive results, such as increased attendance, participant engagement, and post-webinar actions.

Presenting our May updates - with even more control and support for all your event needs.

Elevate your landing page with new widgets, get additional help with our brand-new video guides, make your speakers more reachable with social media links, and record your sessions with our improved interface.

Widgets for the landing page

New custom widgets for your landing page

We have two new custom widgets for your landing page: the Schedule widget that adds the event schedule to your page, and the Speaker widget that adds information about speakers.

You can find these inside the landing page editor, under Widgets.

Video guides

Get additional help during setup

Video tutorials have been added to certain sections of the organizer side setup, to give support and aid in different parts of the setup. These can be viewed from the page header, where you can click Watch tutorial to play the video.

Social links for speakers

Help your audiences connect with speakers

When adding speakers to your event, you can now also add links to their social media accounts to help audiences better connect with them. You can add upto 4 links for each speaker when you add them to your event: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and a website.

Studio recordings

Improvements to the recording settings

Recordings are made easier with some new improvements. A new recording status indicator makes it prominently visible whether recordings are turned on or off, and you can view this before you start your session. We’ve also added a confirmation popup to ensure that recordings aren’t accidentally turned off.

{{demo-widget}}

Organizations invest time, effort, and money into hosting events for many purposes, including fundraising, networking, and marketing. At the event’s end, you’ll naturally want to determine if it was successful and if you met your goals. You can do this by establishing key metrics to evaluate your event.

To help you better understand the impact of your event, this guide will cover the following topics:

• 3 types of event impact metrics to evaluate
• Driving impact with your event: 3 tips

Keep in mind that your organization is unique—what another organization considers an impactful event may not be impactful for you. Consider these metrics through the lens of your organization’s size, audience, and outcomes from past events. 

3 types of metrics to evaluate events

Let’s dive into the different types of metrics your organization can use to analyze your event’s impact.

1. Financial event metrics

For most organizations, financial metrics are the most obvious way to evaluate the impact of an event. Return on investment (ROI) is the most important finance-related metric, but you’ll need to know these metrics to calculate it:

• Event costs: This will include all expenses and funds put towards organizing and hosting the event.

• Leads generated: Events can generate leads that you can further nurture and convert into a customer.

To calculate your ROI, divide the revenue generated by leads from your event by the total amount of expenses. This tells you how efficiently you allocated your funds, and organizations should aim to have as high an ROI as possible.

These metrics can provide a clear-cut answer as to whether your event was a financial success. However, other metrics are needed to determine why your event had the impact that it did. 

2. Event attendance metrics

Aside from financial metrics, you can also look at attendance-related metrics to evaluate your event’s impact. These data points provide insight into your marketing, the makeup of your target audience, and your overall ability to cultivate a loyal and engaged audience. Record and reflect on event attendance metrics such as:

• Number of attendees: The number of people who attend your event indicates how successful your marketing and promotional efforts were.

• Attendee demographics: Compare the demographics of event attendees to that of your target audience. Ask yourself if you’re attracting your ideal attendees, and if not, how you can change your marketing strategy for future events.

• Attendance over time: Consider similar events you have hosted in the past and compare the number of attendees for those events versus your most recent event. Consistent audience retention indicates your events are high-quality, as guests who attended a previous event feel motivated to attend your next one as well. 

Aside from overall event attendance, also assess the attendee-related metrics for specific activities featured at your event. For example, if your organization works in the digital marketing vertical and hosted several informational panels, compare the number and demographics of attendees across panels to identify what types of content are most interesting to your target audience.

3. Event engagement metrics

Alongside financial and attendance metrics, event engagement metrics provide unique insight into the impact of your event. Unlike the aforementioned metrics, however, event engagement is less of a quantitative measure and more qualitative, making it difficult to measure. To better quantify your event engagement, examine these metrics:

• Conversions: Assess how many attendees continue to engage with the organization after the event. Continued engagement might mean that they subscribe to your email newsletter, or that they become a customer or member.

• Satisfaction: Ask your supporters to rate their overall satisfaction and satisfaction with various event aspects and activities to get a general understanding of how engaged and happy they were with the event.

One of the best ways to evaluate how engaged attendees were with your event is to ask them for their opinion. At the event’s close, send an email thanking attendees for their participation, and include a survey that they can take to provide their feedback. Stress to them that this information will help you create a better event experience in the future.

Driving impact with your event: 3 tips

Now that you know what metrics to examine, use the following tips to improve your event and drive conversions.

1. Set a clear goal

When planning your event, start by determining its purpose. Ask yourself what you hope to accomplish by gathering your attendees together and how that will benefit your organization in the long run. For example, if you’re an advocacy group, bringing attendees together can help you spread awareness about your cause. Or, if you’re a business promoting a new product, your event’s purpose might be to lead more people down the marketing funnel.

When setting your goal, keep in mind that it should be specific, measurable, and relevant to your organization’s overall objectives. Ensure that it’s attainable, and align all parts of your event with it, including event format and target audience.

2. Promote your event

To boost attendee turnout, you’ll need to market and promote your event well in advance. Build anticipation and give guests the time to clear their schedules and make preparations for attending by creating and sending promotional materials through these channels:

• Your website
• Direct mail
• Email
• Text
• Social media
• Flyers

To reach the largest number of interested individuals, use multiple marketing channels. Choose channels that your target audience frequents. For example, if your organization has an active Instagram account with many followers, post an image inviting them to attend your next bikeathon.

3. Incorporate technology to enhance the experience

Incorporating technology into your organization’s event can result in a more engaged audience and an improved guest experience. You can make attendees’ lives more convenient by allowing mobile check-in and sending them text reminders in the days leading up to your event. If your event is convention-style, consider creating a mobile app that attendees can download to easily track the schedule and activities they’re interested in.

Aside from making processes more convenient for attendees, you can also use technology to augment your activities. For example, if you’re hosting a Q&A session with industry professionals, have a screen displaying real-time social media engagement and encourage attendees to post questions that the professionals can answer. Additionally, use live streaming technology to organize hybrid and virtual events, increasing participation from individuals that may not be able to attend in person.

‍

Maximizing your event’s impact begins with assessing your existing data. Consider what insights that information gives you, and use it to alter and improve upon your future events. After every event, sit down with the rest of your team and discuss key takeaways and improvements. Learn what type of events best fit specific purposes, and you’ll see the desired impact in your organization’s events.

Halfway through 2023, chances are you've already attended several B2B events this year, and are questioning whether you can just skip Forrester's 2023 B2B Summit. Is it really worth your time and effort?

In a word: yes.

Namely because unpredictability and uncertainty have been the name of the game for the past few years. Marketers have had to deal with diversifying routes to market, changes in consumer behavior and difficult-to-predict buying motions. 

That’s why the summit’s theme this year -  ‘ADAPT. ACT. GROW’ - is timely and pertinent. At Forrester's 2023 B2B Summit North America, marketers can get key strategies, pragmatic frameworks, and compelling data they need to adapt quickly to changing market conditions. 

When is it? June 5 – 7, 2023

Where is it?

This year’s edition is hybrid, with attendees able to either attend virtually or in-person in Austin.

Here’s what you can look forward to:

🎯 100+s tactical sessions aligned to marketing roles

Whether your focus is customer marketing, product marketing, marketing operations, demand and ABM, partner ecosystem marketing or sales, you can expect sessions addressing any and all challenges and goals that you’re currently facing at work. Take away ready-to-use insights and tactics that you can implement the very next day:

Here’s a snapshot of noteworthy sessions available for different roles:

• Align Marketing, Product, And Sales Around Buyer Value To Propel Growth: A panel that provides practical tips for driving alignment and releasing each team’s potential and strategies for calibrating to and innovating on buyer value, led by analysts and experts at Forrester.

• Beyond Alignment: How Sales And Marketing Leaders Integrate For Success: This session will explore how organizations integrate processes, technologies, teams, and practices to deliver a compelling buying experience

• Lifecycle Revenue Marketing Is The Future Of B2B Growth: This session will outline buyer trends that are having the most impact on B2B marketing such as buyers being more self-guided or more prone to extending their purchasing processes, and identify LRM strategies that can help surface revenue opportunities out of customer adoption, loyalty, and advocacy initiatives.

• Product-Led Growth: Right Fit, Right Approach For Your Organization? A session that helps marketers learn best principles, principles, practices, examples, metrics, and fit assessment, as well as next steps for product, marketing, sales, and customer success leaders.

In-person attendees also have the opportunity to take part in specialized pre-event sessions and workshops such as the ForrWomen Leadership Program which helps attendees learn how to help advance women leaders in their organizations.

📋 Case studies from globally leading brands and executives

Get first-hand knowledge from industry leaders - valuable insights into the strategies, tactics, and approaches employed by them that you can apply to your own marketing efforts, helping them drive growth and overcome obstacles.

Here are a few intriguing case studies on the Summit agenda:

• Calendly: Smith.ai: How to Transform MQLs into Sales Meetings, Instantly: Today’s buyers hold the power, wanting to self-serve and resist salespeople until they’re ready. You’ll hear how Smith.ai’s sales team is giving buyers more control with a customer-first routing strategy to drive a 70% conversion rate from MQLs to meetings booked.

• 6sense: How to Do Frictionless, Revenue-Generating ABM: Learn how Twilio Segment built a collaborative partnership between marketing and sales, using 6sense’s intent and keyword signals. By focusing outbound campaigns on in-market buyers, the Segment GTM team booked 75+ meetings within one week of launch.

• Mindtickle: Breakdown the silos to win together: How to implement a business pivot on a global scale: Hear from Jegen Kalimuthu, Global Sales Enablement at LinkedIn on how to tackle a global business transformation cross-functionally. Instead of finger-pointing and throwing in the towel, learn how enablement, marketing, sales leadership, and sales ops all play a role in implementing global change.

✨ Hear straight from the A-listers of B2B marketing

The line-up this year is incredible. Here are just a few of the speakers you can look forward to interacting with:

• Dara Treseder CMO, Autodesk
• Cheryl Cook SVP, Global Partner Marketing, Dell
• Cindy Matos VP of Transformation and Governance, IBM
• Katherine Chambers VP of Revenue Marketing, Cart.com
• Jeanne Quinn Director, Partner Engagement & Thought Leadership, Cisco
• Principal Product Manager, Bayer
• Gail Moody-Byrd Vice President, Marketing, LinkedIn Sales Solutions, LinkedIn

🪄Find solution providers for your marketing, sales, and product needs

Whether you are transforming your entire digital customer journey or need help boosting your marketing or commerce experiences, you can find exactly the solutions you need at the Summit.

🤝 Connect with peers, experts and Forrester analysts

There are plenty of opportunities both structured and unstructured during the Summit to meet and connect with professionals like yourself. 

During breaks, you can hit the show floor to connect with colleagues and peers. 

But there are also plenty of networking activities built into the event agenda: breakfast boardrooms, invite-only dinners (e.g. an executive leadership exchange), as well as facilitated ‘birds of a feather’ small group discussions during which you can connect with peers facing similar challenges. 

These group discussions in particular are great for focused, facilitated discussions on specific initiatives you are working on.​ And as a bonus - Forrester analysts and executive partners will be on hand to provide expert perspectives. 

‍The takeaway

B2B marketing right now is all about needing to be strategic, sensing buyer needs, and knowing the right tactics that will resonate with buyers and sellers. At Forrester's B2B Summit North America 2023, you’ll get the data and insight you need to know exactly how to do this, and stay one step ahead in the dynamic world of B2B marketing.

Let’s face it. Organizing webinars is just not as easy as the thousands of ‘How to host a webinar and drive lots of revenue’ articles make it out to be. There’s so many steps involved, from sourcing the speaker to planning the dry run, making the landing page to sending out emails, etc.

But even if you have a solid plan in place, you may be overlooking simple steps or activities that can completely derail your efforts, leaving you like this:

‍

So in this article, we’ll cover the top 5 ways you could inadvertently shoot yourself in the foot - and tips on how to prevent this. 

1. You send out basic follow-up emails after someone registers

The mistake: It can be tempting to schedule ‘1 week to go’,  ‘1 day to go’ and ‘1 hour to go’ emails, emphasizing ONLY the date and time of your webinar, and call it a day. But you need something beyond just this to keep interest in your webinar piqued.

The solution: This is why it's important to keep reminding registrants the value of turning up on the day-of. This means that in every follow-up email you send, you need to reiterate why your webinar is unmissable. And you can do this through some simple ways:

• Share a screenshot of your previous webinar, highlighting the interactivity of the Chat for instance, or a learning moment that an attendee had.

• Share social proof of positive tweets or comments from attendees at your previous webinars.

• Play up the FOMO by highlighting what the registrant will lose out on if they skip the webinar, for instance ‘Learn how to double your leads from a webinar by the end of the hour.’

• Offer an exclusive perk for those that do attend live.

2.You pick the entirely wrong date and the wrong time for the webinar

The mistake: If you’re not factoring in the day of the week, holidays, other industry events, and timezones, you’re making it difficult for people to want to attend your webinar. If it conflicts with anything else they have going on, you can bet this is how they’ll react:

The solution: Center your scheduling around your target audience’s availability. 

• Marketing wisdom states that Tuesdays and Thursdays are the best dates for a webinar. (On Mondays, people are in the thick of planning their work for the week while on Fridays, it’s likely that most people are already in a weekend mood and unlikely to tune in. ) But take this with a grain of salt, and use your analytics to determine which day attracted the most turnout.

• Avoid the run up to holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas and conflicting major events, whether that’s an industry conference or the Superbowl.

• Time differences can cause scheduling conflicts - it’s very difficult to accommodate everyone, so shoot for the majority instead. At Zuddl we usually schedule webinars at around 10:30 AM PT as it corresponds to accessible time zones across most geographies.

3.You take a hands-off approach with your webinar speakers

The mistake: Your speakers are busy, busy people, so while they may confirm their availability on a specific date and time for your webinar, this can quickly change. It’s just life. 

But if the only communication with your speaker is weeks after the initial call, then you’re only going to hear about a change in their availability later rather than sooner. This may mean having to cancel your webinar altogether - and quite abruptly.

The solution: Check-in with your speaker at regular intervals. Not only does this help build the organizer-speaker relationship, but enables you to spot red flags early on - like if a speaker requests a time or date change more than once, or doesn’t respond to your follow-up emails.

4.You decide not to make a basic conversation flow for your speaker and host

The mistake: We’re not telling you to make your speaker and host read directly from a script  - that’ll only make them sound either like a robot or a news presenter. But not providing them with a conversation guide either is a mistake. 

It leaves too much room for interpretation, by which we mean that the speaker and host could go wildly off topic, or not quite know how to navigate moving from one sub-topic to another leading to lots of awkwardness during the webinar, and causing attendees to drop-off the call.

The solution: A conversational flow can help guide your host and speaker through all the topics they need to cover, whilst letting them sound natural and conversational. This isn’t as complicated as you think. Even something as simple as this will work:

Introduction

• The host introduces the webinar/webinar series and goal
  ‍E.g. “Welcome to Event Heroes - a show where we engage with industry professionals to offer you practical guidance on crafting a successful event strategy and executing it with excellence, all to maximize your returns.”

• The host introduces the guest speaker and their career story
  E.g. for our webinar with Alex Temple - “Our guest today is Alex Temple, Senior Corporate Relations Manager at Explori. Now, Explori is an attendee feedback platform for events, expos and event venues.”

• The host asks the guest to introduce themselves
  E.g. “Hi, thanks for having me on as a guest today. I’m a B2B event marketer with 15 years of experience., etc. etc.’

Educational content

• Questions that touch upon the pain point or goals that your audience signed up for
  E.g. Solutions to challenges in the industry, a new perspective on an age-old practice, commentary on new trends, insights and best practices from their day-to-day. Protip: Use customized questions on registration forms to gauge what attendees are really interested in learning at the webinar

Q/A

• The host reads out questions shared by the attendees in the Chat or using a Q/A tool and prompts the speaker to answer each in turn

Fun rapid fire 

• End the session on a high note with fun questions for the speaker
  E.g. ‘What are you proud of, but never have an excuse to talk about?’ or ‘If you were a pizza topping what would you be and why?

Closing and next steps

• The host thanks the speaker for their time and the attendees for theirs. Then, the host shares next steps.
  E.g. “Thank you for joining us to learn about <X topic> and hope you learned a lot. We’ll be sharing a link to a video recording of this webinar with you in an email so you can go back and watch it at a time of your convenience.’

5. And you opt not to do a practice run

The mistake: Without a practice run, you may not realize issues with the software or your speakers presentation or your showflow (ie. it might be too short or too long). As a result, you may appear unprofessional, confuse or bore your audience, and self-sabotage the opportunity to make a positive impact.

The solution: Do a dry run. Not only can you check that everything is in working order - webinar platform, presentation flow, speaking points etc. - but it helps your speaker feel more comfortable and confident too. 

Prevent mistakes instead of trying to firefight them

No one is immune to making mistakes, but knowing what obstacles are ahead makes it that much easier to overcome them.

We get it; planning a large-scale B2B conference can be intimidating. There are lots of moving parts involved; coordination with teams, sourcing speakers, setting up your event, promoting your event - we can go on and on.

The challenges of planning and hosting an event of this scale will always be present, but the good news is you can overcome and deal with them better if you have a tested approach to guide you on ground.

That’s exactly why we spoke to Varun Singh, Head of Marketing, Rocketlane to get some on-ground insights on what it takes to pull off a successful large-scale B2B conference. For context, Rocketlane recently concluded hosting the world’s first customer onboarding conference, Propel ‘23 - with 3,500+ virtual attendees.

Here are some really interesting tips that emerged from that conversation.

‍How to build an agenda for a conference of this scale

One of the challenges marketers face while planning a big event is around what topics to cover. This becomes even more complex when your attendees are from different profiles as you need to ensure that every attendee finds value in your event. 

When we asked Varun about how he went about creating an agenda for Propel ‘23, he said that narrowing the scope of the conference (customer onboarding, implement and post-sales for example) helped Rocketlane deliver more focused content to attendees. It also enabled them to create a mix of dedicated sessions for each profile, while still providing a few sessions of common interest.

Here’s a glimpse of the agenda from Propel ‘23:

How to align all the moving parts and collaborate internally

When it comes to pulling off a global conference, it truly takes a village. Event marketers have to collaborate with different internal functions to fulfil tasks and sub-tasks, which is an event in itself!

When we asked Varun how much internal collaboration was needed for Propel ‘23, he said:

“Our design team took care of all the speaker presentations and landing pages, and our web development team focused on having the event site up and ready. Our dedicated Ops person ensured data from event landing pages seamlessly integrated with CRM tools, and our content team handled copies for landing pages, emails and social posts. Our support team would drive registrations to any prospect who would chat with them. Also, our CSM team would recommend Propel 23’ to our existing customers - so it was a combined effort - all working towards one common goal.”

How to repurpose your conference content 

Any large-scale event is like a goldmine of fresh insights, fresh perspectives and expert-driven content that deserves to be extracted, repurposed and promoted. While most marketers are onboard with repurposing as a content strategy, they often face logistical challenges when it comes to exporting and editing event content, which often delays the publishing process, rendering the content a bit cold.

We asked Varun about his plan around repurposing content from Propel ‘23 - here’s what he shared.

“The video recordings were made live within 4 working days from the event on our website. Talking about repurposing these videos, we’ve already come up with cheat sheets based on conversations from tracks that were focused on specific sub-topics, and we gate these cheat sheets on our site. Also, we publish an Idea Book that compiles snippets from various sessions. Thirdly, we have different blog summaries based on each session from the event.”

How to collect and implement feedback 

For B2B conferences, especially ones that have future editions, feedback plays a monumental role in the growth of the conference as a brand - it’s the only way you know what your attendees loved and what they didn’t. 

But the trick with event feedback is that it needs to be collected while the impact of the event is still hot in the attendee’s mind. Here’s some insight into how Rocketlane does it:

“With feedback, you can have a combination of quantitative and qualitative questions. Some open-ended ones and some very direct ones. Once you get all of that, you decode how to use it to plan a better conference the next year. For example, in Propel 2022, we had sessions one after the other. When we observed the feedback on this, we made incremental changes to the 2023 editions by ensuring we have networking breaks planned between sessions - all these inputs only come from feedback.”

You can watch our full conversation with Varun Singh right here.

Hope you find these tips useful - now go own your next B2B conference!

ChatGPT. 

It needs no introduction because over the past few months it’s all anyone has heard about.

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But the noise is understandable.

The chatbot’s ability to write complex text - academic, journalistic, and programming, among others - in a human, friendly and intelligent way is unrivaled, leading Bill Gates to call it the most revolutionary tech in decades. 

Indeed, prompted to write a blurb about this very article, ChatGPT responded:

Pretty good… if a tad full of itself.

But how useful is ChatGPT really for B2B event marketing?

While many have praised the chatbot’s ability to answer questions, write essays, summarize documents and write software, others have criticized it for providing responses that are somewhat stilted, and basic. In which case, are event marketers better off just relying on their own skills? Or is this chatbot a marketer’s new favorite colleague?

As they say ‘Seeing is believing’, so we worked with ChatGPT on the standard roster of B2B event marketing activities - all your basics like finding an event venue, finding speakers, putting together a calendar of events, promotional material etc - to see if it lives up to the hype.

‍Challenge #1: Cutting down time to source event venues

Usually, finding venues for events - whether a conference, round table or even a simple dinner requires lots of research.

“I spent so much time on Google trying to find a venue for a networking mixer in Vegas,” comments B2B event marketing specialist, Rishabh Bora. “It was extremely challenging for me as I was not familiar with the city at all - let alone the country - and so the time I put into coming up with even a shortlist of places took days because I had to first locate places and then vet them as per my budget and other criteria.” 

✅ How ChatGPT can help: With a simple prompt, ChatGPT can give you a list of venues appropriate for your event goals and budget. 

The prompt:

The output:

Evaluation: That’s a pretty good starting point that can save you hours on Google.

And this can be used to source event speakers too

ChatGPT can be also used similarly to source speakers for your event using a prompt like ‘What international speakers can I invite to talk at this event?

Key to curating a good list is the different criterion you want the chatbot to apply when coming up with a list of names - like domain expertise in X topic, for instance. Click here for other criteria you should consider too.

Time saved: 2-5 hours at the least

Verdict: Go for it

Challenge #2: Create event titles and descriptions within 1 minute

Catchy titles can help boost the registration rates for your conferences or webinars (see Rocketlane’s fantastically-named sessions for Propel '22) but it’s not easy to come up with these for B2B marketing events, especially when you have to factor in things like character count. 

✅ How ChatGPT can help: If you’ve ever spent agonizing hours trying to be witty or creative to no avail, ChatGPT can help kick start brainstorming.

The prompt:

The output:

Evaluation: The suggestions are straightforward and succinct, and the chatbot even uses alliteration to make the title catchy. At the least it’ll help you realize what you do and don’t want from the title. And the more detailed your prompt is, the better refined the ChatGPT copy will be.

And you can use it to generate event descriptions as well.

Evaluation: That’s a pretty solid description. It covers the broad strokes of what can be expected at the webinar, and uses industry jargon ‘traps, gadgets, rockets’ etc. With more information in the prompt about specific challenges or goals, the description can be further improved. 

Time saved: 2-5 hours at the least, depending on the creativity/nuance of your prompts

Verdict: Definitely helpful

Challenge #3: Help plan an event program

Event marketers usually plan for 6 months worth of events ahead of time to account for event format, types and size. But where do you start planning your B2B event marketing calendar? You may have a rough idea of wanting to do a few webinars and then perhaps a conference at the end of Q3, but aren’t quite sure how to put a plan in place.

✅ How ChatGPT can help: Even using a basic prompt, the chatbot can help you understand the different types of events you can plan for your audience to keep them engaged throughout the year. 

Chat GPT prompt and output:

‍Evaluation: We’re not going to lie, this is actually pretty impressive.

ChatGPT has planned a great mix of different event types, with each addressing a goal or pain point of the target audience. It serves as a good jumping-off point for your planning.

But as mentioned before, the more nuanced the prompt, the better ChatGPT’s output will be. So for instance, a B2B event marketing calendar for pipeline engagement will look entirely different to that of one aimed at customer engagement.

Time saved: Half a day 

Verdict: It’s not replacing you… as yet

Challenge #4: Write the best copy you’ve ever written for event SM promos

Unfortunately, B2B gets a bad rap for being boring, and by extension its events as well. That’s why spending a little extra time and brainpower to come up with creative and fun ways to come up with different ways to promote your event can make all the difference in driving registrations.

‍✅ How ChatGPT can help: Using just a straightforward prompt can help get the ball rolling.

The prompt:

The output:

‍Evaluation: Not bad at all.

And you can use it to write social copy for the post ideas it has come up with.

Chat GPT prompt and output:

‍Evaluation: It’s good copy (especially the disclaimer at the end!). And it gets the job done also because at this point, it has a lot of context about what you’re looking for. ChatGPT remembers the thread of your dialogue, using previous questions and answers to inform its next responses. 

And you can further refine the copy as per the social media channel you’re going to post on - for instance:

The prompt:

The output:

🔥🔥🔥🔥

And then why not ask ChatGPT to plan a calendar for promotion to boot. 

Chat GPT prompt and output:

Evaluation: No notes for this, just applause.

Clearly the chatbot can help streamline all your social media activities within a couple of minutes.

‍And you can take a similar approach with email marketing

In a similar way, use ChatGPT to write your promotional emails, registration confirmations, and reminder emails with the following prompts:

• Can you write an email invitation to Wile E Coyotes highlighting why this is a must-attend webinar?
• Can you write a last-chance to register email?
• Can you write an email reminding webinar registrants that the webinar starts in 1 hour.
• Can you write an email thanking attendees and letting them know the event’s content is now available on-demand?

Time saved: An entire day

Verdict: So fantastic you may be inspired to name your first-born after ChatGPT

‍Challenge #5: Act as real-time customer support on event page/app

A chatbot for event marketing on your landing page or mobile event app is indispensable because it helps your visitors get answers quickly and easily - whether they’re looking for directions to the venue or suggestions on which session they should attend. It helps to humanize your event and brand. And it frees up you and your team to focus on other tasks.

‍✅ How ChatGPT can help: It can help cut down time for you to put the questions and answers together - and add some personality.

The prompt and output:

Evaluation: It’s done a decent job, but the questions and answers are quite basic. 

You could probably get more from the ChatBot by first sharing a more full-fledged description of the event, and then prompting it for Q&A’s. And it’ll be up to event marketers to manually add a touch of brand personality or humor.

Time saved: 1-2 hours

‍Verdict: Very helpful

Final verdict: A friend indeed to those in need

Credit where credit is deserved: ChatGPT for event marketing delivers the goods more often than not. It cuts down time spent on research and writing, provides at least a framework of content that you can improve, and in general, speeds up your efficiency. 

This is especially effective if you combine the powers of ChatGPT and event automation - the combination of which (eg. getting ChatGPT to write your emails and then using the copy in automated email workflows), should cut your work in half. We’ll be keeping a close eye on how the tool can be integrated into events in real-time which opens up even more opportunities for its use.

But don’t worry event marketers, the ChatBot won’t be replacing you - at least not just yet. 

When the chatbot does result in lackluster responses, it can only be improved by you refining the prompt or providing more complete information to the chatbot. And it’s important to note that there is still a chance that it will create false or inaccurate information so will need a human marketer to check and approve everything it produces.

In the end, it’s a partnership between you as the event marketer and the AI. As with all friendships, you get out of it what you give.

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Other B2B event marketing tasks that you can use ChatGPT for:

• Attendee surveys
• Putting together event agendas
• Writing scripts for hosts 
• Create scripts for videos
• Creating promotional posts about/for your speakers
• Post-event landing page copy and promotions

Heard your customers or marketing peers talk about ‘deminars’ and wondered if you misheard the word ‘seminars’? 

The good news is, your hearing is just fine! 

Deminars are becoming increasingly popular among event marketers for their ability to convert audiences in real-time. But how? And are they the same as any other webinar?...

We’ll answer all that in this blog post.

But let’s start from the beginning?

‍What is a Deminar even?!!

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(And no, just in case you’re wondering, it isn’t a Demon + Gnar crossbreed, it’s a demo + webinar mashup)

Simply put, a deminar is a product demo that dresses itself in the form and style of a webinar. It allows you to combine the heft of a product-focused demo with the interactive and collaborative experience of a webinar. 

How are deminars different from the webinars we know and love?

While webinars are great for generating leads at the top of the funnel, deminars are a powerful tool for engaging prospects at the bottom of the funnel and converting them into customers.

In a deminar, you can demonstrate your product or service while having a real-time conversation with your prospects, which makes it an ideal format for driving conversions and closing deals.

So when your event mix combines webinars and deminars, you’re essentially creating a predictable pipeline that guides prospects through the entire buying cycle, from generating the lead to closing the deal. Booyah!

Why are deminars becoming popular?

As per this Forbes article on the ever-evolving B2B buyer process, nearly 60% of buyers prefer conducting their own research instead of communicating with sales representatives.

And typically, when buyers do their own research, their only options other than a demo call is reading your website or watching a video you have up; neither of these is interactive.

This is where a deminars serves as a bridge - it provides event marketers with a platform to influence high-intent prospects to make a purchasing decision in an open, interactive ‘show, don’t tell’ fashion. 

‍Highly recommended: To get first-hand experience of how a deminar looks and feels, check out Zuddl’s Product tour - it’s free!

So now that we’ve warmed up to the idea of deminars, let’s look at three great ways to use them to achieve business objectives.

Three effective ways to use deminars:

The Launchpad: 

Deminars are an excellent tool for product launches because they allow businesses to showcase their new offerings in a way that is interactive, engaging, and memorable.

Instead of simply talking about your product, you can demonstrate its features and benefits in real-time, answer questions, and provide additional context that can help potential customers see the value of what you're offering. 

Plus, by offering a fun and engaging experience, you'll increase the likelihood that attendees will share their experience with others and help spread the word about your launch.

Mind the Gap: 

As an event marketer, one of your goals is likely to establish your brand as a thought leader in your industry. Deminars can be a great way to achieve this by providing valuable insights and education to potential customers. 

By showcasing your expertise and sharing your knowledge, you'll be able to build trust and credibility with your audience, which can help differentiate your brand from others in your space. Additionally, by focusing on education and thought leadership, you may be able to attract a wider audience beyond your current customer base, which can help drive growth over time.

The Onboarding Express: 

If you're looking for ways to improve customer retention and satisfaction, Deminars can be a powerful tool for onboarding and training. By offering personalized training sessions, you can help customers feel more confident in their ability to use your product or service, which can lead to increased adoption and usage over time. 

Additionally, by offering ongoing support through deminars, you can help customers feel more connected to your brand and more likely to continue using your product or service in the long-term.

The event marketing sous chef you didn’t know you need

Deminars bring a lot to the table - they have the potential to help you chop up your competition, season your event mix with the right messaging, and sauté new ideas to fill up the gaps in your event marketing program. 

Now, that’s an enviable platter of benefits.

Audience engagement is still proving to be one of the biggest challenges that event organizers are facing. 

A poll taken during a recent NXUnite Panel on improving engagement at events revealed that 29% of attendees listed this as their organization’s current biggest challenge, only second to low attendance (44%). 

Speakers at the panel including Zuddl’s co-founder and CTO, Vedha Sayyaparaju, discussed this challenge, and offered insight and advice on improving engagement rates. Here are the four top takeaways from the talk:

1. Your engagement strategy needs to start way before the go live date and last long after it concludes.

An engagement strategy needs to cover the entire lifecycle, the panelists recommend.

‍“So much of engagement is about what happens before and after - not just during the event”, points out Vedha. “It's about what you’re doing to build and cultivate that community and motivate them to really show up during the event. And then from an after-event perspective, tying back the loop from an impact perspective - why are people part of this community, overall what does that mean, and what is the impact that it has?”

Before your event, you need to be creating anticipation and excitement among attendees, and building relationships with stakeholders to drive up your registration numbers. And after it concludes, you need to keep the momentum going by gathering feedback, explaining how your audience can stay connected with you, and promoting the brand and future events.

2. And so you need to go surround sound with your communication strategy

“It’s all about reaching the right people at the right time at the right place,” commented panelist Mike Montalto, Marketing Manager, amplifi. “So don’t just limit yourself to one channel. Use direct mail, use email, use your social media.”

This is especially pertinent today, when consumers are bouncing from channel to channel but expecting to receive personalized communication on each. Against this backdrop, by using different channels, you’re in a much better position to keep your event and brand top of mind. Case in point: using even  2-3 different channels increases engagement by 24% according to Mike Lewis, author of “Stand Out Social Media.”

3. Use data to personalize your event communications and improve your event

The data that you collect about your attendees is a goldmine of information - especially if you’re using one tool for all your event activities as opposed to 4-5 different tools that lead to silos of data.

“We have the tools to be able to really personalize how you reach out to people,” said Vedha. “You can put people in different buckets based on how people behaved, how they engaged in the event, how active they are. It doesn’t need to be the same communication and the same engagement that goes out to everyone.”

For instance, using a event registration form or before-event survey to gauge an attendee’s interest in a conference’s tracks can let you personalize email outreach which can then help to improve turnout.  

After-event surveys are a great tool as well - don’t be afraid of them. “Let them say what they didn’t like”, said panelist A.J. Steinberg. “Let them say the chicken was bad or if you have people singing like that again I’m never coming.” The feedback reinforces that which you’re doing well or its constructive criticism about what you need to change and will help you make that next event better.

After-event communication can be tailored based on an attendee’s actions or interactions. For instance, since a significant part of the audience who attended the NXUnite panel polled that they needed help improving engagement at events, we sent them our guide to efficiently planning before-event strategies.

But this is just one small example. When you’re able to see a holistic view of an attendee’s interactions with your communications, then you’re better able to create an enjoyable, personalized experience that engages and converts. 

4. Don’t sleep on using micro-events 

Micro events, as the name suggests, are smaller sized events that can be used to drive better engagement and connection with your audience. And these events can be really valuable, agreed panelists. Especially if you use a blend of different formats.

Hosting small virtual events for instance, lets you build small intimate connections, and nurture them over time so that they will be more likely to come to your larger in-person events (Click here to read more about micro events and how best to use them).

“Tech has really helped organizers with having a mixed strategy”, Vedha commented. “Rather than just having 1 event, [it allows you to organize] many little things before and after so that you’re building an event strategy as a whole.”

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Watch the entire panel here.