Events are a core part of marketing. If it’s not already a key part of your marketing mix, you’re missing out. Events not only help deliver the mission of your marketing campaign but they help deliver the mission of the company as a whole. On today’s episode, we sit down with Rodney Siebels, Global Events Director at National Instruments. His company seriously values the face-to-face interaction that an event offers, and we do too. “...enabling our customers to touch and feel our hardware and software will convert them to a sale or to become a partner because they develop an emotional attachment.”&nbsp; At the beginning of the event planning process, they ask: what are the core goals and objectives of the current campaign? This allows them to report on deliverables from the time their onsite to the end. When it comes to decision-making, they’re a data driven organization.&nbsp; They use key performance indicators to evaluate and adjust event marketing plans. And they use data before and during an event to make decisions around how to provide the best customer experience.&nbsp; Tune in to learn more about how NI using data to create events tailored made for their customers.

EP 1: Why Events Need to Be a Key Part of Your Marketing Plan w/ Rodney Siebels

ABM is the best thing to happen to event marketers.&nbsp; That’s because it allows them to be far more targeted at events, whether they’re of the trade show/conference variety or company-produced (e.g., VIP dinners, workshops). Listen in as Jessica Fewless, VP of ABM Strategy at Demandbase, shares some practical thoughts on how to select the shows you should go to in a given year based on the percentage of target accounts who will be attending.

EP 2: How ABM Has Changed the Game for Event Marketers w/ Jessica Fewless

In this episode of Masters of Events, we interviewed Sydney Leopold, Global Events Marketing Manager at Sophos. Sydney talked about how she uses events to drive the mission of her company, how she thinks about event goals and metrics, and how to build a great event team.

EP 3: How a Great Team, the Right Technology, and Meaningful Metrics Can Lead to Successful Events and Increased ROI w/ Sydney Leopold

We’ve been talking a lot about first impressions. So, have you ever thought about how important name badges are? On this episode of the Masters of Events podcast, Benny Aguila, Sr. Marketing Events Specialist for Blue Shield of California, came on the show to talk about another first impression that’s crucial when it comes to guest experience: name badges.&nbsp; We also talked about:  Reporting event performance Getting feedback from event attendees How Benny is employing technology in his event strategy  Checkout these resources we mentioned during the podcast:  Benny’s LinkedIn Certain  Tagline with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and website, many of which are found  here.

EP 4: 4 Questions to Ask Your Event Attendees That Will Help You Build a Better Guest Experience w/ Benny Aquila

How do you create a fantastic experience for your event guests? It all starts with that initial interaction. Merideth Ranahan manages executive event production at Capital One. She came on this episode of the Masters of Events podcast to talk about what you need to keep in mind to ensure that initial interaction is the start of a great experience for your guests.&nbsp; We also talked covered topics like:  What Meredith’s has learned through her experience on both the agency and client side of event production The types of data that matter in the execution of events Why it’s just as important to create a great experience for internal event attendees as it is for public event attendees

EP 5: How to Produce Internal Events That People Actually Want to Attend w/ Merideth Ranahan

One of the biggest differentiators today for B2B brands is the best possible customer experience. Since there really is no substitute for real-world interactions, activating influencers at events is one of the best customer content strategies out there today. On this episode, I interview Lee Odden, CEO and co-founder of Top Rank Marketing, about why events are an ideal format for influencer content collaboration. What we talked about:  Customer content strategies that activate influencers The importance of speakers in building a brand The ingredients of activated content Strategies (like live blogging) that augment an event  Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:  Lee’s LinkedIn Certain