Events Marketing in the Age of COVID-19

Like every other B2B marketing leader I know, we’ve spent much of this year trying to figure out how to keep our lead generation going in a world with no in-person events, no Customer Experience Center visits, no hosting VIP prospects at concerts or sports events, you know the drill. Like everyone else, we upped the volume on our webinars and leaned into digital media, even while we pared our marketing budgets.

Ah, but the customer event! Like you, I’ve participated in my share of “virtual events” over the last nine months. Some have been remarkably well done, some have been dreadful. As someone who used to work for Polycom, Plantronics, and Poly, trust me, I’m used to doing work over video calls. For many of us, pivoting to a virtual event to learn more about something in marketing or a new technology is a natural extension of the way we work already. It’s not as much fun as a real event, because you don’t get the hotel-bar-after-the-sessions-end networking or the almost-but-not-quite-washed-up musical act on the last night, but still worth making time for. But let’s be honest: of all the virtual events you attended, how many did you fully attend? Sitting at home in front of your laptop, might you also have been multitasking, like a teenager doing homework while listening to Spotify playlists?

In my current role, we had been marching toward our own virtual event this winter. We settled on our technology vendors, how to accommodate sponsors, how to produce the keynote to keep interest and engagement, how to do breakout sessions …. and the closer we got to sending out the invites, the more wrong it felt.

The reason our customers attend our annual event isn’t just for the tips and tricks and “insider” information. They attend for the networking, the camaraderie, the learnings and laughter they get from other people in the hallways or at that hotel bar. 

What’s more, our Omnitracs customers have been out on the roads throughout the entire pandemic. While many of us were hoarding toilet paper and disinfectant towelettes, our customers in the transportation industry were making sure we could get more. They’re not hunkered down at home because they are out there bringing us the clothes we’re wearing, the headsets we’re buying, the food we’re ordering... All of the things that make it possible for Zoom fatigue to be a real thing.

To me, it just felt inauthentic. So I pulled the plug -- and we aren’t doing a big virtual event this year. Anyone else out there doing the same?

#events #B2B #marketing #CMO