The Secret Sauce of Events That Build Brand and Drive Pipeline

[00:00:00] Jillian Hoefer: Those little moments of the round tables, those liminal spaces in the bus where people could just chat, not only is it great for the people that need to go take an introverted break in the middle of the day, but it also creates space for more organic connection that you don't have to force, you don't have to shoehorn people into how they're going to connect with their peers there. So definitely avoiding this year trying to over program things to make sure we make space for those moments.

[00:00:23] Alyssa Peltier: 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.

[00:00:35] Rachel Andrews: I'm Rachel.

[00:00:36] Camille Arnold: I'm Camille.

[00:00:37] Felicia Asiedu: And I'm Felicia.

[00:00:38] Alyssa Peltier: And you are listening to Great Events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators, and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

[00:00:47] Camille Arnold: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Great Events. I'm Camille Arnold, and I want to talk to you today about something that has been sticking in my brain for quite some time. And it is [00:01:00] the fact that marketers, especially those deploying events as a key marketing channel, talk a lot about experience. They talk a big game when it comes to experiential marketing and delivering an exceptional experience for your target attendees. But truthfully, very few actually build something that feels unmistakably on brand as an experience. So I had to bring in two people who deeply understand this and have been able to do this for their organization. We've got Mark Huber, the VP of Marketing at UserEvidence and Jillian Hoefer joining us. Jillian is the director of content marketing for UserEvidence. And today we're going to unpack an event that was wildly successful for them.

[00:01:48] And if you are listening in and you know what event we are going to be talking about today, then you know that as a consumer, the content that came out from this event, seeing the [00:02:00] attendees sharing and posting about this event, it all felt intentional. It felt incredibly distinct and very focused. So we're going to unpack all of that today, including even how they made the decision to pick the specific destination and location for their event.

[00:02:17] I'm really excited today, Mark and Jillian, to have you. Mark, I know you've been on the show before, but it's the first time I get to chat with you, so I'm really excited. And Jillian, we have to share the full circle journey and moment that is happening right now. Really excited to have you on the show as a guest for the first time. But you're kind of familiar with Great Events, aren't you?

[00:02:42] Jillian Hoefer: I've been here, but no one knew it because back in the day, I know. It's so funny. I helped produce the podcast back in the day. So the wonderful, we'll give a shout-out to Share Your Genius who helps produce the podcast. I was on their team. I helped produce this podcast for a while. Shout out to the other host, Tiffany. I worked with her pretty closely and it's just such a great show and [00:03:00] such a great concept. And I love that you're now part of the fold of Camille. So it's all family now. So welcome to the family of Great Events. I'm welcoming you to your show.

[00:03:08] Camille Arnold: Thank you for the warm welcome.

[00:03:09] Mark Huber: And produced the UserEvidence Podcast, which is how I met Jillian. So this is like the fullest circle possible.

[00:03:14] Jillian Hoefer: I feel like I'm just looping. It's just an infinity loop between our three screens right now.

[00:03:18] Camille Arnold: It's very kismet. The stars have aligned. I love that for us. Well, like I said, Mark and Jillian, I'm really excited to have you here today. Let's start, let's dive right in. Tell me about this elusive event that has created quite the buzz. Give me the whole spiel, the name. What were the business objectives of the event? Why'd you even do it in the first place? And then I have probably a million and one other questions for you, but we'll start there. Tell me about this incredible event that you hosted?

[00:03:45] Mark Huber: Yeah. So, the fun part on this is Jillian and I actually spent about 90 minutes this morning talking about Highline 2026. So we've got a whole lot of new things that we'll share of just how we learn from it. But when it was just myself and then [00:04:00] Alex Eaton, our director of product marketing, I went to a lot of events and more of like, I'd say niche smaller events in 2024, we sponsored a few events and I went to quite a few. We spent a lot of money on events. And I looked at how much we had spent at the end of the year on me going to all of these things and us sponsoring these things and what we got in return. And I was just very underwhelmed. I didn't really see the impact from me doing this.

[00:04:28] So we were going through the fiscal planning process or at least starting it at that point. And I was thinking of, all right, what if we took everything that I saw and learned from all the events that we had either sponsored or I attended and just did one ourselves? I have never done an in person event at this scale before or at this budget. And I just pitched it to one of the co-founders to get him on board first. And then I got midway through, he goes, "Why are you even pitching me on [00:05:00] this? This is something we should absolutely do."

[00:05:02] Then I was like, "All right, well, great. Now I have to get Evan, our CEO, on board with this." But we wanted to look at this in a couple different ways. There were new pipeline creation goals around the event. There were goals around influence pipeline for new business deals that we were already having conversations with. And then there were also goals around influenced upsells and renewals for our existing customers and then sourced bookings from the event. For as big of a splash as we made on the brand and content side, the only way that we would've gotten approval to do this sort of thing and have the success that we did is if we oriented ourselves around true business metrics that the founders cared about.

[00:05:46] Camille Arnold: Right. I love that. So that makes sense as to why you got that buy-in from the most senior leadership because clearly you just laid out that the impact was going to truly help the [00:06:00] entire...

[00:06:00] Mark Huber: Well, we didn't know that it would. I had a hunch that it would, but I knew that when we were trying to make the case for this, the only way that we could get it approved is if we were thinking that way. Now, I was scared as hell on how much I bit off and whether or not we could collectively chew this together. And we'll get into all of the reasons why it works so well, but I was confident, but I was also scared the entire time because my name and neck was on the line thinking that this was going to go off like it would.

[00:06:29] Camille Arnold: Yeah. Okay. I get it. Stakes are high. Especially with technically an experiment that isn't necessarily going to be the cheapest experiment to execute. Okay. A lot on the line. So from there, with those kinds of clear goals in mind, what was your next step? How did you come up with truly the vision for the event? I know you also hosted it in Wyoming, which is interesting because it's not the [00:07:00] go to event destination that...

[00:07:02] Mark Huber: It is now.

[00:07:04] Camille Arnold: But it probably wasn't before, right? Like the go-to? I'm sure ever. Actually, no, Wyoming is very chic. I want to wear a cool cowboy hat and be out.

[00:07:14] Mark Huber: Maybe we start with the location because that was actually the easiest part through all the details and something that in hindsight, there wasn't another location that we were even thinking of. UserEvidence is headquartered in Jackson, Wyoming. We've got a small little HQ there, and we knew from my own experience going to other smaller B2B events that the location really is a huge draw and it's a huge part of the experience. And if you haven't been to Jackson and Jackson Hole before, it is one of the most unique and beautiful places on earth. So we wanted to really lean into our roots where we were founded and give people an experience that most of them had never even dreamt of before [00:08:00] and use Jackson as the draw to get people there in a year one experiment that was unproven before.

[00:08:08] The location was really the easiest part. I think for me specifically, I cherry-picked a lot of things from these different events that I had been at. A few of the big things were the size of the events. Once it gets past 100-ish people, it starts to lose that community feel and the fact that you really get to have conversations with every single person who are there. If you get it up to 250 plus, you just feel like another person that's in an assembly hall or whatever it may be, and you just can't connect with everyone. So we wanted to keep it very small and curated, but we also wanted to make sure that there was focus in terms of the attendees who are going to be there. So we tried to use a director-level plus kind of seniority cutoff and then making sure that we had customer marketers, product marketers, and marketing leaders who were there.

[00:08:59] When you go to these [00:09:00] events, you really want to connect with people that you don't know that you can then hopefully turn into a new friend and peer group around shared just struggles and challenges and problems that you all are going through at the same time. And then just being outside and what better place to be outside than Jackson. And then how we wanted to put our own spin on it was this, Jackson is a very incredible place with so many different outdoor things that you can do when it's warm out or when it's cold out. And we thought events are kind of awkward, people don't always know each other or warm up to each other right away. What if we did an activity day before we got to the actual work talk and presentations and round tables as a way to get people out in Jackson Hole, get them to meet and connect with others and just get them to find new friends and just connections so that when the actual work stuff came around, the conversations were better, people knew each other, people wanted to open up. And I think that part in particular is one of the reasons why it went off as [00:10:00] well as it did.

[00:10:00] Camille Arnold: Jillian, I'm so curious for you with this, where did you start to get your wheels turning on what the onsite content capture plan was going to look like? And then how do you and Mark work together to connect the dots between, you have the strategy and the business objectives. You have the shell of what the event is going to be and who you're targeting. You start to formulate your content plan. Where I want to go next after you tell me about the content plan is like, how does all of that and the onsite experience shape what your post-event strategy looks like?

[00:10:38] And Mark, all of the kind of KPIs that you mentioned, you're not going to see the impact to all of those KPIs immediately, right? So that after the event, I want to dig into that next, but Jillian, I'd love to hear from you first, from [00:11:00] the initial inception of this event, when do you start to get your wheels turning and sync your teeth in? And tell me how you crafted the plan for content?

[00:11:11] Jillian Hoefer: Yeah. The answer to that is immediately. So the second that we started dreaming up this event, my mind's already spinning on content and Mark's is too. It's just how we go. And I think also we'd be remiss not to mention, I think we knew that walking away from this event, if the 80 to 100 people that we had in the room, we had pipeline goals, we had revenue goals, sure, influenced pipeline goals around this, but if they were the only ones who we were building trust and rapport with at this event and it was over and it was just done, that wouldn't have been a success. So we had to go, "How can we also take this experience and the content that we're going to be putting a lot of focus and intention behind and actually bring that out to the masses who aren't going to be able to make it?"

[00:11:53] Because at the end of the day, those 80, 100 people in the room with us at Highline, that's not everyone we want to talk to. It's not [00:12:00] everyone we want to reach. It's not everyone we want to get in front of. So concept was a huge part of this. The way we formatted the event, which might help give some context to this as well, is that we knew it was going to be day one of this event, like Mark said, was this kind of just activity day around Jackson. So we had people in groups, they went out, we had horseback riding, we had whitewater rafting, we had a sunrise safari in the Tetons looking up wildlife and stuff. It was so cool. So everyone had their activities that they went on.

[00:12:25] Camille Arnold: God, I'm having major FOMO right now, by the way, just so you know.

[00:12:28] Jillian Hoefer: And I'm not trying to, but also like, how could you not? It was like truly some of the coolest experiences of my life. And Mark and I just kept looking at each other being like, "We're working right now."

[00:12:37] Camille Arnold: Right. Like how cool. This is your job.

[00:12:40] Jillian Hoefer: And it was cool because we were just alongside the attendees, genuinely having a wonderful time. It really was just a cool human experience on day one together, which is exactly what we wanted. We wanted to build that rapport, that trust, have that fun activity and just say, "Hey, celebrate. Thanks for coming here. You guys are amazing people. Let's celebrate with these cool activities that are based around the [00:13:00] coolest place in the world that we are right now."

[00:13:01] Day two is where we got down to business. Once we had the relationships check taken care of, we then had a full day of morning tonight content that was hopefully going to help everyone come and become better marketers, become better at their jobs. We were really intentional around making sure the content did land and was something that was going to be helpful and something that was going to call people higher. And what a great way to continue to build trust.

[00:13:27] Number one, first and foremost, we said we need to capture, we need a team that's going to capture this onsite actual content that we are putting out in a way that's beautiful, easy to consume, no issues with audio or video. It's not just an iPhone on a tripod. We knew we wanted multi-angle, great audio feed, high quality, something that felt like if you couldn't be in the room with us, you were in the room because we didn't want to give FOMO. We wanted people to feel like, "Hey, if I couldn't be there, I can still be there in some capacity. I can get the learning." But outside of that, we also had [00:14:00] on the other side of our content strategy, Mark has been an amazing though leader for our brand. A lot of people just straight up, but a lot of people follow UserEvidence because they followed Mark in the first place.

[00:14:08] We have this really cool kind of storied brand that we were already building around Mark, where he has this newsletter called Evidently, and it's these learnings from a first time VP of marketing. And he was just sharing every two weeks out to this audience, his real-time learnings from the trenches of this, like, what is it like to be first MVP? We would be remiss to not say this is, like he said, his neck was on the line with this. This was the biggest bet of his career. If we don't tell the story around that, we would be insane. So we also worked with our video partners EventShark who are just incredible. They're great at capturing that content content, like I said, but they're also great at the building the drama, building the storyline, doing really cool different things that don't feel like B2B.

[00:14:49] So we captured that content as well. We said, "Hey guys, we want you onsite." I'm a big reality TV girly, love a reality, love a Bravo, love a Bachelor, love a Netflix show. I was like, [00:15:00] "Let's turn this into a reality thing. Let's turn this into a three episode mini-documentary, dial up the drama because that's what we all love. Let's have some fun with it and let's talk about what a big bet this was for Mark." And let's let people end behind the scenes of the event and show that, yeah, there were some things that went wrong that we had to fix on the fly. Yeah, there were some things that didn't go the way that we expected to. Yeah, also there were learnings along the way, but it was a cool little behind the scenes. Again, we're building more trust with this kind of meta content around it too.

[00:15:27] So all that to say, we had a lot of different things going on. We also had this Evidence gap report, which is our big kind of piece of, we call it content IP. It's our big original research that we put out every year that was about to come out. So we used some onsite video as well, the opportunity we had a ton of amazing marketing leaders in the same place. And we said, "Let's capture some content of getting their reactions about the stats that we're going to have in this report."

[00:15:49] So long answer to say, we were very intentional about this content capture. We said, we know this is like the three-pronged approach we need to capture these three things. Let's start doing these pre-production [00:16:00] meetings like we're this big studio with our EventShark video team. Let's start doing them six months in advance and then let's do post-production together six months out and make sure that we've got a cadence of content that we're dripping out for the next six to nine months after the event. And that's where we are at. And it's been a really, really cool experience.

[00:16:16] Camille Arnold: I really appreciate the breakdown because I think it's really easy to oversimplify what it means to have a content plan for your events and the way that you're thinking not only about what can we capture from this event that helps us continue to build trust with people who weren't at the event, but even zooming out of like, how can we pull in or promote or plan seeds for your content IP? And it's bigger. It's always bigger than just one event. So it's really helpful to hear how you connect the dots between all these different components of your [00:17:00] broader marketing strategy and get everyone rowing in the same direction because it sounds like you're just able to squeeze so much juice from one event, which not to say that this was a small event. It was a major lift and a massive feat. And when you are investing that much, why not get as much as you can out of it?

[00:17:23] So it's not just like we talked about the impact to pipeline or those kinds of like revenue focused metrics. But to your point, Jillian, how does this help us with brand reach and lift and building trust with people who aren't maybe even in the market to buy right now, which is 95% of your target audience at any given time. The event happens and it's wildly successful and you capture all of this incredible content from it. Okay, then what? Truly, walk me through the first 30 days post event and even [00:18:00] what that post event strategy looks like beyond the initial 30 days.

[00:18:04] Mark Huber: I'm going to interrupt for one second because one added layer to this is baby Hoefer number two made its debut like what, two-ish months after. So just keep in mind that Jillian rocked this while she was about to have a baby.

[00:18:19] Jillian Hoefer: I was like 36 weeks pregnant in this mountain, girl. I was barely allowed to enter this plane.

[00:18:26] Camille Arnold: I was like, did you have a doctor's note and approval because...

[00:18:30] Jillian Hoefer: Oh, I sure did. But also from the event or from the content side, I can talk a little bit about what that looked like. And honestly, maternity leave timeline did play into this, but I think it's still a great thing to play into. Like I told you, six months before, we truly, we were doing probably monthly pre-production meetings with our video team event chart leading up to the event. And then about the two months before, I'd say we were biweekly to weekly meeting with them just to make sure [00:19:00] we knew, we had our shot list. We had the locations that we were shooting things. We knew the logistics of who was going to be where and when. And we had multiple events going on at the same time. So which of our camera people were going to be here? Who's going to be here? What were we going to do with all this when we had it?

[00:19:14] So the big thing that we focused on was number one, the logistics of all moving pieces of capture. But number two, we went into it knowing exactly what we were getting out of it. So we quite literally, it wasn't like a, "Okay, let's hire a video team and they're going to come and just capture everything and then we'll figure it out." That never happens because the focus after the event always becomes the next thing. There's always something else to focus on when you come home. So we went into the event knowing down to the number of clips we were getting, down to the number of videos we were getting, the length of the videos, when they were coming out, we had this entire schedule of release done, dusted, signed off by everyone before we even were wheels up to Jackson.

[00:19:55] Most of the stuff was done pre-event and that set us up really well for post-event because [00:20:00] like Mark said, I went on maternity leave a hot probably 20 days after getting back from this event and guess what? The team just ran with it. Everyone knew exactly what needed to happen in order to get this content out. And it is continuing to being released to this very day we still have shorts going out. We still have video clips being shared on LinkedIn and on YouTube on our, just as a long tail brand effort. So it was a ton of work upfront that honestly made our work a lot easier in the short term.

[00:20:27] And then as we're looking at like Mark teased, as we're looking at Highline 2026 and what that looks like, we now have all of this incredible content that we're now even going, how can we repurpose this even more to start to turn into trailers and advertisements for getting more people to Highline this year, getting more of the right people to Highline this year.

[00:20:45] So that's how the content went. And then Mark, I mean, I'm sure Camille, you'd be interested in knowing about just like the post event strategy outside of content. There was so much that went into that from a pre-work perspective from you, Mark, I know too.

[00:20:57] Mark Huber: Yeah. I think there's, [00:21:00] I don't know, probably 25 reasons why it went off as well as it did. But I think the number one reason why the content landed the way that it did and just how much content we got out of it and good content is because of the pre-work that Jillian did. I think from my perspective in the moment, I knew that it was a lot of work that she was doing. And I wondered, do we really need to do this much pre-work? And after seeing how the post-production went, absolutely, because I think so many people either just skip that step entirely and start thinking about it after the event, or they mail it in and don't put the amount of time and energy and focus into it. And the pre-work is what made it just go off so well, truly.

[00:21:41] Camille Arnold: Well, that is a huge testament to you, Jillian, your vision and leadership and understanding the foresight as well. So kudos to you. And I hope people listening in can take this as your sign. If you're not already in the practice of doing this, and maybe you're not the content person, so you're not [00:22:00] the person to build that strategy, but find someone on your team who is, or outsource that work. There are, I'm sure plenty of consultants and people looking for work right now in this environment that probably would love to lend a hand if that's not your particular skill or talent as a marketer, but it's absolutely mission-critical.

[00:22:20] Mark, you have this incredibly thoughtful post-event plan and journey when it comes to content. Talk to me about this being the first event that you did of its kind. I'm really curious, how do you set up the playbooks and relationships and understanding and processes with people in sales and customer success to make sure that all of the revenue focused metrics or goals are able to be hit? Because obviously we know events are a team sport, right? Marketing might be driving a lot of pre-work and the planning and the strategy, but our other teammates are folks in sales and [00:23:00] customer success, whomever is helping you when you pass that baton get to the finish line.

[00:23:07] So talk to me a little bit about what those relationships look like for this event, or was it a lot of work in terms of like, man, do we have the right playbooks in place? Do the sales reps know what they're going to do afterwards? Talk to me a little bit about how you set up that piece of the post-event strategy.

[00:23:26] Mark Huber: Pre-work. Again, so to go back to what Jillian had said, there was a lot of pre-work, probably not as much pre-work as Jillian did, but we will definitely put even more pre-work into this aspect of it for Highline 2026. And not just pre-work within the marketing team. It was working with sales, it was working with CS. We had created a lookbook for all Highline attendees with all the critical information about that particular customer, that prospect, that in pipeline deal, their headshot, what they look like, any sort of intel that we had about their interests and what they like and that sort of thing. So you see, [00:24:00] "All right, I need to go talk to this person or that person."

[00:24:03] We also had like a basic Google Sheet just to track notes from all conversations that any person from UserEvidence had with a Highline attendee. And we made sure at the end of each day, so the opening party, the first day and the second day, that we were going through that sheet and making sure that was filled out as complete as possible based on whoever had had conversations with them at some point. And we used that really as the basis for what we were going to include in our follow-up, whoever had the most conversations with them or the deepest conversation ended up being responsible for following up with them.

[00:24:42] And then also we made sure, a.k.a. I was the bad cop that we were following up with people the day after Highline. And if people didn't hit that deadline, I made sure as hell that they were following up with them by Monday since people flew home from Highline on Thursday. So very, very [00:25:00] timely coordinated follow up across marketing and sales and CS.

[00:25:03] And then the other big thing that we did was I set expectations internally that, "Hey, it's going to take time for us to see the impact of Highline." And I can't just say that and be like, "All right, we're good. It's going to take time. Believe us." We said that at 30 days post Highline, at 60 days, at 90 days, at six months and at a year, we would continue to measure the impact of Highline on all of those agreed upon metrics. So whether it was quarterly kickoffs, inside UserEvidence or whether it was during board meetings with our UserEvidence board, I'd have our normal marketing scorecard on the overall pipeline and booking metrics that we've been reporting out on for years.

[00:25:42] And then I had a separate scorecard slide for Highline specifically on how we were pacing towards all of those goals because it was the largest line item in my budget by far the most expensive experiment ever. And you knew and I knew that any board meeting, I wanted [00:26:00] to get in front of those questions on, "We spent how much on Highline? What impact are we seeing before they were even asked?" And thankfully just in our approach and our follow-up and how we went about things, we saw some insane results within, I think it was like 22 days post Highline, which was just in time for the first board meeting. And then the results and receipts continued to get better and better at every checkpoint along the way.

[00:26:24] Jillian Hoefer: I'll just insert really quickly just another great Markism of this event was just that, Mark, you were so good about ensuring that the follow-up that we did, it's not like everyone who attended this was thrown into this SDR sequence. We put so much into building these relationships. These are humans. We built these relationships. We had so much genuine, fun and good times and wonderful conversations and shared insights with these other people at this event that we'd created that Mark was very great about making sure it was a shared understanding across the organization, across the entire go-to-market [00:27:00] team that we will hold these relationships with a lot of dignity and respect because that is what we've built with them already.

[00:27:07] So it's those one-to-one outreaches for someone who's already spoken with them at the event. It's remembering what you talked about. It's taking note of those things and remembering something they mentioned about their program or their kids at home or whatever. It was very intentional and very human. And I think that came through in a way that did help us achieve a lot of the revenue goals that we had set to it as well.

[00:27:28] Camille Arnold: I guess I'm curious if with the time that we have left, because Highline 2026 is happening, you did mention that you have some learnings and some things that maybe I'm curious, what would you do or what are you going to do differently? And or if you had to give advice to anyone thinking about taking a risk or a leap like this, are there any learnings that you have that you would want to share with them that you think would help them start off on the right foot?

[00:27:57] Mark Huber: Yeah. I'll start, I think there's two parts to that. [00:28:00] Maybe Jillian and I will answer the first part and then we can get into the advice and the second part. For the first part, we sent out a very timely NPS survey to all Highline attendees. And in a year one event for Highline, we had an NPS of 83. So world-class for events is typically around 70. So we knew that we have a format and formula here that works. Now, the easy way, which is probably not the right way and definitely not what we're doing, would just be to run it back as is using the same exact format. Could we do that? For sure. Would it be easy? For sure. Would people still enjoy it? Probably, but we also got some really good feedback from some of the attendees on where we could level it up.

[00:28:46] The big things that stood out where people loved the location, they just ate Jackson up. They loved the format on Activity Day before the main day. They loved the connection. They loved just meeting new [00:29:00] peer groups and creating new friends that they now can go back to and continue to go back to long after the event. They loved the round tables and the peer discussion. They just felt rushed and they felt like there weren't enough of them. And then they also had a desire to just have more targeted content based on role. The focus last year was customer marketers, product marketers and marketing leaders. We're trying to figure out right now, do you maybe go lighter on speaker presentations and maybe have an opening keynote and a closing keynote and go really hard on peer round tables and peer workshops and break them out by function? There's a world where we could do that.

[00:29:41] And then there was also some feedback from UserEvidence customers that they wanted more customer specific content. So we're going to figure out ways to incorporate a lot of that feedback. I think what we were hesitant to do is just pitch UserEvidence the entire event. That's not why people go to [00:30:00] these events. And at one point towards the end of the main presentation day, someone said, "Are you going to talk about UserEvidence at some point? I haven't heard you talk about UserEvidence yet," which again was intentional because we wanted to earn the right to during that closing keynote is when we made an announcement of a startup that we'd acquired. So there was a very timely and exciting reason to talk about UserEvidence. But I think those are the things that we're tweaking within this format.

[00:30:26] We want to make sure that we get people who were at Highline last year and decide to come back, that they have that same feeling of, "I'm so glad that I came back to this and spent my own money." And then we also want to make sure the people who might be coming to Highline for the first time say, "I'm so glad I came here."

[00:30:43] Alyssa Peltier: I really appreciate you sharing those learnings. I think that the peer-to-peer learning and round tables, I feel like I hear that frequently as well. I've run them and that's typically the feedback. "We loved it. We wish there was more time." And so I think thinking about how do you [00:31:00] balance each aspect of your agenda and/or how do you play with format is really smart. Any hints you can give us? Are you going back to Wyoming? Is it going to be in a different location? What can you share?

[00:31:14] Mark Huber: Yeah. I don't see Highline ever not being in Jackson, truthfully. That's part of what makes Highline Highline. So yes, in terms of location-

[00:31:26] Camille Arnold: Everyone's going to think of Evidence when they think of Jackson, Wyoming. It's kind of perfect.

[00:31:30] Jillian Hoefer: I have seen a couple of events this year crop up in Jackson too. So I'm like, "Imitation is the highest form of flattery."

[00:31:36] Camille Arnold: It is.

[00:31:38] Mark Huber: We've also seen some other events start to copy the format and location, not necessarily in Jackson, but that type of location. And it's flattering. I think as far as locations go, Jillian and I were working through that this morning. It's probably going to have a similar feel in a lot of ways, but also we want to make it feel different, especially for the people who are potentially [00:32:00] coming back. So Jillian and I are trying to finalize this in the next week-ish to really lock in the dates since Jackson's a very small place with not a lot of hotels and venues. So our options are limited and definitely in demand.

[00:32:14] Jillian Hoefer: Yeah. And I think we're taking that feedback from the NPS survey to heart in a lot of ways, even outside of the scheduled programming where it's clearly people want to connect there. They want to have time. They want to have that breathing room to sit down and dig into something. On the activity last year, I'll never forget the bus rides to and from places. We would all naturally gravitate just to really good conversations with each other. And I think we're exploring a couple of different kind of venues and hotels this year that we may end up going with that just give a little bit more breathing room to those spaces that people can gather in that downtime. In that time that there's some breathing room.

[00:32:49] If you need to go back and take a nap in your room, no shame. Everyone needs it when those days are so long. But if you're on a great conversation, go sit around a little campfire and continue that conversation. Go hang out by the pool. [00:33:00] Go have these little liminal spaces that you can continue these cool conversations with people that are outside of the programming. So yeah, a little tease of hopefully some things we're working on for this year.

[00:33:10] Camille Arnold: Okay. Love it. And then one more quick question for you, Jillian. Any learnings from the content strategy or planning side of things that you might be applying to Highline 2026 strategy?

[00:33:22] Jillian Hoefer: Yeah, don't be 36 weeks pregnant. That's number one.

[00:33:27] Camille Arnold: Noted.

[00:33:27] Jillian Hoefer: And we're good. We're good this time. I will be all good. No, I mean, I think honestly, the biggest learning is just to double down on that prep time. So we are already thinking. I've already met. We are how many months out at this point? Over six months out, already met with EventShark, our video team as well, already brainstorming how we want to do content capture and maybe a big brand piece similar to that kind of docuseries that we did last time around, already brainstorming those things. But at the end of the day, we know it has to make sense for the marketing motions that are happening outside of [00:34:00] Highline as well.

[00:34:01] So it's a lot of considering what do we do with this time and this space that we have that's going to make sense for our other marketing motions. So I think there's a lot of fun brainstorming that's going in.

[00:34:12] Camille Arnold: Yeah. You're really fueling your entire marketing kind of engine, which is-

[00:34:18] Jillian Hoefer: 100%.

[00:34:19] Camille Arnold: ... gorgeous to see. I truly wish more people took that approach. I think they would find a lot more success in their events. Even if you're not doing the biggest, splashiest event, right? It could be a small 20-person dinner, and that's still an incredible opportunity to help fuel that marketing engine.

[00:34:40] I want to end with a little quick lightning round, which is really just to help other people take what you've shared today and try to apply it to what they're working on. I would love to hear in general what you think, and especially based on your experience of doing Highline for the first time, building a net new [00:35:00] event from the ground up. This was not like a preexisting program that you came in and inherited, right? So what's one thing you think marketers over complicate about events?

[00:35:09] Jillian Hoefer: I'll jump in first and say, I think overstuffing the programming. I do think that, like I said, those little moments of the round tables, those liminal spaces in the bus where people could just chat. Creating that breathing room, not only is it great for the people that need to go take an introverted break in the middle of the day, but it also creates space for more organic connection that you don't have to force. You don't have to shoehorn people into how they're going to connect with their peers there. So definitely avoiding this year trying to over program things to make sure we make space for those moments.

[00:35:41] Mark Huber: I think they start with what do we, the company, want to get out of this event and we didn't do that for Highline and that was very intentional. We wanted to start with what do the attendees want to get out of this event and why should they pay to come to this event because Jackson is [00:36:00] expensive and that really was part of the secret sauce.

[00:36:05] Camille Arnold: I love that. I can't stress that enough actually. I feel like I see marketers get this wrong frequently and it's not just with events. It's like, what should our next core piece of content be? Or what should we talk about on this webinar? And it's overly self-serving as an organization actually doesn't serve you. Go figure.

[00:36:30] Okay. My next question for you is, what is one post-event tactic that teams should prioritize immediately, immediately post-event? What's the first priority, first order of business?

[00:36:45] Mark Huber: Start planning for those things before post-event, I guess would be the best and most honest answer, because I think in previous jobs and even previous events that we did on a much smaller scale at UserEvidence, you [00:37:00] get to the end of the event and the first couple days after, and then you're thinking, "All right, let's plan. Now what?" If you're starting the plan after the event, by the time you finish the plan and start to do what's in your plan, it's already too late. So you really have to be as timely as possible. And the only way to do that is by planning before the event.

[00:37:18] And then to not use that as a cop out of an answer. I think using any sort of content or using any sort of headshots like we had taken at Highline or any sort of pictures that you had taken on our group activity and including those in your follow-up, because it automatically sticks out from all of the garbage emails that we all get on a daily and weekly basis, that's something that's really easy for other event marketers to borrow from us.

[00:37:43] Camille Arnold: Last question is, give us another little plug. You said Highline, it's not like you are going for 1000 plus attendees. It was a smaller event and a very curated guest list. So tell me why you think smaller events can, I don't want to [00:38:00] say outperform because larger events can perform very well for some organizations, but I would say they can perform just as well, right? Why do you think those smaller curated events are working so well right now in the marketing landscape in general?

[00:38:14] Jillian Hoefer: I think for me, you have to know, like you talked about going in, you have to know what you want the outcome of the event to be realistically, both for the people attending, but then also for your brand. I think for us, we knew that this was obviously tied to pipeline, but also at the end of the day, it's building trust. For us, trust happens in those one-to-one conversations. They happen in those little moments. It's harder to come by and not manufacture, but hard to make sure those little moments can happen when you have a room of 1000 people.

[00:38:41] I think for us, smaller meant more connection time and also meant that we could sprinkle in these really cool little activities and special touches that just really took the atmosphere and the event to the next level. I'll never forget at the welcome [00:39:00] party, we had someone come up to us and say, "This feels like a wedding weekend welcome party. I feel like I'm at my best friend's wedding weekend welcome party." And we were like, "That's why you go small. That's exactly, that is why you go small because that is not how it feels when you show up to a conference that you're grabbing a badge alongside 800 people who you don't know and you can stay in your own little silo with your people you know." This was like just you couldn't do it any other way for us. You had to go small for this.

[00:39:26] Camille Arnold: I love it. Also, the comment about the wedding weekend welcome party is maybe no higher compliment. Actually, the CEO of Pavilion, Sam Jacobs, talks about his philosophy to small events because he is a big proponent of smaller, intimate, curated events. And he's like, "When you think about a wedding weekend, you want to create moments and opportunities for the wedding guests to make connections with each other and meet new people." And having those pre smaller events [00:40:00] before the big wedding event, and sometimes people do the post event, the post wedding brunch and things like that, it's all for that purpose. It's all so that people can have more time to make meaningful connections and/or because weddings can be reunions sometimes. It's like you just want to spend time with the people that either have shared interests or you care about. So I think if someone said that your event felt like a wedding weekend welcome party, I would be like, "I can retire now. My work here is done." What is there left for me to do or accomplish because...

[00:40:33] Jillian Hoefer: I will never forget. Yeah, looking at you, Mark, and after someone said that comment, we were like, "Oh my God, I think we did it." We're like, "We have a lot more to do here this week, but I think we did it."

[00:40:45] Mark Huber: Well, I mean, to go back to that moment because I remember that exact moment, it was so cool to be on our side of that moment because people were telling us that. And the event truly hadn't really started yet and they were not even aware of all the other things that were [00:41:00] coming. It was so cool just for like, "Hold on, wait a sec. You really haven't seen anything yet."

[00:41:04] Camille Arnold: Wait, Mark, did you have anything to share on the smaller curated event?

[00:41:08] Mark Huber: Yeah, I think it would have been really hard for us to deliver the experience that we did on a larger scale. And I think we were so, you used the word intentional right when we first started recording and we were so intentional about every single detail for the experience. And that's why people were talking about it without us even asking them to talk about it on LinkedIn afterwards in communities, in Slack groups at other events. There were other events that happened in the fall from people who were at Highline. They went to those and people were asking about Highline and I had to tell them that Highline was cooler than this event. So I think because we were just maniacal about the experience and the details and doing so on a much smaller scale, we couldn't do that on a larger scale if we wanted.

[00:41:58] Camille Arnold: I appreciate [00:42:00] how, not to overuse the word, but how intentional you guys have been truly throughout. And I think probably I would guess that another reason why this has been such a successful brand building and brand trust building generator. I can't even say moment because it's so much bigger than just one moment, but especially as people are like, "Ah, AI is everywhere." Events is one of the last frontiers where I am hopefully guaranteed genuine, authentic, human powered experiences. And I think you guys just nailed it. I think you got the experience right. You obviously clearly got your attendees right. You got just the whole formula. You just nailed it.

[00:42:47] I really appreciate you sharing all of your insights, learnings, how you did it, the thoughtfulness, the strategic kind of mindset, but also the fun and [00:43:00] the creativity. Chef's kiss. You guys crushed. I really would love to honestly invite our listeners to continue to connect with you guys and learn from you guys. Mark, you have Evidently, so people should subscribe to that if they're not already subscribed. But what are other ways people can stay in touch with you or follow the work that you are doing for UserEvidence? Obviously, I know you guys are on LinkedIn, but yeah, I just want to make it easy for people to follow you, stay connected because obviously treasure troves of knowledge and marketing brilliance. So yeah, thank you.

[00:43:37] Mark Huber: Yeah, I would say connect with us on LinkedIn. And if you see us at other events in the B2B space, just say hey, and we're happy to help and pay it forward because I think a lot of what we learned putting on Highline in year one, we didn't know all of that or to do all of that without other people paying it forward to us.

[00:43:58] Jillian Hoefer: 100%. And I would say also [00:44:00] shameless plug for the content. Go over to YouTube and look up The Highline Bet. That was our little docuseries that we did in the style of reality TV. We have genuine moments in there, just learnings along the way, things that happened. It's a fun watch. So go ahead and check that out as well if you want more of the behind the scenes and the nitty-gritty of what it was like putting on an event in Jackson.

[00:44:17] Camille Arnold: Oh, I'm absolutely about to go watch that right now. Guys, this is truly so fun. What a treat for me to spend an hour with you two. Thank you so much for coming on the show and dropping so many gems. For our listeners tuning in, thanks for listening to this episode of Great Events. And until next time, take care.

[00:44:38] Alyssa Peltier: 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.

[00:44:48] Rachel Andrews: 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.

[00:44:58] Felicia Asiedu: Stay connected with us on social [00:45:00] media for behind the scenes content, updates, and some extra doses of inspiration.

[00:45:05] Rachel Andrews: 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.

[00:45:15] Felicia Asiedu: Big thanks to our amazing listeners, our guest speakers, and the incredible team behind the scenes. Remember, every great event begins with great people.

[00:45:25] Alyssa Peltier: And that's a wrap. Keep creating, keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.