Best of LinkedIn: Field Marketing CW 10/ 11

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus, based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about field marketing from calendar weeks ten to eleven.

00:00:08: Frenness is a B-to-B market research company helping enterprise Field Marketing teams with precise targetless research in database driven segmentation as well as event attendee acquisition.

00:00:19: And you know imagine spending like thirty thousand dollars on a trade show booth, scanning five hundred badges over three exhausting days and then realizing a week later that uh ninety percent of those leads were just random attendees who wanted to grab your free stuffed animal.

00:00:34: Oh man yeah the classic plushie trap.

00:00:36: I've been there

00:00:37: right.

00:00:37: it's brutal.

00:00:38: so today we're talking about why the era of treating events like these expensive branded billboards is just officially dead.

00:00:46: our mission in this deep dive cut through all the noise.

00:00:50: We want to deliver the absolute top field marketing trends that have been dominating.

00:00:55: Yeah,

00:00:56: we're looking at the real completely unfluffed insights from the front lines of BDB Tech.

00:01:02: Because look if you were a B to D marketing professional listening this right now You are probably feeling the heat.

00:01:07: Oh absolutely The pressure is on.

00:01:08: It really is!

00:01:09: Your feeling that immense crushing pressure From leadership To take events which have traditionally been these massive nebulous awareness exercises And somehow turn them into measurable predictable revenue.

00:01:24: It is a critical moment for the industry, because the gap between what companies think an event strategy is and what it actually needs to be has just never been wider.

00:01:32: We saw this come up repeatedly in The Post.

00:01:35: we analyzed.

00:01:35: Yeah let's jump right into that first big theme Actually This whole shift of events as revenue engines

00:01:41: Exactly.

00:01:41: And there was really sharp observation from KCS about this exact disconnect.

00:01:46: She pointed out that, like if you ask most companies for their content strategy they will hand you a comprehensive plan right?

00:01:51: Right?

00:01:51: personas distribution channels all the conversion metrics

00:01:54: exactly.

00:01:55: but If You Ask For Their Event Strategy They Just Hand You A Calendar

00:01:58: A literal list of dates in cities.

00:02:01: It's wild when you think about it!

00:02:03: I mean, You would never accept a list-of blog post publication dates as content strategy?

00:02:08: No

00:02:08: Of course not.

00:02:09: But for some reason.

00:02:10: In field marketing Picking a booth location six months in advance Passes strategic planning

00:02:16: Which is incredibly dangerous.

00:02:18: A list of events Is schedule Not a strategy.

00:02:21: And Nikki McKinnell Marlar takes this step further By getting to the root How we should be planning.

00:02:28: What's her take on it?

00:02:29: She argues that your event strategy should never start with a conference calendar.

00:02:33: It needs to start with you revenue plan and your buyer's natural cycles.

00:02:37: Okay, hold on.

00:02:38: let me play devil's advocate here for a second sure

00:02:40: go for

00:02:40: if the biggest industry mega-conference of The Year is in August And like all my competitors are gonna be there with massive booths My CEO was going to panic.

00:02:49: If we aren't their how do I justify ignoring the calendar?

00:02:53: well You just fight what the math of your buyers journey.

00:02:56: Let's look at the mechanism Dickie is talking about.

00:02:58: You have to ask yourself, you know when do your target buyers pain points actually spike?

00:03:03: Okay

00:03:03: and how long does your solution take to implement?

00:03:06: say Your Target Buyers absolute busiest most chaotic season peaks in Q three And let's see your software takes ninety days to implement.

00:03:16: right why on earth are you blowing half of your annual budget At a massive conference in August?

00:03:22: Your buyers do not have the bandwidth to talk with you, let alone start a three month implementation.

00:03:27: Oh

00:03:27: I see because by that time they are feeling pain in Q-three.

00:03:31: it's too late for them to buy from me.

00:03:32: You needed to catch some and q once of this solution was up and running like before the paint hit?

00:03:37: Precisely

00:03:38: your event strategy should be heavily front loaded on Q one and Q two To align when actually open to evaluating new tools.

00:03:45: But this misalignment happens all the time because of how events are managed internally.

00:03:49: Yeah, actually Cody K Adams brought up a really fascinating dynamic about that.

00:03:53: somehow marketing ended Up completely owning events while every other department just quietly backed out of the room

00:03:59: right.

00:03:59: everyone else Just vanished.

00:04:01: yeah leadership says you know make it look impressive.

00:04:04: sale Says call us when the leads Are ready and then Marketing is left holding The bag trying to prove A massive ROI in thirty days.

00:04:11: It's an impossible situation

00:04:14: And I love Caughty's point because it highlights the fundamental flaw in modern field marketing.

00:04:19: If sales isn't intimately involved in shaping the conversation strategy before the door is even open, we aren't running a revenue engine—we're just hosting a branded hangout!

00:04:28: A very expensive brand at Hangout?

00:04:30: Exactly.

00:04:31: and when you do that your sales reps end up standing around the booth looking like decorative plants —I mean they are just ferns with name tags waiting for someone to make eye contact...

00:04:40: It's a painful visual but It's incredibly common and it's exactly why Bryce Alston framework is so vital right now.

00:04:48: He laid out this thirty-day playbook for a new head of event marketing.

00:04:52: Oh, yeah the Playbook

00:04:53: Yeah And his first step is entirely about dismantling that branded hangout mentality.

00:04:59: he says before you spend thirty grand on a booth You have to look at your CRM data?

00:05:04: You take the events attendee list and cross reference it with your ideal customer profile.

00:05:09: Okay, but what if the density isn't there?

00:05:11: What if only a handful of your target accounts are actually attending.

00:05:14: Do you still go just for the brand presence?

00:05:18: Bryce's advice is uncompromising.

00:05:20: they're If the density Isn't There do not buy The Booth.

00:05:23: Wow Just skip it entirely.

00:05:25: Yep

00:05:26: Take A Fraction Of That Budget Buy A Flight And A Hotel For Your Best Sales Rep and Just Have Them Walk The Floor To Visit Those Specific Target Accounts.

00:05:34: It'S A Surgical Strike instead of a carpet bombing approach.

00:05:37: That makes so much sense!

00:05:39: It does, but the crucial underlying mechanism here and Bryce emphasizes this heavily is that before you book a single flight You have to align with sales on attribution first.

00:05:49: Okay So we've agreed to stop buying booths just for brand awareness And were looking at CRM data...that moves us nicely into second theme Pipeline Accountability and Measurement.

00:05:59: Yes exactly because if are calling events revenue engines We have talk about how measure them.

00:06:05: Right.

00:06:06: And if I go to my CFO and say, hey i'm turning our events into a revenue engine.

00:06:10: the very first thing they will ask for is the dashboard like how are we actually tracking the fuel coming out of this engine?

00:06:17: Oh one hundred percent!

00:06:18: The old days of just counting bad scans and calling it a massive success...are completely dead.

00:06:23: It

00:06:24: has to be dead.

00:06:25: Relying on badge scans was creating this massive false sense of security ...and frankly it was just polluting company data.

00:06:33: Zach Barney shared an observation about this that made me laugh, but it's deeply tragic if its your budget.

00:06:38: Oh

00:06:38: the stuffed animal story.

00:06:39: Yes

00:06:40: He watched a sales rep at a trade show scan dozens and dozens of badges just non-stop But the attendees weren't engaging.

00:06:47: they literally Just wanted to free stuffed animals from The booth

00:06:50: which is just classic tradeshow behavior

00:06:52: right.

00:06:52: so we have To ask ourselves what are We actually doing here?

00:06:55: does giving away?

00:06:56: A plushie translate to pipeline?

00:06:59: Or are we just clogging the CRM with burner email addresses and typos from people who just wanted a toy for their kid?

00:07:06: What's happening in Zack's example is just a classic confusion of activity within tent.

00:07:12: Scanning a badge is purely an activity metric, it tells you absolutely nothing about quality connection

00:07:18: or likelihood revenue

00:07:19: exactly true ROI measured by what happens after the booth And Miriam Gojidz shared this brilliant case study that just proves this entirely.

00:07:28: She realized the networking events in and of themselves do not generate clients.

00:07:32: Okay, then what does?

00:07:33: The systematic follow-up is what generates the client

00:07:36: But how does it actually work in practice?

00:07:38: I mean everyone says the fortune isn't a follow up but usually That means sending generic you know great to meet You email blast on Tuesday morning.

00:07:47: right

00:07:47: and that generic blast goes straight to the trash.

00:07:51: Here is how Merriam changed the mechanism.

00:07:54: She worked with a wealth manager who was spending huge money attending twelve different conferences of year.

00:07:59: Twelve?

00:08:00: Wow!

00:08:00: Yeah, twelve and they were only getting maybe two clients out all it.

00:08:04: so she came in and slashed event budget by seventy percent.

00:08:08: She dropped their attendance down to just three highly targeted conferences.

00:08:12: Okay

00:08:12: that's a terrifying pivot for lot field marketers.

00:08:15: It IS but IT WORKED!

00:08:17: She took ALL THAT SAVED ENERGY and shifted it into a hyper-personalized LinkedIn follow up strategy.

00:08:24: They took specific details from the real conversations they had on the floor, And wove them in to their outreach.

00:08:29: So they weren't just following everyone?

00:08:31: They were following up!

00:08:32: Deeply with the right people.

00:08:33: exactly

00:08:34: How was that result?

00:08:35: They generated nine new clients...they more than quadrupled their business by attending fewer events but executing a fundamentally stronger followup mechanism.

00:08:44: That is the perfect example of doing less, but doing it better.

00:08:48: But you know if your listening right now and thinking okay badge scans are garbage... ...but my leadership still demands on-site engagement metrics what's the alternative?

00:08:58: Well Dersio Hoffman shared a concept that completely changes this game.

00:09:01: here.

00:09:02: He proved we don't need massive six figure technology budget to get real behavioral data.

00:09:08: he built relatively cheap RFID system using wristbands to track physical engagement at an event.

00:09:14: Wait, how does that differ from just a standard check-in app at the door?

00:09:18: Because a check in app tells you to body cross threshold.

00:09:21: Durcio's RFID system tracked dwell time and it tracked how long someone stayed in specific zone.

00:09:27: Oh

00:09:27: smart!

00:09:27: Yeah He was able prove his sponsors that median dwell time is fifty six minutes.

00:09:33: he could show twenty two percent of people return on multiple days.

00:09:36: this isn't like good vibes or head count.

00:09:39: This is quantifiable intent.

00:09:42: perfectly aligns with the concept Jason Elko brought up, which I am absolutely fascinated by.

00:09:47: The rise of the event engineer?

00:09:49: The Event Engineer.

00:09:50: that marks a huge psychological shift in the industry.

00:09:53: it's the difference between hiring an interior decorator and a master plumber right!

00:09:58: The traditional event planner is making the room look nice.

00:10:00: they're picking the catering choosing the uploading but the Event Engineer is laying down the invisible pipes...the

00:10:06: data flows

00:10:07: Exactly.

00:10:08: They are building the API connections, CRM tags and automated workflows.

00:10:13: so when someone's RFID wristband pings at a breakout session that behavioral data flows straight into the sales team's reservoir automatically triggering the right follow-up sequence.

00:10:23: they're building a data engine not party.

00:10:26: I love that plumber analogy But let's look at the flip side of that which brings us to our third theme, content as a continuous engagement layer.

00:10:34: Oh yeah!

00:10:35: Because all those incredible invisible pipes are completely useless if the water flowing through them is toxic or in event terms If the content and the attendee experience are bad.

00:10:45: The data won't matter because people would just walk out.

00:10:48: True, if you track my dwell time and it is three minutes because the keynote was painfully boring your fancy RFID system just proved that your event needs a massive overhaul.

00:10:57: Exactly!

00:10:58: The technology can't save a bad experience... ...and the nature of what attendees actually want from that experience is shifting dramatically right now.

00:11:06: Well Marcus Sheridan made really astute observation about types of content we're putting on stage.

00:11:11: He noted.

00:11:12: for last few years Event organizers bought heavily into this tick-tockification of events.

00:11:18: Oh,

00:11:18: I hate that!

00:11:19: Right.

00:11:19: they assumed human attention spans were permanently fried.

00:11:22: so every session had to be this twenty minute bite sized high energy burst.

00:11:26: but Marcus is seeing that trend start to die.

00:11:28: finally i mean i cannot stand flying across the country just to watch a live action twitter thread But why's it dying now?

00:11:35: What

00:11:35: changed?!

00:11:36: The complexity of the problems BDB buyers are trying to solve has changed.

00:11:40: Marcus points out that event organizers are finally booking ninety-minute deep dives again.

00:11:45: Wow!

00:11:46: Ninety

00:11:46: minutes?

00:11:47: Yeah, think about the cognitive mechanism here.

00:11:49: if you're a buyer trying to understand say The implementation of generative AI across a five thousand person enterprise You were dealing with massive career risk.

00:12:00: Oh yeah If you mess that up your fired

00:12:02: Exactly, a twenty minute motivational speech does not mitigate that risk.

00:12:07: You cannot just be inspired.

00:12:08: you require actual rigorous learning...you need to roll up your sleeves look at the architecture and really understand how.

00:12:15: That makes total sense!

00:12:17: Risk mitigation requires depth.

00:12:19: And here is where it gets interesting because depth isn't about how long this speaker on stage.

00:12:25: It's deeply tied into physical environment.

00:12:27: you put attendees in.

00:12:29: Oh for sure

00:12:30: Arthur Carrick's posted something that made me rethink every conference I've ever been to.

00:12:34: He said, and I quote your floor plan is your

00:12:37: strategy.".

00:12:38: That's a bold claim!

00:12:39: How does the floorplan dictate strategy?

00:12:42: Well...Arthur

00:12:43: points out this psychological friction of traditional setups.

00:12:46: companies will spend an absolute fortune on luxury venue And then they just line up three hundred chairs in traditional theater rows Right

00:12:53: steering at these days.

00:12:54: Yeah

00:12:54: he calls it expensive boredom.

00:12:56: If you design a room for passive consumption where everyone is just staring at the back of someone else's head, You're gonna get passive participants.

00:13:03: You are literally building a room that discourages human connection.

00:13:07: So

00:13:07: what's the alternative?

00:13:08: To drive real engagement... ...you have to design this space.

00:13:13: You need lounge clusters.

00:13:15: You need gaming zones, you need these transitional areas that give introverts a natural low pressure reason to start a conversation without feeling like they are speed dating.

00:13:26: That realization that the environment dictates the depth of connection is exactly what is driving The massive surge in micro events right now.

00:13:35: Yes, we saw fantastic breakdowns on this from Madness Medirata and Alex Adkins.

00:13:39: They are finding that smaller high-intent formats Are just vastly outperforming Massive overwhelming trade shows when it comes to pipeline generation.

00:13:50: actually Alex adkins published a blueprint On exactly how to spend a ten thousand dollar budget on a micro event.

00:13:56: He says you start with a highly curated list of just twenty to forty people.

00:13:59: Okay, very small?

00:14:00: Very

00:14:00: small!

00:14:01: Then...you choose an experience they will actually leave their house for like private chef-led dinner.

00:14:06: You include exactly one branded activation.

00:14:08: so it doesn't feel like a tacky timeshare pitch and build in highly structured networking.

00:14:12: It

00:14:13: sounds incredibly effective but there is a trap here.

00:14:17: Mananis Metirata provided a very necessary warning For any team trying scale this A single Chef-Led Dinner Is Easy.

00:14:26: But if you want to make microevents a core scalable part of your revenue strategy, You need what he calls an invisible structure of governance.

00:14:33: Invisible structure?

00:14:34: Of governance?

00:14:35: I love that.

00:14:35: it sounds like something out of a spy novel.

00:14:37: Can you unpack What that actually means for the marketer on the ground?

00:14:41: well governance just means you are absolutely never leaving The networking up-to chance.

00:14:46: It mean strict ruthless qualification For who even gets an invite To the room.

00:14:50: okay it means intentional seeding.

00:14:52: So if you have a prospect who is hesitant about your onboarding process, You don't just let them sit anywhere.

00:14:59: You strategically seat them next to a current happy client Who recently went through on-boarding.

00:15:04: Oh wow!

00:15:05: You are engineering the serendipity

00:15:07: Exactly...you also need a structured follow up loop Already built before appetizers were even served Because If you do not have that governance It's just lovely expensive boutique dinner.

00:15:18: And eventually, the finance department is going to look at that restaurant bill and ask what did this actually do for our pipeline?

00:15:23: Which is a terrifying question.

00:15:25: every field marketer wakes up sweating about.

00:15:28: Yeah.

00:15:28: Avoiding their questions really comes down into having the bandwidth of building governance.

00:15:32: You can't strategically seat forty people if you are drowning in spreadsheet errors...

00:15:37: ...which brings us back onto our final theme!

00:15:40: The role of event tech, AI and how it's evolving the people actually running this show.

00:15:45: Yes

00:15:45: This is where we see theory hit reality!

00:15:47: The expectations on field marketing have never been higher but as Michael Belliasini pointed out... ...the tools they had access to are also unprecedented.

00:15:56: Event Tech used require massive procurement cycles and complex onboarding

00:16:00: But AI is rapidly collapsing that complexity

00:16:06: wild right now.

00:16:07: Kelly Berhop shared an incredibly practical example of this, she's actually building custom GPTs specifically for the granular operations event management.

00:16:17: Oh interesting like what?

00:16:18: She built a system where you just upload a banquet event order or you know ABEO which lists all your catering headcounts dietary restrictions and AV costs along with your actual real-time registration data.

00:16:30: What does AI do?

00:16:32: It instantly audits the documents against each other and flags any discrepancies.

00:16:37: So if a venue is billing you for two hundred vegan lunches, but your registration data says that only have forty vegan attendees... The AI catches it over-ordering instantly.

00:16:47: That's amazing!

00:16:47: Kelly noted building these kinds of automated safety nets used to take years of platform development.

00:16:53: Now she's spinning them up in weeks.

00:16:55: It's saving thousands dollars on budget leakage.

00:16:58: It gives the marketer their brain space back, but and this is a vital reality check that we have to discuss.

00:17:05: We also have to be very clear-eyed about what AI cannot do.

00:17:09: Ginger Taylor and Brenda Crocker Pierce both weighed in heavily on this.

00:17:13: AI is a fantastic aggregator.

00:17:15: it can scan a thousand hotel RFPs in seconds.

00:17:19: It can crunch post event survey data But it cannot replace the human being onsite.

00:17:25: Think About The Realities of A Live Event When the venue's internet completely crashes ten minutes before your CEO is supposed to do a live product demo.

00:17:34: Or when a keynote speaker goes totally rogue, runs twenty-minutes over and throws an entire afternoon schedule into chaos... A custom GPT isn't going to sprint down the hallway to negotiate with the AV team.

00:17:45: Exactly!

00:17:46: And Brenda Crockerpears made a fantastic point about this financial side of it.

00:17:50: AI cannot replace human negotiation strategy.

00:17:53: It kind of sit across the table from a hotel manager, read the room, leverage long-term industry relationships and negotiate your way out of a crippling attrition clause when you're room block doesn't fill up.

00:18:04: The technology is an accelerant for the administrative work but it's not replacement to this strategic human element

00:18:11: which honestly elevates role in event marketer more than ever before.

00:18:15: if AIs doing spreadsheet auditing The human gets to do the high value work.

00:18:20: Daily Wild and Wendy Porter summarize this evolution perfectly.

00:18:24: What did they say?

00:18:25: Well, Daily says the best event marketing managers in BW Tech today are no longer just logistics coordinators.

00:18:32: They're growth architects.

00:18:33: Those architects I like that!

00:18:34: Yeah

00:18:35: their real needle-moving work happens months before the event aligning sales on target accounts and months after the event ensuring that the invisible structure of governance actually turns those chef led dinners into closed one deals.

00:18:53: And Wendy Porter brought it all home with a point that I think every executive leadership team needs to hear.

00:18:58: She said, you can tell exactly how a company values its events simply by listening.

00:19:15: resource it with tools like AI and RFID, give the strategic runway needs.

00:19:21: It becomes a single most powerful channel for building trust in driving

00:19:25: ROI.".

00:19:38: Are you optimizing your events?

00:19:40: For the optics, for those beautiful crowded room photos that look fantastic when CEO posts them on LinkedIn.

00:19:45: Or are you truly optimizing invisible revenue plumbing running beneath an event?

00:19:50: and further what does internal language at company say about respect?

00:19:54: organization has to field marketing because if throwing a branded party hoping pipeline magically appears leaving entire career success up-to chance?

00:20:03: That is a tough but incredibly necessary question to ask yourself.

00:20:07: If you enjoyed this episode, new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:20:10: also check out our other editions on account based marketing go-to market channel marketing Martek social selling and AI in B to be marketing.

00:20:19: Thank You so much for joining us on the deep dive.

00:20:21: keep building those revenue.

00:20:22: engines will catch next time.

00:20:24: Be sure to subscribe.