Best of LinkedIn: Field Marketing CW 02/ 03

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgeier and Frennis based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about field marketing from calendar weeks two and three.

00:00:07: Frennis is a B to B market research company helping enterprise field marketing teams with precise target list research and database driven segmentation as well as event attendee acquisition.

00:00:18: And today we are looking at what feels like a massive pivot in the world of field marketing.

00:00:24: It really does.

00:00:25: It feels like we're at a tipping point.

00:00:27: For years the playbook was just Book the venue, order the swag, show up and hope.

00:00:32: But going through these sources, the whole vibe has shifted.

00:00:35: We're moving from just showing up to really showing off results.

00:00:38: That's the headline, isn't it?

00:00:40: If I had to boil everything down, it's this decisive move from execution, you know, the logistics to effectiveness, actual revenue impact.

00:00:49: Right.

00:00:49: The conversation isn't about throwing a better party anymore.

00:00:52: It's all about precision.

00:00:54: and a purpose.

00:00:55: Precision is the perfect word.

00:00:57: We've got a lot to cover.

00:00:58: We're going to unpack this whole pre-event revolution and why the ROI really happens before you even pack your suitcase.

00:01:03: And the experience itself, why espresso is beating alcohol.

00:01:06: Yes.

00:01:07: And we'll get into the, well... the unsexy but dangerous stuff, the data hygiene and some new legal threats that everyone needs to be aware of.

00:01:14: And we'll wrap up with the macro landscape because there were some huge mergers that really changed the game.

00:01:20: Okay, let's dive right in.

00:01:22: Theme one has to be this eighty twenty rule of event ROI.

00:01:26: It starts with a claim from Nick Bennett that honestly, it made me stop and reread it.

00:01:31: He says eighty percent of your event ROI is determined before the flight takes

00:01:35: off.

00:01:35: It sounds like an exaggeration, right?

00:01:36: Yeah.

00:01:37: But when you break it down, what he's really attacking is booth obsession.

00:01:41: The carpet color, the backdrop.

00:01:43: Exactly,

00:01:43: all that wasted energy.

00:01:45: Yeah.

00:01:45: Bennett says you need to shift that focus entirely to what he calls meeting orchestration.

00:01:51: So

00:01:51: practically speaking, how do you do that?

00:01:53: Because everyone says they do pre-event outreach, but it's usually just spamming people with, come visit booth four or two.

00:01:58: And that does not work.

00:01:59: He lays out a very specific timeline.

00:02:01: He says, you need to get.

00:02:03: The previous year's attendee list.

00:02:05: Previous year, okay.

00:02:07: You need that data four to six weeks out.

00:02:10: Then you cross-reference it with your ICP, your ideal customer profile.

00:02:14: That's your hit list.

00:02:15: Okay, so you have the list.

00:02:16: What's the move?

00:02:17: The move is what I'd call aggressive generosity.

00:02:20: Two weeks out, you send a physical gift.

00:02:22: Yeah.

00:02:23: But, and this is the critical part, not company swag.

00:02:26: Please, no more branded stress

00:02:28: balls.

00:02:29: He suggests a spa voucher.

00:02:30: A spa voucher, that's...

00:02:32: Personal.

00:02:33: It's brilliant psychology.

00:02:34: The note basically says, events are exhausting.

00:02:37: Here's something on us to enjoy after the chaos.

00:02:40: It acknowledges the human side of it all.

00:02:42: It builds reciprocity before you've even met.

00:02:45: That is a power move.

00:02:46: It totally changes the dynamic.

00:02:48: And it pairs perfectly with the math that Mitchell Keller laid out.

00:02:51: Oh, Keller's

00:02:51: math is brutal.

00:02:52: He compares option A, spend ten thousand dollars on a booth, stand there for three days, and just hope a decision maker wanders by.

00:02:59: Which you get what most people do.

00:03:00: Right.

00:03:01: versus option B, spend zero on a booth.

00:03:03: You use that budget on travel and entertainment, and you set up fifteen pre-booked meetings with the exact people you want to talk to.

00:03:09: When you put it like that, option A just sounds irresponsible.

00:03:13: It leads

00:03:13: to what Keller calls the hidden unlock.

00:03:16: You might not even need the booth.

00:03:18: You can work the adjacent events, the hotel lobbies, the coffee shops,

00:03:22: and probably get better ROI than the people step on the carpet for eight hours a day.

00:03:26: And that's exactly what Mason Cosby reinforces.

00:03:30: He says events shouldn't be cold introductions.

00:03:33: Right.

00:03:33: If a prospect is learning about you for the first time at your booth, you've already failed the pre-work.

00:03:38: The event should be a confirmation moment.

00:03:40: So the booth isn't the start line.

00:03:42: It's more like a milestone.

00:03:43: Hmm.

00:03:44: But this needs a lot of runway.

00:03:45: Rebecca Carmody had a bit of a reality check on this.

00:03:49: She did.

00:03:49: She basically said, if you start planning eight weeks out, you aren't strategizing.

00:03:53: You're just doing damage control.

00:03:55: Agnes Cascora.

00:03:57: goes even further.

00:03:58: She suggests starting a full year in advance.

00:04:01: A

00:04:01: full year.

00:04:02: Wow.

00:04:03: Because you need months to warm up that account before you ever ask for the meeting at the event.

00:04:07: So the battle is won before the event starts.

00:04:10: Okay.

00:04:11: But let's talk about the event itself, because there's this really interesting debate popping up about the kind of environment that fuels business.

00:04:18: And it boils down to espresso bars versus open bars.

00:04:22: This

00:04:22: was Bob Vase's take and I think he's spot on.

00:04:25: I am one hundred percent team espresso on this, but walk us through the logic.

00:04:28: Well,

00:04:29: it's simple neuroscience.

00:04:30: Alcohol is a depressant.

00:04:32: It makes people tired.

00:04:33: The conversations get sloppy.

00:04:36: Coffee drives focus, energy.

00:04:38: Vaze argues the ROI of an espresso bar is just higher because the people on that line are alert.

00:04:44: They're ready to talk business.

00:04:45: It's

00:04:46: so true.

00:04:46: The line for good coffee is where the real networking happens.

00:04:49: When it goes deeper than the beverage.

00:04:51: It's about the intention of the space.

00:04:54: Nita Atik shared a really powerful story about this.

00:04:56: She was critiquing that superficial networking we all know.

00:04:59: The

00:04:59: scan and run.

00:05:00: Yeah.

00:05:00: Where everyone's just glancing at your badge.

00:05:02: Exactly.

00:05:03: So she shared this story about joining a sewing class.

00:05:06: A sewing class.

00:05:07: Yeah.

00:05:08: A sewing class.

00:05:09: Just six women.

00:05:09: No agenda.

00:05:10: No pitch.

00:05:11: And because everyone's guard was down, she ended up making a genuine connection with a VP from Deloitte.

00:05:17: They were interacting as humans first, not as job titles.

00:05:21: That is the Holy Grail.

00:05:22: So how do you replicate that sewing class vibe on a loud trade show floor?

00:05:26: We're seeing it start to happen.

00:05:28: Marco Barazzi mentioned that booths are evolving into business environments, not just showcases.

00:05:33: They have seating areas, controlled flows, quiet corners.

00:05:37: Like Michael Kerlek said, the booth is becoming an entertainment center.

00:05:41: Or Jason Lavasseur's point about welcoming design, making people feel like they belong there.

00:05:46: Right.

00:05:47: If you treat the attendee like a human first.

00:05:49: Give them coffee, a chair, a real conversation.

00:05:51: You actually get the lead.

00:05:53: If you treat them like a lead first, you get nothing.

00:05:55: Which brings us to the scary part.

00:05:57: The CFO comes knocking and asks, so did it work?

00:06:00: How do we measure all this?

00:06:01: Kayla Drake had a really strong take.

00:06:03: Success does not equal registrations.

00:06:06: No.

00:06:07: And we have to stop pretending it does.

00:06:09: Registrations is a vanity metric.

00:06:11: It feels good, but it doesn't pay the bills.

00:06:14: The metrics that matter are revenue influenced.

00:06:17: Deal velocity.

00:06:19: Did the deal actually move faster because of the event?

00:06:21: Precisely.

00:06:22: And things like customer confidence, NPS scores?

00:06:25: It's the

00:06:25: difference between busyness and business.

00:06:28: Chris White used a great analogy.

00:06:30: Sell the hole, not the drill.

00:06:32: Don't market the event's features.

00:06:34: Market the outcome for the attendee.

00:06:37: And then measure that outcome.

00:06:38: Johann Lindhoff had the funniest way of putting this.

00:06:40: He said, stop measuring falafel.

00:06:42: wrap enjoyment.

00:06:43: Listen, the falafel is important.

00:06:45: It's important for morale.

00:06:46: But it's not ROI.

00:06:47: It's not ROI.

00:06:49: Linhoff asks, did they schedule an account plan?

00:06:51: Did they sign up for a certification?

00:06:52: If the answer is no, who cares how good the falafel was?

00:06:55: This pressure for real impact is leading some people to a radical conclusion.

00:06:59: Lance Newton says the biggest growth lever is choosing what not to do.

00:07:03: The strategy of subtraction.

00:07:05: Ashley Nelson backs that up too.

00:07:07: She says bigger events just multiply confusion.

00:07:10: But getting this measurement right is hard.

00:07:12: Kelly Berhoff shared that it took three years to build a proper dashboard at Intel.

00:07:17: Three years.

00:07:18: Three years.

00:07:18: And even then, she said the data is just the start.

00:07:21: It's about the narrative you tell with it.

00:07:23: OK, so measuring is hard.

00:07:25: But you know what ruins measurement faster than anything?

00:07:28: Bad data.

00:07:29: We have to talk about the plumbing.

00:07:30: The unsexy backbone.

00:07:31: If this breaks, everything else fails.

00:07:33: Hannah Brennan and Connor Strong Green from Blink brought this up.

00:07:37: You scan a badge, it goes into a digital folder, then what?

00:07:41: Then it goes into the CRM abyss.

00:07:43: It gets uploaded two weeks later with no context, a generic email goes out, and the lead is dead.

00:07:49: Because it lacks context.

00:07:50: Exactly.

00:07:51: Their solution is simple, but it needs discipline.

00:07:54: Workspace tags applied at the moment of capture.

00:07:57: While I'm checking your hand, I'm tagging you as warm lead, interested in product

00:08:01: X. That is so critical, because after three days and two hundred conversations, you won't remember who is who.

00:08:07: You won't.

00:08:08: But there's a much bigger operational threat right now, and it's not just about bad data.

00:08:13: It's about illegal data.

00:08:15: Ah,

00:08:15: right.

00:08:16: The update from Mark Gafuri.

00:08:17: This sounded pretty serious.

00:08:19: It is.

00:08:19: He calls it the legal wake-up call.

00:08:21: It's about the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, BIPA.

00:08:26: This is the facial recognition stuff,

00:08:28: right?

00:08:28: Yes, but it's broader.

00:08:29: It covers facial analytics, AI analysis of likeness, sentiment analysis, All that tech marketers love to use to see if people look happy in the booth.

00:08:38: Yeah, that sounds cool in a sci-fi way.

00:08:40: Eighty percent of people smiled.

00:08:42: But legally, it's a minefield.

00:08:44: BIPA is incredibly strict.

00:08:46: If your event has any Illinois residents, which, I mean, every major U.S.

00:08:50: trade show does, you cannot use this tech without explicit, informed, written consent.

00:08:55: So no hidden cameras analyzing sentiment.

00:08:58: Absolutely not.

00:08:59: You're opening yourself up to massive liability.

00:09:01: This is where cool tech runs headfirst into privacy law.

00:09:04: Speaking of tech running into reality, we have to mention Ruben Diaz Marquez and his story from Formula E. A

00:09:09: super high stakes environment.

00:09:11: He described the Wi-Fi going down with eight minutes to go before the race.

00:09:15: Total chaos.

00:09:16: Nightmare fuel.

00:09:17: And they switched to four G instantly.

00:09:19: Nobody noticed.

00:09:20: His point was, you don't need a backup.

00:09:23: You need a second primary system.

00:09:25: I love that distinction.

00:09:26: A backup is something you scramble for.

00:09:28: A second primary is already running ready to take over because tech

00:09:33: will fail.

00:09:33: That is a profound lesson.

00:09:35: We rely so heavily on our tech stack working perfectly.

00:09:38: You have to have that redundancy because if the tech fails, the experience fails.

00:09:42: Okay, so we've covered prep, experience, metrics and ops.

00:09:45: Let's zoom out what's happening at the industry level.

00:09:48: There was some massive news.

00:09:49: Huge news.

00:09:50: Guy Hattendorf and Ronald Phillip announced the merger between Informa and the Dubai World Trade Center.

00:09:57: They're creating a new entity called Indi.

00:09:59: That

00:10:00: sounds like a behemoth.

00:10:01: Why does that matter to the average field marketer?

00:10:03: It matters because it signals that B to B events are becoming massive economic infrastructure.

00:10:09: They aren't just marketing channels anymore.

00:10:11: They are engines for entire economies.

00:10:13: The scale is about to get even bigger.

00:10:15: Which is an interesting contrast to this next point.

00:10:17: On one side, you have these mega mergers.

00:10:20: On the other, Gokul Suresh observed that field marketing is one of the fastest growing roles for twenty twenty six.

00:10:26: And his reasoning is the perfect capstone for this whole conversation.

00:10:31: He says buying has become harder.

00:10:33: We're flooded with AI content, deep fakes, digital noise.

00:10:37: In that world, human to human trust is the only currency left.

00:10:40: That connects everything.

00:10:41: The espresso, the sewing class, the pre-booked meetings.

00:10:45: It's all about getting back to the human because the digital channels are just so polluted now.

00:10:49: Precisely.

00:10:50: The field marketer is becoming the trust architect.

00:10:53: Their value is skyrocketing as AI takes over the digital space.

00:10:57: So as we rack up, where does this leave our listener?

00:11:00: I

00:11:00: think we should leave them with a framework.

00:11:02: It comes from an idea by Gary Vaynerchuk, coupled with those twenty-twenty-six predictions from Miriam W. Berry.

00:11:07: Gary Vee talks about the retail barbell effect.

00:11:10: Walk us through the barbell concept.

00:11:12: It's the idea that the middle is dying.

00:11:14: On one end of the barbell, you have high-tech, AI-driven efficiency.

00:11:19: Think Amazon.

00:11:20: Fast, cheap.

00:11:21: instant.

00:11:22: On the other end, you have hyperanalog, intimate, high-touch human connection.

00:11:26: So

00:11:26: you're either super fast or you're super human.

00:11:29: Exactly.

00:11:30: The danger zone is the middle.

00:11:31: The generic trade show booth where you scan a badge and hand out a stress ball, that's the middle.

00:11:36: It's not efficient enough to be AI and it's not human enough to build trust.

00:11:40: It's just expensive noise.

00:11:42: That is a very sobering thought.

00:11:43: It is.

00:11:44: So the question for everyone listening is, are you building a robot for efficiency or are you hosting a dinner party for connection?

00:11:51: Because if you're just standing in the middle, you're going to get crushed.

00:11:54: Wow.

00:11:55: Are you building your robot or hosting a dinner party?

00:11:57: That's a great question that you want.

00:11:58: It's time to pick a side.

00:12:00: All right.

00:12:00: That's a wrap for this deep dive.

00:12:02: If you enjoyed this episode, new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:12:06: Also, check out our other editions on account-based marketing, go-to-market, channel marketing, MarTech, social selling, and AI in B to B marketing.

00:12:14: Thanks for listening, everyone.

00:12:15: Go plan those meetings.

00:12:17: Thanks for listening.

00:12:17: Don't forget to subscribe.

00:12:18: We'll catch you next time.