Megan Martin (00:00):

People come to events for two reasons: networking, the social aspects, and then the content. They want to learn something. So when we are thinking about content, we're not just thinking talking heads, we're thinking value. So what are we going to deliver that's not Googleable, and what value does that bring them?

Alyssa Peltier (00:17):

Great events, create great brands, but pulling off an event that engages, excites and connects audiences, well, that takes a village, and we're that village. My name is Alyssa.

Rachel Andrews (00:29):

I'm Rachel.

Felicia Asiedu (00:30):

And I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier (00:32):

And you are listening to great events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. Cvent, recently engaged Matt Heinz, some of you might be familiar with Heinz Marketing, to play guest hosts on a series of conversations with marketers and experience makers. 

With more than 20 years of marketing, business development, and sales experience from a variety of organizations, also vertical industries and company sizes, Matt's career has really focused on delivering those measurable results, something that we talk about all the time here on Great Events.

He's had various positions at companies, some of the big ones to rattle off here, Microsoft, Boeing, the Seattle Mariners, and everything in between. Almost 20 years ago now, in 2007, Matt also began Heinz Marketing to help clients focus on their business and on market and customer opportunities to execute a plan, to scale that revenue, and to grow those customers.

So for this week's episode, Matt is going to talk to Megan Martin, a VP of Marketing and Innovation at EMC Meetings & Events. Here's a little sneak peek at this week's episode. Events aren't just about one day. They are content machines. Again, something we talk about all the time here at Great Events. But in this episode, you'll hear from Matt and Megan as they discuss their thoughts on how to squeeze every single drop of value from those events, turning those moments into things like podcasts, blogs, social clips, case studies, and more. Whether you're building brand or you're driving pipeline, this is how events feed your entire marketing mix. Enjoy.

Matt Heinz (02:19):

All right, welcome back to Cvent CONNECT. We're here on the show floor outside of the Innovation Pavilion, just having a great time talking to a lot of Cvent customers, people of the industry, people that just are living and breathing events on a regular basis. Very excited to have with us today for this session, Megan Martin. She's the VP of Marketing and Innovation at EMC Meetings & Events. Welcome.

Megan Martin (02:37):

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Matt Heinz (02:38):

How's the show been so far for you?

Megan Martin (02:40):

Amazing. EMC won an excellence award last night.

Matt Heinz (02:43):

Congratulations.

Megan Martin (02:43):

So we're running a high...

Matt Heinz (02:45):

That's amazing.

Megan Martin (02:45):

... from winning the big award last night, so we're having a great time.

Matt Heinz (02:48):

That is awesome. But there's so many things we can talk about in this session. I want to talk about content...

Megan Martin (02:52):

Yes.

Matt Heinz (02:53):

... which is at the heart of all events, but if you're at an event like Cvent CONNECT, there's content you're experiencing this week, but that's not the end of the content, and we're going to talk about how do you plan for the right content in the room, but also make sure you're getting a long tail of value for that content in so many different formats and opportunities. So we're going to get into that in a minute, but maybe let's start with you and just talk about what's your role at EMC?

Megan Martin (03:15):

Yeah, so I'm the VP of Marketing and Innovation, so obviously, the marketing side. I do all the marketing things for the agency. We're a full service event planning agency. I also do a lot of innovation and consulting with our clients. So as we know, event planners are super busy. They don't necessarily always have the time to look for the new tech or the new ways and the new processes.

So I try to keep my finger on the pulse of the industry, what's new, what's coming, what techs, what new formats can we introduce? So as our clients are trying to innovate, we can innovate with them and we can really be that consultative arm that they can lean on us and being like, how do we make this better, and we always have the solution for that.

Matt Heinz (03:56):

I mean, for the event profs watching and listening to this, they know that there are so many things that go into it. How good is the coffee? How close is the hotel to the convention center? Content is part of that.

Megan Martin (04:04):

Yes.

Matt Heinz (04:05):

But help me understand, for the best customers, for the best in class events, where does contents fit into the planning function?

Megan Martin (04:11):

Yeah, I think people come to events for two reason, networking, the social aspects and then the content. They want to learn something. So when we're thinking about content, we're not just thinking talking heads, we're thinking value. So what are we going to deliver that's not Googleable? We have to have those moments where someone's going to come and be able to consume a piece of content that they can't find anywhere else on the internet and what value does that bring them?

So we spend a lot of time looking at intent data with our clients. So we talk a lot about the funnel and trying to do content for different parts of the funnel. I think the funnel is dead. It's more of a playground. Ashley Faus just wrote a whole book about this that was very inspiring to me and she's spot on with it.

People are coming in at different areas. They're not coming in through a funnel. Maybe they're coming in sideways. They're not always going to buy, and so are they looking at content from, I just want to be an expert in this field and I need to learn more, so you're the expert and help me educate, or I want to know about your product, so give me product marketing things.

I think Cvent CONNECT does a pretty good job at that as well. There's things about marketing, there's sessions about sales, there's sessions about the product and how to use it more efficiently. So when we think content, we think intent and so, why are we producing this piece of content and how are we going to continue to use it? Who is the audience and what value are they going to gain from consuming it?

Matt Heinz (05:36):

Well, you mentioned the importance of data, the importance of intent data, and to be able to, even at a conference like this where you have thousands of people, how do you then customize that experience for those different roles, those different people here based on where they're at, either in that buying playground or in their customer journey?

Megan Martin (05:51):

Yeah, I think a lot of conferences organize their content based on topic areas instead of value or why. So if I'm coming to the conference just for networking, tell me all the ways and all the areas I need to go so that I can meet as many people as possible.

Matt Heinz (06:07):

That's right.

Megan Martin (06:07):

If I'm coming to learn because I need to be a better salesperson or I need to be better at using the Cvent platform, tell me all the sessions, not just in a singular track. So that's when we think about intent data that we're looking at and then the post follow up. So much of data creation has to think way before the event even starts. And so, a lot of our clients are creating run of shows for content just like they would the operational execution of the event.

So these sessions are going to produce this and we're going to have this outcome for them, and these people are in charge of that, or we want to capture this at this session. And so, there's almost like a run of show every single day of what they're capturing so they can look and say, "Oh, we noticed you had this session saved on your agenda, but you weren't able to make it. They didn't scan into the session. Here's a webinar. Here's a podcast recording. Here's a white paper on that topic that you missed."

Matt Heinz (07:03):

There's so much great content and experiences and moments at conferences like this that are valuable in the moment and then are sort of either lost or forgotten. We're onto the next session, we're onto the next conversation, and we lose that content. Why are we so bad at that, and how can companies and event marketers get better at creating the long tail for the content that they're enabling?

Megan Martin (07:22):

I mean, at the end of the day, the teams are just siloed. And so, a lot of the times, the event people are moving straight on to the next event. They're not necessarily thinking about repurposing that content. And marketing is following up on leads, working with sales, and how do we outreach to the attendees and not necessarily thinking about, "Wow, we just captured five days or four days worth of these sound bites and all the things."

If you have a plan in place before you even start the event, you know how to repurpose it for 6, 9, 12 months, and then you have this year round cycle where you're just hyping it up for the next year.

Matt Heinz (07:57):

That's right.

Megan Martin (07:57):

And you've fed that feed all year long.

Matt Heinz (08:00):

So can you give me an example of what that would look like? So yesterday morning, opening keynote, Reggie does 15, 20 minutes on stage and it's a broad swath of where he sees the industry going and not getting into products, but it's sort of more of the CEO perspective. As a content team sitting in the back of the room, how do you take that session, which is now a recorded video with transcripts? What do you do with that?

Megan Martin (08:22):

So for him, something like that, that's like a trends piece. So beyond the roadmap, that's a whole nother probably six months of content I could push on the Cvent roadmap that I talked about. Thinking about the industry trends, that can become a white paper, a LinkedIn carousel, we can push it out in six months. We can be like, "Oh, are these trends coming true? Are they still on track?" A year from now, we can say, "Oh, were we right? Did those trends happen?" But beyond the organizer, so Cvent producing, why aren't all of your ambassadors also?

So what about all the influencers? What about your exhibitors? What about your sponsors? What about your attendees? They should be like, "Oh, I sat in this general session. Reggie said we should do this.

Matt Heinz (09:03):

That's right.

Megan Martin (09:05):

I'm seeing that in my business," and you have now all these other people talking about your event that you can then repurpose their content just like you're repurposing your own keynote from Reggie. So one 20-minute trends, keynote from Reggie yesterday, could turn into thousands of impressions if you include exhibitors, sponsors, attendees, influencers that were in that room.

Matt Heinz (09:27):

So if you're listening or watching this, you're thinking, "Boy, we just had our event," whether it was yesterday or last month, and you're like, "We haven't done any of that," the opportunity's still there.

Megan Martin (09:34):

Absolutely.

Matt Heinz (09:34):

You can take that content and we can still do all of these things.

Megan Martin (09:36):

Absolutely.

Matt Heinz (09:37):

Better yet if your conference is coming up in the next few weeks or months and you can plan for this.

Megan Martin (09:41):

Yes.

Matt Heinz (09:42):

So what are some of the keys to people and companies thinking and planning before the event even happens to be able to take advantage of this in the moment?

Megan Martin (09:49):

That's where there needs to be so much more collaboration between the sales marketing and events team, because a sales team is going to look at, "Okay, what are people saying and how do I leverage that as a sales enablement piece so that I can drive my pipeline, I can close sales." So sales are going to look at all of your content in one way. You should give it to them and tell them and say, "What out of this agenda, what out of these sessions, what do you need to know so we can capture it, so then we have sales enablement pieces for the next six months?"

Matt Heinz (10:18):

That's right.

Megan Martin (10:18):

And we know what our audience is thinking. Marketing's going to come in and be like, "Oh, that would be a great TikTok piece. That would be a great LinkedIn piece. Here's five takeaways. Here's what we heard Billy on the street style from the hallway conversations." Marketing's going to look at it from one lens. And then, your event people are going to look at it from a different lens as well of what areas were most active, what were people loving so we can continue to drive these personalized experiences.

So those are one agenda, three completely different perspectives, but they all need to be talking prior to even going on site because if you go in with a plan, you can execute and actually produce six months worth of content post-event rather than waiting until it's over and then having to think, "Okay, now you have so much data, you're overwhelmed, you're drowning in it, you're drowning in this content," and you're like, "We don't even know where to start." If you go in with that sort of run of show, as soon as it's done, you're executing and not having to create.

Matt Heinz (11:14):

Absolutely. So you go in with the plan, you go in with a run of show, and then the event happens, and then serendipity happens as well, right?

Megan Martin (11:21):

Of course.

Matt Heinz (11:21):

People walk by, you're like, "I want to get them on video," or something happens in an unexpected way, or we've got to run a show for this session right here. Some things that I knew that you've been working on that I wanted to make sure I ask you, but I'm already asking you a question. It wasn't on the run of show.

Megan Martin (11:32):

For sure.

Matt Heinz (11:33):

And so, how do you balance sort that planned effort to help make an event successful with opportunities for things that pop up?

Megan Martin (11:41):

Maybe that's just where you have to be flexible. I mean, we know that even from an event design standpoint, there's always going to be things that happen that you're not prepared for, but that's even more important to having a plan because if you're always trying to play catch up, everything is unexpected and serendipitous at that point where if you can structure it.

And you know going in, "Okay, we know we have people there. Oh, there's this great hallway conversation going on. We know we have a team in that area and they have a break right now, let's go capture some of that," or "We have a downtime, let's go get some more B-roll on the street conversations." It's just about being flexible and when you have a plan, you have the capacity to be more flexible.

Matt Heinz (12:25):

So clear opportunity to repurpose a lot of this into content that you can then reshare with your audience, with your customer. I think we now see a greater opportunity to make that a community element where it's not just us as brands publishing that out to our constituents, but getting them to communicate peer to peer. How do you take some of that content and the experiences in an event and use that to spark a community that creates and shares content with each other?

Megan Martin (12:47):

I think you have to encourage it. There's so many, when we think about fall leadership, anyone can do that now with platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram and TikTok and everybody wants to share their experience and to make it easy for them to do that, have the Instagram backdrop moment, give them the spaces to be their own content creator because when you make it easy for them to share their experience, people will do it.

And so, give them the tools, maybe have an area where they can record the video or give the testimonial and then they can easily share it out or even the pre-event of that, people want to go where their friends are going.

Matt Heinz (13:23):

That's right.

Megan Martin (13:24):

And having it easy where tools like Snowball, InGo, Gleanin where they can quickly share and being like, "I'm going to connect. Who's going to be there? Am I going to see my friends? What should I not miss this year?"

Matt Heinz (13:34):

One of the trade-offs of having the community start to create its own content is you lose a little control, right?

Megan Martin (13:38):

For sure.

Matt Heinz (13:38):

You lose a little control of the brand, the consistency. Where's the right balance between brand consistency and authenticity of content that's coming from peers?

Megan Martin (13:48):

I think that's where you have to be engaged. When we think about community and we think engagement, and if you're keeping a pulse on those ambassadors and you're commenting, liking, actively resharing their content, that kind of helps you keep a little bit of control because they know you're always around, you're watching. They want to hear it, and I think people will be more honest and you create more authenticity in that way that you can just keep the conversations flowing.

Matt Heinz (14:19):

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think one of the things that I'm hearing from you is that there's the content we create and then there's the content we inspire. Talk a little bit about what that means, and that's not just amongst the attendees and your customers and prospects, it's among the people at your very company and your partners, the people in your ecosystem that are there and inspired by that as well. What are some of the best practices and even sort of the triggers and the motivators to really inspire people to use your content as a launching point?

Megan Martin (14:44):

Sure. I mean, that's where thought leadership comes in. So back to your example of Reggie's keynote, why I could go easily on my platform now. I mean, this is what I heard the trends are in the industry. Here's what I agree with. Here's maybe what I'm questioning. And then, I can sort of spread that message even wider. I can inspire conversation. "What are you guys hearing? This is what Reggie said. Here's what I'm thinking. What's our community think? Are we way off base? What do we love? What do we hate about it?"

The beauty of the events industry, we all work on so many different kinds of events; consumer events, business events, executive dinners, huge conferences. We all bring a different perspective to it, but there's so much learning opportunity, because at the end of the day, it's all humans going to these events.

Matt Heinz (15:30):

Yes.

Megan Martin (15:31):

And so there's a lot of connectivity that I think we miss because we don't share more widely and openly and inspire people to think outside of their initial circle for inspiration.

Matt Heinz (15:42):

So we just got a few minutes left. I think there's sort of the common playbook of repurposing content. You've got your blog post, you've got your social media post, you've got converting into small video clips and email nurtures. I'm curious if there's a content format or type or tactic that you don't see very often used that is actually really powerful. 

I'll give you an example that I think is powerful that I've heard a lot of people starting to use now is behind-the-scenes content, like showing Reggie in the meeting, in the green room, showing some of the prep that people don't typically see. I mean, we see that in the media world, like bloopers and clips on beyond just the episodes of just the actors being real between takes, people dig that stuff.

Megan Martin (16:20):

Yes.

Matt Heinz (16:21):

Talk about that or any other sort of formats that you think are hidden gems.

Megan Martin (16:24):

I mean, that's definitely one. I mean, people want authentic. They want the bloopers, they want start doing that pre-content, like have your speakers being like, "Here's what I'm prepping for. What should I talk about in my session?" 

The one piece that I think is most underutilized is you have this captive audience at these events and then we don't do polling in our sessions. So if we started using interactive polls more in these sessions, I mean, that's great pieces of data that you can then dump into data tools. You can then validate Reggie's thoughts on the industry. Ask a couple questions at the beginning of every session and then, share that out and being like, "Here's what the audience at Cvent said, 80% is," blah, blah, blah, whatever the question might be. I don't think we utilize polling enough in the moment and to be able to use that post event or even pre-event.

Matt Heinz (17:15):

It's amazing to me when we're not at events, we work so hard and sometimes pulling teeth to get people to answer questions, and yet when you get a few hundred people in the room staring at you...

Megan Martin (17:24):

And we still don't ask the question.

Matt Heinz (17:24):

... and we don't ask the questions. I love that they brought that up because that's a huge opportunity. We've been talking a lot about best practices for content repurposing. I love a good best practice, but I also love a good dumpster fire. So if I were to talk about dumpster fires or cautionary tales, things people might not think about on their own unless they have experienced the pain of it themselves, what have you seen that maybe stands out?

Megan Martin (17:43):

I mean, immediately my brain goes back to fire festival stuff. And so, there's a balance between being authentic and sharing behind the scenes, but then if things are not going well, being very careful about sharing those behind the scenes moments and things can go viral very quickly for all the wrong reasons.

Megan Martin (18:06):

But keeping in mind, it's how you respond to those things more so.

Megan Martin (18:10):

Eventually, something's going to go viral and people are going to have conversations about something that goes wrong. I mean, there's dumpster fires everywhere. It's more on then how you respond to that and take it with grace. And I think a lot of people who own some of those dumpster fires, end up coming out on the better end where you're like, "Man, we f'd up. We own that and here's what we're going to do to do better tomorrow, the next day, next year," whatever it may be.

Matt Heinz (18:33):

I think there's something to be said. I think there is a line there for sure. I think there's also be said for creating some empathy with your audience and letting them see like, "Listen, we all live in glass houses, man. This is never all perfect..."

Megan Martin (18:43):

Exactly.

Matt Heinz (18:43):

... in terms of having this get done." So yeah, as we wrap up here, I'm curious, as you see this moving forward, we've got AI playing a bigger role in creating the data for us to be able to leverage events. We're seeing more of a hybrid format where an event here may tie into a pre or post virtual event and then other channels. How is that going to impact our content opportunities in the next couple of years?

Megan Martin (19:03):

I mean, AI is streamlining a lot of the processes. Like, look, I will die on this hill that AI is one of the best things ever happened to the events industry. I mean, people are going to be craving more human to human interaction, and I think our jobs just got way more important. 

And when AI is used properly, it can streamline and make things a lot more efficient, which gives us back the space and the time to be creative and kind of push the boundaries of what we're capable of doing, because we have tools like AI that are doing a lot of the mundane, tedious work that sucks up a lot of our time. We can now automate all of those things to give ourselves that creative space to create better experiences, create better content, and push what kind of content we're putting out there because we don't have to answer 300 emails in a day anymore.

Matt Heinz (19:52):

That's right. That's right. Love it. Megan Martin from EMC, thank you so much for joining us today.

Megan Martin (19:56):

Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Matt Heinz (19:54):

Thank you.

Alyssa Peltier (20:00):

Thanks for hanging out with us on great events, a podcast by Cvent. If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

Rachel Andrews (20:10):

And you can help fellow event professionals and marketers just like you, discover great events by leaving us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.

Felicia Asiedu (20:20):

Stay connected with us on social media for behind the scenes content updates and some extra doses of inspiration.

Rachel Andrews (20:27):

Got a great story or an event to share? We want to hear from you. Find us on LinkedIn, send us a DM, or drop us a note at greatevents@cvent.com.

Felicia Asiedu (20:37):

Big thanks to our amazing listeners, our guest speakers, and the incredible team behind the scenes. Remember, every great event begins with great people.

Alyssa Peltier (20:47):

And that's a wrap. Keep creating, keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.