Ep 2: Creating an Amazing Audience Experience
In this episode you see how we went about planning content, networking, and entertainment in order to build the best possible attendee experience (both in person and online).
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>> Why do people go to B2B events?
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>> To learn.
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>> To network.
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>> To spend company money.
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>> And what is the worst part of B2B events?
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The sessions.
Going alone.
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The entertainment.
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>> What if people loved the sessions?
And what if we helped them meet people?
And what if the entertainment made them want to stay?
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>> He's a god genius.
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>> Now sleep down.
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>> We're playing.
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>> We're right there.
>> Yeah.
>> So you have to- >> Nice drag it.
>> No, there's a go back.
>> This thing is so wonky, dude.
>> You don't tap it, you drag and scroll.
>> Here's our way, man.
Let's go.
>> We'll do all the driving.
So please don't touch the steering wheel or
pedals during your ride at sea.
>> I've been to a lot of B2B events throughout my career.
And the worst part is typically the content.
It just feels like it's not vetted.
It's not super valuable.
It's the same recycled messaging.
It's the same speakers on every circuit, a lot of its product pitches.
So at goal now where we vetted everything, we made sure that it was going to be
high
impact high value for our attendees.
>> I guess you have a holistic view of what we're ice and pee.
>> We didn't come up with like the biggest influencers,
bring them in and figure out what they were going to talk about.
We built the track and then we went out and we found the best people who
could deliver the information that we were trying to help people with.
It's the people that are going to be able to teach that concept the best.
>> Yeah, it's a content first approach to event landing.
Yeah, we made the content, we found the right person for it.
>> COVID completely reinvented the event marketing playbook.
One of the things we learned after the pandemic is that people don't travel to
events just for content anymore.
They expect to be able to join a live stream or watch the sessions after the
show is over.
People will travel to be part of an experience.
And yet so many events today are still focused on the old pre-pandemic
execution playbooks that are over-indexed on content optimized for
in-person attendance and bragging rights associated with filling up conference
halls.
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>> What are you most excited about for today?
>> To be honest, it's the people here.
The people here are spectacular.
I mean, all these people that we've been creating with from afar come together
and
then also it's a killer location.
>> I feel like I'm bumping shoulders with people I've seen on LinkedIn give
incredible thought leadership.
Like I'm in the room with the people that I want to learn from in real time and
actually like shaking their hands, asking them questions.
So I think it's just like bringing the right people together in like a super
cool venue is just sort of creating the environment where I think a lot of
knowledge is going to get shared and I'm excited about it.
>> The conference agenda has to balance both inspiration and education.
And while there's no hard and fast rule around this,
the intention for the keynote stage is around inspiration while most of the
education happens in the breakouts and you can't have one or the other as
independently they're not enough.
Find speakers for your keynote stage that validate your strategic narrative and
inspire your audience.
Be extremely thoughtful with breakouts to ensure that attendees can leave with
tangible best practices that they can't get anywhere else.
At Golden Hour, we wanted to feature industry veterans on our keynote stage
who can help us validate our claim that the old marketing playbook no longer
works.
>> You know, attribution I think is a waste of time.
It's never going to happen.
>> [LAUGH]
>> We wanted to spotlight innovative use cases of marketers who are finding
success executing the new playbook for audience marketing.
>> Say, ask yourselves what would happen if the community development of
Peloton and the incredible home demand part of Peloton met the Netflix side.
>> And we wanted our audience to hear from CMOs, CEOs, and even board members
that
they are right to challenge the current status quo in our practice.
>> A whole bunch of CMOs begin marketing, reach out when we did the budget cut
soon years ago, asking should we cut back, cut ground or cut demand, cut this,
cut out, and it's a forced dichotomy.
>> And we wanted to feature voices from outside of our industry,
in our case, the creator economy to help inspire new ideas.
>> Creators are going to have the ability to earn either cash from the
businesses
as they drive sales, but also earn in tech when he with businesses.
>> Everybody wants that instantaneous fix because we've been fed performance
marketing for the last few years.
>> Your goal with the breakouts is to make sure that everyone leaves feeling
like they could tactically implement what they learned in those sessions.
At Golden Hour, we organized the afternoon into three separate tracks.
We called it production, distribution, and outcomes, which mapped pretty nicely
to our strategic narrative around the future of marketing.
Production was all about the new playbook for content marketing,
which we believe is a central pillar of owned media.
Distribution is all about demand creation,
how marketers can compete for the attention of their buyer audience in order
to generate pipeline, and outcomes is all about impact.
How to prove the impact of the new marketing playbook on revenue.
Unlike our keynote sessions, which were about 25 minutes in length,
we changed the format of the breakouts into 45 minute workshops,
and found speakers who are willing to go much deeper into the content than
traditional sessions.
>> Hit a speak, but mostly learn how we can engage our customers,
how we can learn from the best out creative video,
how we learn the best of distribution.
So I'm taking notes all day long.
>> The other main reason people attend events in person is the human connection
To meet someone, the otherwise wouldn't have met,
that could help them advance in their careers.
Now, not everyone at your conference is an extrovert who loves working the show
floor.
But all of your attendees are human beings who are attending with a desire to
belong,
to connect, to network.
>> I've never been to a conference alone.
I've always had someone to kind of anchor onto.
So I'm just feeling a little nervous.
I'm gonna have to introduce myself a lot today to people who don't know me.
But hey, that's the name of the founder game, right?
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I think there's some kind of hit show on.
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Just stepping outside for a second because I think I'm realizing how much of an
introvert I am.
A lot of wrapping shoulders in there.
All right, I'm going back.
>> Personally, I'm an introvert.
I don't get a ton of energy working the show floor.
But I know that so many people do.
So with Golden Hour, we wanted to create an onsite experience that curated
relationship
building for both introvert and extrovert alike.
We created this structured networking moment at the happy hour that gave
attendees who
wanted to participate a compelling reason to approach each other to discuss a
certain topic.
We invested in what we're calling mind, body, and soul activations, including
an optional
group workout in the morning, and even a quiet room just off the show floor.
You need to create approachable networking opportunities for any and all of
your attendees.
For example, we wanted to be highly intentional about giving attendees access
to the speakers.
And we did this by placing a speaker at each table during lunch so attendees
could interface
with whichever speaker resonated with them.
This allowed attendees to build relationship and network with the speakers
rather than
a one-way engagement from the stage to the audience.
There is great power for brands who are able to curate a shared experience that
's exclusive
to their onsite attendees.
Whether that means hosting an after party at a unique venue or booking a
musical act
or whatever else may come to mind, these moments can forge real relationships
with your attendees
that long outlast their time onsite together at your conference.
Seven years later, and I still get comments from members of the customer
success community
from our 90s-themed Pulse after party on the USS Hornet aircraft carrier.
A big opportunity at Golden Hour was afforded to us with the venue that we
selected.
It was the rooftop where we continued the lunch experience at dinner by sitting
family
style with a beautiful unobstructed view of the Manhattan skyline.
Dinners are this weird thing at B2B conferences that are exclusive only to VIPs
or speakers
or whatever.
We flipped that concept on its head and hosted a seated dinner for everyone as
a primary
focal point for attending in person.
And since we named the event Golden Hour, we knew we wanted to do something
special at
sunset.
One of the worst parts about conferences is the entertainment.
Most people go and get their free drink and immediately go offsite to do
something else.
You need to ensure that people remain onsite and are engaged by creating a
memorable experience
that's better than something they can go off and do on their own.
I had this vision of a musical performance on the rooftop at Golden Hour
overlooking the
Manhattan skyline.
The only question was how can we find a talent that we can work with within our
budget?
We had been filming an emo marketing video of a yellow card song.
He posted that he wanted a violinist who could do a backflip on camera.
And more than a dozen people responded and said "Lenzi Sterling."
Lindsey Sterling was perfectly aligned to our vision for owned media.
She's a renowned violinist, she's a dancer, and she built her own audience on
YouTube
and now sells out arenas and concert venues.
It was one of those mental pictures that I just couldn't shake.
Sunset, rooftop, overlooking Manhattan at Golden Hour with incredible acoustic
violin
to mark the moment.
That's how we landed on Lindsey.
You're here.
Please make sure it's clear before exiting.
Just a little bit.
That is nice.
The old way of live streaming conferences was to effectively hit the record
button on the
camera on the back of the general session room and let it run.
But the virtual event craze of 2020 and 2021 taught us that our attention spans
at home
are much different than they are in the room.
And the best of breed conferences are producing a parallel digital experience
that is optimized
for the online viewer, creating a more inclusive attendee experience for those
who can't travel,
and ultimately enabling marketers to cast a wider net of conversion into their
own audience
of subscribers.
If we learned anything from the pandemic, it's that people don't want to sit at
home and
watch 30-minute panels on their laptops.
So our ambition for Golden Hour was to create a digital experience that was
optimized for
the digital viewer.
It would be hosted.
It would feature expert commentary from VIP marketers, almost like the NFL Game
Day or
TNT halftime show for those who are familiar.
We'd host exclusive interviews with on-stage presenters and we'd create other
dedicated
content just for the digital viewer.
I like to redesign websites for a generation that needs a voice at the table.
And that's Gen Z website redesigns that I did for Audience Plus and then the
other company
that wants it.
What's up all my Golden Hour friends?
It's your boy Kyle, aka the Rizzler, here to do another website Gen Z redesign.
This time it's for Audience Plus, let's take a look at this H1 right off the
bat.
Your audience is cooked AF bro, manifest, stack views and convert then run it
back again
young books.
It's giving trauma and big Pisces energy.
You know right now I think this is the biggest creative risk that we're taking
because in
effect we're hosting two events at the same time with a very small team.
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