EP 187 | Signals vs. Metrics: What Actually Tells You Your Event Is Working

Yes, trade shows and events are expensive and resource suckers and time-consuming, but that's relative. That's relative to what it's producing. They could inevitably be the best investment in the world. [Music] Welcome back to Event Marketing, redefined with your host, Matt Kleinrock. [Music] What's going on everybody and welcome to another episode of Event Marketing, redefined. I'm your host, Matt Kleinrock, CEO of Rockway Exhibits and Events and today I have Cynthia Montalvo with me and we're going to have a conversation around what we're kind of calling signals and metrics. I think right now it is a lot of talk around ROI, a lot of talk around metrics, a lot of talk around events, integrating those things and integrating into sales and marketing and I think Cynthia, when her and I spoke originally we talked about these ideas like signals and leading indicators and kind of making it easier for people to dictate success and know when things are going well which will then lead into those metrics that ultimately need to come out of it. So excited to talk today, Cynthia, thanks for being here, thanks for doing this, good to see you again. Of course, too happy to be here, ready to get into it. Awesome, so first question I want to ask Cynthia is as an event marker, tell me what is like a small win that may be after a show or after a trade show or an event or anything that you're doing? What's something that is like a small win for you that maybe others wouldn't understand but you're like if it goes well you are like, ah that was great. Yeah, I think that's a great question. Certainly when I'm thinking about the events that I'm planning, whether that's pre-event during a post, they're often these kind of signals that I might be looking for. And so you know we always talk about how if you're not really doing much in the pre-event, like so much can happen in that space and so when I think about when we see folks who come up to a booth who have engaged with branded content during their travels to the event, they come up to us in the context of the conversation completely shifts. It ships from who are you and instead of who are you, I saw your content tell me a bit more. So that delta in and of itself is a signal just to kind of go on during events as well. I think a very important signal is also just the conversation duration. I know a lot of folks think about booths all the time but really again the amount of time that you spend with a prospect is going to be really telling a 12 minute conversation with three prospects, right? Each time it's going to tell a richer story, it's going to be a lot more important to your bottom line than you know those simple 30-second conversations that you might have at a booth. And then yeah, I like that. Yeah, I think there are a lot of host events sort of signal that we can look to too, right? And so when I actually, you know when you and I were talking about this, I had gone back to the initial LinkedIn post that I had created and someone wrote down buying committee expansion, right? When you're looping in more folks into the conversation, that itself is telling you that you're building trust in a very real way, right? And so again, I think that some of those sort of the ways in which we see conversations compressing, right? The trust building through events is a real tell and I think that can be measured in a lot of different ways. Yeah, no, those are really good. I think you know that is one thing of like a larger message that I want to get across here today and something that I do talk about a good bit but it is this idea how events is really being folded into and integrated into sales and marketing, right? I really do feel like you've been doing this 15 years for the first time ever. And that's, I mean, there are some companies very good at it, very dialed, been doing this for a long time, but I'm talking more general population type. It's starting to become a thing. And I think when you're thinking about leading indicators, signals, sentiment, getting as deep as like, what were these conversations like? Like are we having quick one minute, pleasantry, exchange type stuff? Or are we having like some pretty deep good conversations? All of this starts to fold and funnel into are we having success? Right? And are we moving the needle? Because at the end of the day, when you're running events, when you're meeting your customers, when you're meeting prospects, when you're meeting partners, suppliers, your whole ecosystem, it really just does come down to the fact of like, are you moving the needle in pipeline? Are you improving retention? Are you accelerating deals? There's so much that goes into it, but that is what events are doing. Yeah, 100%. Talk to me a little bit about how you see events influencing pipeline. Like what are some signals or some areas that when you're running an event or you're running a trade show booth, when you are there watching the team or even just host show? What are some signals that you see where you feel like you're going to be influencing pipeline the right way? Yeah, I think just kind of think about how you were just speaking to the same issue, right? It's looking at how deals are moving, right? It's sort of that deal readiness changes that delta itself, right? So when you think about deal stage velocity or, you know, again, adding stakeholder count to an opportunity, I think also in a very real way, right? I think when you think about the entire journey of a prospect and typically risks, might get flagged later down, right? Whether that's fragmented sort of buying committee, you know, there's a lot of different things that could be happening for various deals, right? But when you see that those risks are kind of wagered a lot sooner in conversations, I think that's a really great tell. I think that's a positive signal, right? Because it means that there's enough trust or that trust is high enough or an honest conversation. And so yeah, you would see that deal might lead to a shorter sales cycle when that early risk is flagged because they get a faster resolution, right? And so I think that's a very real signal. But I think another piece of that is also the inverse, right? And what I mean by that is when you think about the folks who attend an event, right? Maybe they didn't really engage. I think that the absence of engagement is also informative just as the presence of it. Yeah, that's a great little quote right there. So one thing based on what you were saying is makes me think about this idea that events are truly a catalyst for relationship building. I constantly try to get people that I talk to and clients to think about it that way, right? Like, I want them thinking of like, okay, these moments, this interaction, this experience that my customers and prospects are having, I can either make it a catalyst for the next steps or moving them closer to me or I could really do the opposite, you know? And I think not enough people view it that way. When you're running an event and when you are preparing for an event, how do you think about those little moments and those interactions, you know, with your customers? Yeah, I mean, when I think about signals generally, it really means designing backwards from the signal that you're trying to generate, right? I think a lot of the planters will kind of go and move forward with logistics. We see a lot of content around starting from your goals, right? That's super important, but in the same way, it means designing backwards from the signal you're trying to generate, right? And so if you're trying to generate a trust signal, the questions are going to be different. You know, what sort of format is going to create the condition or a candid conversation? What kind of environment reduces the sort of transactional pressure that people feel at some events? I think that in a lot of ways, sort of those round tables and small format dinners, right? They are constantly outperforming the large booth presence because they're creating those right conditions, right? A prospect in a room of 12 peers, right? And having that peer validation talks a lot differently than a prospect blocking a trade show floor. Yeah. What do you see having the biggest influence on pipeline at events? Is it like early awareness, mid-cycle acceleration, closing, you know, like what do you think events are built for each one specifically? Or do you think it matters on the company? How do you view that? Yeah, I mean, I would say that for me, you know, I noticed that a lot of early awareness is where a lot of event teams focus their investment, right? We're talking bigger booths, broader reach, lots of badge scans, but for me, the ROI case here tends to be weakest because attribution there is hardest and the distance to revenue is often the longest. So when thinking about sort of what's going to have the biggest influence on pipeline, I would have to say that the mid-cycle acceleration is kind of where the magic happens, right? It's those types of events where you see something happen that something else in a go-to-market would never be able to do, right? You're sort of collapsing that trust deficit in a very complex deal. So just to, you know, give an example, right? If you have a prospect evaluating multiple vendors, are they buying committees fragmented? The sort of right event interaction with your brand can do months of nurture within a single evening. Oh, yeah, I agree. I kind of watched it happen before, you know, I think people underestimate that when they get into like a deal with a prospect or a customer that there are so many complexities and things going on that maybe they don't know about, there's uncertainties, things that, you know, people hate telling other people know or asking hard questions that's just human nature. So sometimes when you're mid-deal and when you see somebody at an event, it kind of opens up the room. It kind of opens up the ability to have this conversation to get, oh, I didn't even know you guys did that. I was worried that maybe you didn't do. They're like, well, yeah, you know, a salesperson thing and why didn't you ask me? It's like, well, sometimes people don't ask, but when they can learn on their own and they can explore you on their own and you're delivering an experience that like I always say, you're trying to bring them closer to you. You know, so when, you know, you're delivering them value, you're showing them, hey, this is who we are. This is what we believe. This is where we think we can help people. And then you're kind of letting them decide for themselves, you're not really selling. They're making up their own minds based on the information that you're giving them. That's exactly right. I think that the gravity that you might create in a room enables those people to want to make sense of it collectively for themselves, right? Going over to a fellow prospect to be like, are you evaluating them too? What's your take? And sort of, again, going back to that pure validation, I think to your point, I think does a lot of the legwork for you. Yeah, it's something that we've talked a lot about on this show is because I think where this, what's happened in the past is this conversation has gone like this. Trade shows and events are expensive. They're time consuming. They're resource suckers, right? Got it. Then it goes into this idea of like, well, it's a top of the funnel play. And then there's no ROI. But there's so much that goes into it. And most of it's super subjective because they don't have the data. They don't have the information. So really when you break it down though, it's kind of none of those things, right? So just hear me out on this and tell me what you think. So yes, trade shows and events are expensive and resource suckers and time consuming. But that's relative. You could spend $2 million a year on your event program. And it could produce $10 million a year plus the lifetime value behind it. So it's not expensive at all, right? But people don't really look at it that way all the time. You know, I think as you move down a line, it's not a top of awareness thing. It can be. Depends on your audience. Depends on the company that you are. It depends on your shows and how you engage. But it's every phase you were affecting somebody that knows nothing about you has never even heard of you. All the way to a person that's worked with you for 20 years that maybe isn't working with you as much anymore, but they come back because of an interaction that they had with you. So I actually think this, it's kind of like this myth is being busted as it goes along. And it really is now becoming companies are realizing that their event program can touch every part of their customer's journey. And I think that's been realized and I think what's not happening but is beginning to happen is essentially that companies are now trying to strategize for it through their event program off my soul. I completely agree. I think it's really important. You know, I see a lot of content around treating events not just as, you know, standalone events or standalone campaigns. It's one of the big mistakes that most event programs take. And again, I think it might create this illusion of event activity without actually building or changing things. And I think when you look at the full customer journey, those things shift and being able to tell that story in a much richer way, looking through the lens of these signals or, you know, the other ways in which behaviors are shifting. Yeah, I mean, think about companies that are running like an ABM strategy, right? I mean, most of them can probably get in front of their ABM list or a percentage of them at trade shows and events, whether hosted or sponsored or partnered throughout a year. So then it definitely becomes a part of your ABM program because if your ABM program is, you know, content for some awareness and then sales, keep calling and LinkedIn connecting, you know, you start going down the lines of all the things that people are doing and people get, you know, pretty creative. But the ability to be face to face with somebody, as we just said, it's a catalyst. They're sentiment. They're signals. You can move people quicker along your journey by being really good at those events and finding alignment with them. Yeah. And I think that to your point around events themselves, so signals matter across the journey, just like we're saying, right? In those early awareness, slaves, you're basically measuring for perception shift versus mid-journey. You might be looking at that acceleration, like we've been talking about. And then POSL, you know, tracking those expansion signals, did the customer engage in product education and introduce a new use case, et cetera, et cetera. So I think some of that, like those things that you're saying, those sections of the customer journey, those conversations weren't even existing seven, eight years ago, nine years ago, ten years ago, when talking about events. Now these conversations are happening, which I think is really great. I want to switch gears for one second. I saw a LinkedIn post that you wrote, and I really loved it. It was a couple of weeks ago. And you were writing about this idea that too many event strategies are built on either A, what we did last year, or B, what the competitor is doing. And I think that, I love that you said that, because that is very much an old playbook, style thing that is still going on a lot of places. And I can tell you, you know, we primarily, when we're talking to people, we are trying to get them away from this mindset. But you would be surprised how many people are still in this mindset, right? So talk to me a little bit about just like that post, what you meant by that, you know, kind of what's sparking some of that thoughts in you. Yeah, I think it definitely comes from a space of kind of seeing it in the market, right, hearing about event teams. And, you know, I also admit that I've been there, right? I think that there is a successful playbook built on those exact questions. What did we do last year? What is the competitor doing? There are successful for a reason. But I do think, again, it just, it tends to miss the mark, right? Again, I think when we think about telling the case for events, right? The impact that events have, being able to tell a more richer story instead of just thinking about events as a revenue driver is really important. And I think going back to sort of the conversation we were having, the sort of thought behind the post was really about how do we be more intentional about the types of events that we're planning to really make those shifts that we're looking to see, right? If we're looking to solve for the mid funnel stall, right? You're going to plan a very specific type of event versus, you know, if you were simply trying to generate leads. I think oftentimes it's like we're making our event program. We've done this percent of trade shows will do this percent of posted events, etc. Whatever your makeup is, not that's fully comprehensive. But again, I think when we look at it that way, instead of starting with what you know in CRM, your data, where deals are halted, right? I think when we have a closer connection to sales and have some of that insight, we can build a much more impactful event program built around making some of these changes that we need to see that impact the bottom line versus again, just kind of going at it from this is what we've always done and this is what we can expect to do again this year. Yeah, some really good points. Do you think that some of that is just because event marketers are kind of, you know, corporate event marketers are kind of overrun, overworked, too much volume on their plate. So it is easy to kind of rinse and repeat. It's almost all they can do sometimes. And just on this, I had an interesting conversation. I was at an event and I met an event marketer who runs a really big host event and we were just asking her about and talking about it. And we kind of just got on this idea of like, God, people really, I was kind of saying how I think a lot of companies like mine and agencies that are partners to corporate event marketers are getting too comfortable rinsing and repeating stuff. And they're doing that because probably because they're a little jaded, probably because they've been shut down on the new ideas, probably because, you know, it's always like, ah, we don't have the money for this. I get it. Like, I've heard all those things, but I also think it's a little bit too much of saying, hey, like, can we rethink this thing? Is everything working? Are we being as intentional and strategic? And she was like, oh, I love that. That's, I've been thinking that I'm rinsing, repeating too much. So we got this whole conversation about, but she's like, I'm the ringleader. Like, you know, I'm orchestrating all of this. So we ended up in this conversation where I was just like, hey, what if I flew there? What if I was just a fly on the wall for you? What if I walked around and just, yeah, I took notes and thought, hey, you know, that keynote really didn't hit or, hey, there was too much of this or a lag here or the engagement at this session. What didn't really go well? That panel, that moderator really just didn't drive the conversation to the depth that needed to be or, hey, what if we rearrange the furniture or, you know, I mean, just thinking outside the box? We kind of got on that conversation. And I think it's just something that's not being done enough because to your point, being intentional and strategic is what will create the outcomes that everybody's seeking and talking about, just showing up and doing what you've always done is not going to get it done anymore. Exactly right. And I sympathize truly. It's definitely been a position that I've been in, right? You hear these cases of a soul event marketer running 50 plus events all on their own. And that's not to say that the amount of work that's constantly being placed on their plate isn't a point of friction or a pain point in and up the felt, right? But to your point, I think if we want events to be successful, we do need to start thinking about different ways of being strategic, right? And I'm not here to say that that's easier said than done, right? I'm sure, as you mentioned, there's sort of that friction when you might try to bring this idea to the table, right? But I think the change happens incrementally, sadly enough. I mean, I wish we could all just kind of flip the script and do events in the ways that we know how to do. Like we are seasoned professionals. You know, just like anything else, those changes happen incrementally. And so I can also think of the argument around this sort of new way of thinking, the sort of strategic mindset can also be overwhelming the folks, right? Because it pushes them out of their comfort zone to do things a bit differently, to go against the grain and then have to explain to their CMO or their CRO, you know, why they want to do it that way. But again, to your point, it's going to deliver the outcomes that the business is seeking to drive. And so it makes it all the more important. Yeah. What's maybe a couple of things now in the stage of your career that you're paying closer attention to that maybe you might have overlooked earlier in your career? Yeah, that's a good question. I think early on in my career, I was pretty focused on, you know, the activation itself, right? Very much around. Does the booth look okay? Did the swag land? Did the presentation fill the room, right? But, you know, I think as I've become more of a seasoned professional in this, you know, field, I now find that there's more importance around paying attention to what I'd call, you know, the room dynamics. Who's talking with whom, as I mentioned earlier, how long are conversations going? Looking at whether, again, prospects are seeking out other prospects to compare notes. I think that last one is pretty underrated, you know, when I think about prospects kind of comparing notes with each other, again, I think it signals a lot of trust within your brand and your market position. And so, yeah, I think in the same ways that I'm paying attention to what's happening in the room, it's also equally as important to pay close attention to maybe what's not happening in the room, right? If your target audience showed up and not that I would ever plan an event like this, but if they showed up and had zero meaningful engagement, they just, you know, took their little notebook and left. That's a signal too, right? It means that perhaps your messaging, your format didn't resonate. And so, it enables you to improve for the next time. Yeah. I mean, it could also mean that the right audience isn't there. I mean, the amount of time that we've worked with people and when, you know, we're always trying to understand, Poe Show, what went on, how did things function? Did the journey that we sort of set up, what were the conversations like we've realized over time that sometimes people think that they're talking to decision makers and they're not. They're talking to influencers and it's like, okay, well, the strategy is completely different then, right? What would you say? You know, we were talking earlier just about metrics, signals, kind of advice. Would you give to somebody that's maybe stuck? They know they want to get to ROI. They know they want to get to these like really good metrics, but there's complexities around size of their organization, division, CRMs, lead sources, all that stuff. What kind of advice would you give them around getting to the point to where you can kind of get some signals and leading indicators and maybe like some scorecard type reporting for their events? Yeah, that's a great question. I would say start small, right? I think start with why. one signal, one stakeholder. It's gonna be close to impossible to rebuild your entire sort of measurement model all at once, right? I think that this is the exact kind of initiative that would die in a committee, right? But if you pick one thing that you believe the event influenced, whether that's a relationship that deep in a stakeholder who was super skeptical came in and left really engaged, I think looking at one of those things, building the story around it, even if it's imperfect, it's flexing that muscle and training that muscle in a real way that you'll be able to do this, the back of your hand the next time around. And then simply find sales leader who cares about the deal that was done, right? And if there's a story there around how the event changed that deal, right? We know a lot of sales leaders will tell stories of wins, right? At their SKOs, our KOs, what have you. - Yeah. - I think when you tell the story in their language, not, you know, we generated X amount of leads, but we had a conversation with this VP that unblocked a deal that had been stalled for six weeks. I think when you can tell that story, yeah, that's not gonna show up in a dashboard, but it is the business story and when the executives and others hear that story, I think that's when they're gonna start asking for more of them. - Yeah, no, I agree. I've talked for a while about pipeline impact, you know, and I've tried to get people on this idea when they're going to their events of understanding at each event and as a year goes on, which portion of the pipeline are they really impacting? Where's it coming from? What's going on? It's not all one in the same. You know, you listen to people talk, they kind of just throw it in this big basket, trying to get people so that they understand, I always say the phrase, what is actually happening at your event, right? What's actually going on? There's sometimes we've had customers we work with where they think they're talking to prospects, but they're talking to far more customers than they think, but they have nothing set up for those customers and no strategy for strengthening relationship, further retaining them, solving problems for them, whatever it may be, or vice versa. They think they're sitting with, you know, their customers, but really there's a ton of prospects that are trying to learn about them and engage with them. So do you have in your work, have you segmented out with events where you're sort of saying, hey, when we go to this event, this is kind of predominantly what we're looking, you know, people say goals, but I always say, once you understand what's going on, you know where you can capitalize at those events. Have you segmented that out before and then built your strategy around that? - 100%, I think, again, when I think about building any sort of event, right, it really has to tie back to again, what you're trying to influence, you know, what you're trying to influence matters. It really dictates how you design your entire presence, right? So if you design your trade show booth without looking at the various things that you're trying to influence, right, without looking at the various stages of the funnel you're trying to influence, you're not going to see the success that you might if you had been a bit more intentional around, you know, creating distinct journeys, right? Having a sort of customer journey that's completely different at that event versus, you know, prospect journey. Even in some of the insular events that you might be planning, I think that it's more important than ever to really think about again, what you're trying to influence and make sure that those events mirror that. Because again, I think a lot will just become noise and it might even work against you. - One of my favorite leading indicators and signals of a really good event has always been how many meetings did you book at the meeting, right, for after the meeting? I love that. And I think you could even stretch that and say, for all the activity you have going on, whether it's a dinner, whether it's demos, whether it's an engagement in the booth or whether it's just purely getting together. How many meetings did you have at the event? I love that indicator. And then I love tackling it with how many you booked at that for after it. And then you can either continue that and say, hey, over the next 30 days post show, this is how many meetings we booked. So you're showing what I would consider to be like this meaningfulness of an indicator of like what we're going to be able to accomplish down the line. - Yeah, yeah, I think that's completely right. I think the next meeting on site is always critical. It's always how I advise, you know, the reps or folks attending a trade show. But yeah, to your point, I think that the more we're able to really look at it that way, is really going to help move the needle. - What is maybe advice to your younger self or advice to a younger event marketer? Someone just start now, someone just getting into the corporate event marketing world. Kind of advice would you give them if you had their ear? - Oh, this is a great question. I would say stay curious. I think that for myself, it's been a lot of learning on the job, right? Learning through trial by fire or just, you know, trying to learn something. I know in a lot of ways, you know, AI is really shifting the name of the game, right? And so when I think about getting started or, yeah, I would just say lean into your curiosity as whatever those may be. I think that you'll learn new skills along the way. Certainly, as I mentioned when I started, I just wanted to make an event run smoothly and you know, have that return on emotion. And certainly you want to prove our why. The metrics are still important. That's, I make no claims that they're not important. But again, I think over time you get a feel for your own working style, what matters to you, the skills you're building along the way. And yeah, you're just able to think about things in a whole different way. And that's certainly been true of my own experience. - Nice. Well, Cynthia, thanks for doing this. Thanks for sitting with me. Thanks for chatting. I love good conversation here. Appreciate you taking the time to do it for us. - Yeah, happy to have joined. I really appreciate the opportunity. And I hope this was helpful in some ways. And you know, certainly if anyone has any questions, would love to connect. - Yeah, where can I, is LinkedIn good for you? - Yeah, that's great. - Cynthia Montalvo, it's M-O-N-T-A-L-V-O. If anyone is searching and wants send a message. So thanks for doing this, Cynthia. I appreciate it. And everybody we will catch you next time. Thanks for joining. - Real quick before you go, I want to invite you to join us live. If you have a problem you need to solve, a challenge you want to talk through, join us, and we can help. We host the event marketing redefine show a few times a month on Zoom. So you can share issues and get input from us and our guests. And of course, you get to network with other listeners. Don't be shy, register to get the Zoom link at eventmarketingredefined.com. That's eventmarketingredefined.com. (upbeat music)