Best of LinkedIn: Field Marketing CW 40/ 41

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennis, based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about field marketing in calendar weeks forty and forty-one.

00:00:09: Frennis is a B-to-B market research company, helping enterprise field marketing teams with precise, targetless research and database-driven segmentation, as well as event-to-tendee acquisition.

00:00:22: Welcome back to the Deep Dive.

00:00:25: Our mission today, well, it's pretty straightforward.

00:00:27: We've sifted through a ton of LinkedIn posts from field marketing leaders over the last couple of weeks.

00:00:32: Yeah, pulled out the really high signal stuff.

00:00:34: Exactly.

00:00:34: And we're here to give you the absolute top trends, the things you really need to be thinking about right now.

00:00:39: It feels like a pivotal moment for field marketing, doesn't it?

00:00:42: We're moving beyond just, you know, counting leads.

00:00:44: Totally.

00:00:45: It's much more about operational precision.

00:00:47: Smart experience design, those things are becoming table stakes.

00:00:51: Absolutely, and the themes we saw pop up again and again really reflect that.

00:00:55: Yeah, we noticed four big currents running through the discussion, so real focus on hyper-measurable ROI.

00:01:02: And human-centric experience design, that came up a lot.

00:01:05: Definitely.

00:01:05: Plus, tighter ABM integration and just solid operational discipline.

00:01:10: If you're in field marketing now, I mean, these are the trends basically shaping your strategy and let's be honest, your budget requests.

00:01:18: Couldn't agree more.

00:01:19: So let's dive right into the first big theme.

00:01:21: Theme one.

00:01:22: Budgeting, ROI discipline, and the absolute need for accurate measurement.

00:01:27: This one's crucial.

00:01:28: The pressure is on field marketing to show real revenue influence, help progress deals.

00:01:34: Right.

00:01:35: But as we saw people discussing.

00:01:37: You can't really make a strong case for budget if your basic numbers are, well, shaky.

00:01:43: Exactly.

00:01:44: Credibility starts with the figures you use internally, right?

00:01:47: Nicola Kastner had a post that really hit this home.

00:01:49: Oh, yeah.

00:01:50: What was the gist?

00:01:51: Well,

00:01:51: she called out that super common stat, you know, that events take up thirty percent of the total marketing budget.

00:01:56: Oh, yeah.

00:01:56: That one's everywhere.

00:01:57: Every slide deck.

00:01:58: Right.

00:01:58: It's become industry gospel.

00:02:00: But she pointed out, hey, that number often isn't quite accurate.

00:02:03: Interesting.

00:02:04: So what's the more credible figure then?

00:02:06: She referenced Gartner data suggesting events are actually closer to twelve percent of the overall marketing spend.

00:02:12: Now it is higher as a chunk of the program's budget, around thirty two point eight percent.

00:02:16: Okay.

00:02:17: But her point wasn't just about the specific number, it was more that if you walk into a budget meeting citing an inflated maybe inaccurate figure even if everyone uses it.

00:02:25: You

00:02:26: lose credibility right off the bat, especially with finance folks who know the real breakdown.

00:02:30: Precisely.

00:02:30: You need accurate sources, but it's not just about accurate numbers, it's the strategy behind them too.

00:02:35: Right.

00:02:35: Alex Adkins made a great point about this.

00:02:37: Event budgets often fail not because the math is bad, but because there's no real agreement on what success even looks like.

00:02:47: Like marketing wants awareness.

00:02:49: Sales wants meetings booked now.

00:02:50: And the budget gets pulled in opposite directions, satisfying no one.

00:02:53: Classic problem.

00:02:54: So the advice is start with the outcome.

00:02:57: agree on that specific shared pipeline goal first.

00:03:00: And then this is the key part.

00:03:02: Map the entire budget, every single line item to actually supporting that one goal from pre-event stuff right through to the follow-up.

00:03:10: Makes sense.

00:03:11: And that outcome, it needs to be measured beyond just, you know, simple attribution, right?

00:03:15: Yeah, definitely.

00:03:16: James Geyer outlined a really smart kind of four-part way to triangulate event impact.

00:03:21: It shifts the conversation.

00:03:22: From just did this event get us an up.

00:03:24: Exactly.

00:03:25: To... How did this event influence our whole go-to-market motion?

00:03:29: Okay, let's break that down.

00:03:30: What are the four parts?

00:03:31: Sounds useful.

00:03:32: Okay,

00:03:33: so first is awareness.

00:03:35: Basically, are you actually engaging the right people, your ICP?

00:03:39: What percentage?

00:03:40: Got it.

00:03:41: Second, influence.

00:03:42: Are you speeding up existing deals?

00:03:44: Improving velocity, that's key.

00:03:46: Third, the classic ROI, how many actual opportunities were created or sourced?

00:03:50: Yeah, important.

00:03:51: Absolutely.

00:03:52: And fourth, and this one's really interesting, execution.

00:03:56: What percentage of the target ICP you engaged with actually got followed up on properly and quickly?

00:04:01: Ooh, that execution metric.

00:04:02: That feels critical because you can have the best event ever.

00:04:06: Right.

00:04:06: But if sales only follows up properly with a tiny fraction of the right leads, well, most of that effort, that budget is just wasted.

00:04:14: Exactly.

00:04:15: It forces that accountability across marketing and sales.

00:04:19: It connects the field marketing spend directly to sales enablement.

00:04:22: And that's where the budget conversation gets, you know, elevated beyond just cost center talk.

00:04:27: Precisely.

00:04:27: Okay.

00:04:28: Moving on then.

00:04:29: All this focus on ROI is great, but it doesn't mean much if people don't show up.

00:04:35: Or worse, they have a bad time.

00:04:37: Right.

00:04:38: Which leads perfectly into theme two.

00:04:40: Experience design and putting the human back into the event.

00:04:44: the human-centric event.

00:04:46: We saw so many posts hammering this point home.

00:04:49: People don't just come for the content or the demo anymore.

00:04:51: No, they come for the experience the connection.

00:04:54: Ian bushing shared some quotes reinforcing this.

00:04:57: It's about making things easy designing engagement building community

00:05:00: and Karina Owens offered some really practical like human first ways to do this Shifting the whole mindset from transaction to hospitality.

00:05:08: Yeah, that was great.

00:05:09: her point about staffing for instance Right

00:05:11: staffing your booth not just to scan badges and qualify leads immediately,

00:05:15: but to actually welcome.

00:05:16: people ask how is your day going, not just who are you with.

00:05:20: It seems like such a small shift, but the impact on perception must be huge, building a relationship first.

00:05:27: Totally.

00:05:27: And she also warned against that classic bait and switch.

00:05:31: Yes, the sit through our demo to get your dinner ticket moved.

00:05:34: Exactly.

00:05:34: Kills trust instantly.

00:05:37: And her advice to close interactions with gratitude, not just a demand for feedback or a gated follow up.

00:05:44: It reinforces that you value them, their time.

00:05:48: not just their potential as a lead.

00:05:50: And that kind of positive experience is what helps build organic buzz, which ties into another point we saw.

00:05:57: About booth engagement.

00:05:58: Yeah, Molly Stahl had some interesting thoughts on using strategic FOMO fear of missing out at booths.

00:06:03: FOMO.

00:06:04: That sounds... Counterintuitive.

00:06:06: for trade show floor, maybe.

00:06:07: A little, but it's about tactical scarcity.

00:06:10: Instead of just being loud with a giant screen, you create these exclusive moments.

00:06:14: Like what?

00:06:15: Maybe a limited run of a really cool giveaway or a special interaction that only happens for a short window.

00:06:20: You let a bit of a crowd build the hype naturally.

00:06:22: So passersby stop and think, wait, what's going on over there?

00:06:25: What am I missing?

00:06:26: Exactly.

00:06:27: You're designing an attraction, not just displaying products.

00:06:30: And this idea of tangible sensory experiences really resonates here, too.

00:06:34: Ah, like Tom Maher's observations from places like NY Comic-Con.

00:06:38: Right.

00:06:39: He noted how often these really tactical, textured, tangible experiences think actual working sets people could interact with or finding a hidden physical clue.

00:06:48: How they often beat complex, abstract digital displays.

00:06:52: He called it story living.

00:06:54: creating an actual memory, an emotion, not just showing information.

00:06:58: It sticks with you more.

00:07:00: And for anyone listening who's planning, Denise Cannon's advice seems spot on here too.

00:07:04: About

00:07:04: venue selection.

00:07:05: Yeah, don't just book the venue first and then try to cram your experience into it.

00:07:09: Map out the human experience you want, the vibe, the story.

00:07:12: And then find the space that actually amplifies that feeling.

00:07:15: Don't let the venue dictate the design.

00:07:17: So

00:07:17: crucial.

00:07:18: Okay, so we've nailed the human experience.

00:07:20: Now... How do we connect that high-touch moment back to the scalable ABM machine?

00:07:25: Great question.

00:07:26: That brings us to theme three, ABM integration and, interestingly, the rise of micro-events.

00:07:32: Yeah, bridging that gap between great face-to-face chats and, you know, trackable sales motion has always been a bit of a challenge for field marketing.

00:07:40: It has, but Ganesh Chathambalam AS shared a really smart system for basically treating every offline interaction as fuel for the ABM engine.

00:07:50: Okay, I'm interested.

00:07:50: How does that work practically?

00:07:52: It's like a three-step flow.

00:07:53: First, pre-event, take your target invite list, upload it, run targeted LinkedIn ads before the event.

00:08:01: So people arrive with some brand recognition already.

00:08:03: Yeah,

00:08:03: exactly.

00:08:04: Second, during the event... Sinking.

00:08:06: attendance isn't just record keeping.

00:08:08: It's treated as real, trackable, intent data.

00:08:12: You can autotag accounts based on who showed up, maybe even what they engaged with.

00:08:16: Okay, that makes sense.

00:08:17: And the third step connects it to sales.

00:08:18: Precisely.

00:08:19: Post-event.

00:08:20: The nurture campaigns that go out aren't generic.

00:08:22: They're tied directly to the actual conversation someone had.

00:08:25: So if they talked about feature X...

00:08:27: The follow-up content immediately addresses feature X and the problem it solves.

00:08:31: It makes that whole journey from, say, dinner conversation to intense signal to tailored nurture to opportunity much more seamless, pipeline moves faster.

00:08:41: That

00:08:42: level of rigor, it makes you think about where the budget should go, doesn't it?

00:08:45: Absolutely.

00:08:46: And Amelia Krzycińska directly questioned the value of those huge, expensive, traditional conference sponsorships.

00:08:52: Yeah, what was her take?

00:08:53: Just the stark math, really.

00:08:55: Those big sponsorships, even the ones promising one point one meetings can easily hit like three thousand dollars or more per lead.

00:09:02: Wow.

00:09:03: And if your total cost is six figures, you need a massive amount of pipeline just to break even.

00:09:07: And you still don't know for sure if those leads have real buying intent right

00:09:11: then.

00:09:11: So is the alternative just smaller events?

00:09:14: It seems to be a major trend, doubling down on highly curated, often much more cost efficient micro events.

00:09:21: Okay.

00:09:22: We're seeing a move away from just chasing visibility and noisy halls towards creating genuine focus connections.

00:09:28: Amitash Kumar shared some great examples from KissFlow.

00:09:30: Like what kind of things?

00:09:31: Things like private CIO cruises or top golf events for CXOs, even targeted pickleball events.

00:09:38: Oh, pickleball.

00:09:39: That's definitely different from a standard conference dinner.

00:09:42: What was the impact?

00:09:42: He said these types of focus events cut their costs by something like seventy-five percent compared to big sponsorships.

00:09:49: And Linca Ginazzi echoed this idea, you get fewer handshakes maybe, but much better, faster conversations with actual decision makers.

00:09:56: So

00:09:57: higher opportunity yield in the end.

00:09:59: Exactly.

00:10:00: It seems like that focused networking, getting the right density of your ICP in one place, is converting better than just being seen everywhere.

00:10:07: Did you, Ron, made a similar point about ICP density, right?

00:10:10: Yeah,

00:10:10: absolutely.

00:10:11: Targeting events where your ICP is heavily concentrated, where they're actively learning and engaging, not just going where your competitors are or where the biggest logos hang out.

00:10:20: Show

00:10:20: where the buyers are, not just where the sellers are, makes sense.

00:10:24: Okay, finally, let's shift to the foundation that makes all this possible.

00:10:27: Theme four, operational excellence and critically, the future workforce.

00:10:33: Yeah, because without solid discipline here, all the best strategies in the world just

00:10:38: fall apart.

00:10:39: Operational discipline means tackling the chaos, right?

00:10:41: Yeah.

00:10:41: Making things efficient.

00:10:43: Kyle Sutton shared a really simple but brilliant hack for that age-old problem.

00:10:47: B to B event, no shows.

00:10:49: Ah,

00:10:50: the bane of every event planner's existence.

00:10:52: What was the hack?

00:10:53: Super low tech, actually.

00:10:54: Personalized confirmation calls the morning of the event.

00:10:57: Just a quick call.

00:10:58: Yep.

00:10:59: But the impact... He said it cut their typical B to B no-show rates from around fifty percent, way down to fifteen percent.

00:11:05: Wow, that's dramatic.

00:11:06: Why does it work so well?

00:11:07: Just basic human psychology, I guess.

00:11:09: Yeah.

00:11:09: Getting that verbal yes-all-be-there commitment carries way more weight than just ignoring another automated email reminder.

00:11:16: Makes sense.

00:11:17: A simple fix.

00:11:18: But we also saw a discussion about a bigger systemic issue, planar burnout.

00:11:22: Right.

00:11:23: Huyen had a really insightful take on this.

00:11:25: What

00:11:25: was her perspective?

00:11:26: that the burnout often isn't from the hard, strategic work designing the experience, the creative stuff.

00:11:32: It's the constant grind of tedious manual tasks, like having to update ten different spreadsheets because one detail changed, or manually sending out hundreds of individual calendar invites for speakers and VIPs, that kind of stuff.

00:11:46: Ugh, yeah.

00:11:48: That invisible labor drains so much energy.

00:11:51: Energy that should be going into strategy and creativity.

00:11:54: Totally.

00:11:55: it really highlights its urgent need for better event tech.

00:11:58: specifically focused on automating those repetitive planning tasks.

00:12:03: Free up planners to do the high value work we've been talking about.

00:12:06: Absolutely.

00:12:07: And speaking of the people doing the work, Warwick Davies raised a pretty serious flag about the future workforce.

00:12:13: A talent crisis.

00:12:14: Yeah.

00:12:14: Basically, the events industry is struggling to attract the next generation of talent.

00:12:19: And his point was, well, the industry is kind of invisible on university campuses.

00:12:23: So we complained about a talent shortage.

00:12:25: but we're not actively recruiting or showing up for potential talent is.

00:12:29: Pretty much.

00:12:29: Success means actually investing in mentorship programs, creating real hands-on learning experiences, showing students it's a viable dynamic career path.

00:12:39: Instead of just what?

00:12:40: Forming another committee to discuss it?

00:12:42: Exactly.

00:12:42: It's an investment issue, not necessarily a lack of student interest.

00:12:47: It really sounds like operational leadership is the secret sauce here.

00:12:50: It

00:12:50: truly is.

00:12:52: I and Morrison stress this.

00:12:53: events often fail because of leadership gaps within the chaos, not just because a delivery truck was late.

00:12:59: You need structures that support complex problem solving on the fly.

00:13:03: like the example Jason Eno shared.

00:13:05: Oh,

00:13:05: that was fantastic.

00:13:07: His team used this hybrid production approach, blending like five different technologies for a trade show display.

00:13:13: Right.

00:13:14: And the result?

00:13:14: They kept the high visual impact the client wanted, but managed to cut these massive like forty thousand dollar shipping costs down to literally zero.

00:13:23: forklift moves needed.

00:13:24: That's not just logistics.

00:13:26: That's serious operational innovation.

00:13:28: Exactly.

00:13:28: Problem solving under pressure.

00:13:30: Okay.

00:13:30: So we've covered a lot of ground from ROI metrics and experience design to ABM loops and the people needed to pull it all off.

00:13:37: If you had to step back, what's the single biggest takeaway for you, the field marketer listening right now?

00:13:42: I think it's that the role is just so integrated now.

00:13:45: You can't succeed in a silo.

00:13:47: It's about leaving together that really human centric experience, the hospitality, the story-living we talked about with really tight, measurable, accountable ABM.

00:13:59: data loops.

00:14:00: And underpinning it all is that relentless operational discipline.

00:14:03: Every dollar, every action needs to be traceable and maximized.

00:14:07: Well said.

00:14:08: If you enjoyed this deep dive, new editions drop every two weeks.

00:14:12: Also, check out our other editions on account-based marketing, go-to-market, channel marketing, MarTech, social selling, and AI in BDB marketing.

00:14:20: Thank you so much for joining us for this deep dive into the latest field marketing trends.

00:14:24: And before we sign off, here's a final thought for you to chew on.

00:14:27: Based on everything we've discussed today, we heard a lot of skepticism about those big, pricey, third-party sponsorships, right?

00:14:32: Definitely.

00:14:33: And we also know that credible internal voices, your own experts, corporate influencing, as Julia Bellino called it, are gaining more and more trust.

00:14:41: So the question for you is, how should you be thinking about reallocating your budget, shifting maybe from some of those traditional third party vehicles towards empowering your own key people to build trust and drive conversations directly with your target accounts?

00:14:56: Something to think about.

00:14:57: We'll catch you next time.