Christian Klepp  00:01

Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Brynna DeSantiago. She is a B2B SaaS marketing executive and the head of marketing at Encapture, where she leads the team on strategic marketing campaigns, digital advertising and marketing events. She also works closely with the Encapture revenue team to close pipeline through Account Based Marketing initiatives. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. 

Christian Klepp  00:31

Okay, I’m gonna say. Brynna DeSantiago, welcome to the show.

Brynna DeSantiago  00:35

Thank you. Thanks for having me, Christian. 

Christian Klepp  00:37

Great to have you on the show. Brynna, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation. I think it’s something that comes up a lot in the world of B2B marketing, there are a few that have actually mastered the art of implementing this effectively and generating the right results. So I’m looking forward to see where this little chat of ours takes us.

Brynna DeSantiago  00:57

Agree. Thank you. 

Christian Klepp  00:59

All right, fantastic. So let’s dive right in. So Brynna, you’re on a mission to partner with business leaders to beat revenue goals, I’m going to say, through hyper targeted in person events and at scale demand gen and go to market efforts. So for this conversation, why don’t we zero in on the following topic, which is how to leverage in person events as part of your B2B marketing strategy. So let’s kick off the conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them all. Right. So question number one is, why do you think that in person, events can be an accelerator for deals? And number two, as it pertains to events, where do you see many marketing teams fall flat? 

Brynna DeSantiago  01:40

Great questions to address the first one there, why are in person events so important and effective right now? I think with COVID and the era of zoom, we definitely over index to virtual meetings, virtual events, which is great. They work for a lot of things. They worked for us during that time period, and they do work moving forward, but there’s been this feeling and this need to, you know, for people to get back out there. And once you get in person with somebody, you know, nothing moves the needle more than a 30 minute conversation, sometimes when you’ve been trying to track somebody down for months and months. So I think this, we’re in this era of after over indexing to virtual events for years and years, everybody is ready to get back in person. And nothing really is more effective than having that in person, face to face conversation to follow up there, where I think, in general, a lot of marketing teams fall short for events, is we, I think a lot of marketing teams tend to do two thirds or three quarters of the way they’re planning events, whether that’s, you know, you plan the event, you get the trade show, you invite the people, but we just missed that last little quarter piece, which is what really gets people to the event, like whatever that hook is, or whatever that outreach is, and sometimes the marketing teams tend to fall sort where we check our boxes, we’ve made the landing page, we’ve had the registration page, we’ve sent the emails, etc. But there’s nothing juicy in there that makes something want to so it makes it a prospect or a customer, actually want to attend this event. So I think that’s where, typically we see people falling short.

Christian Klepp  03:18

It’s kind of like the cookie cutter approach, right? So like, you know, we’ve sent out, we’ve done the email blast check, we’re directing everybody to this landing page for them to register check. And to your point, there’s nothing really that they come up with that jumps out, right? And I think, correct me, if I’m wrong, in the world of B2B, people tend to be really guilty of just trying not to do anything that’s too crazy. 100%

Brynna DeSantiago  03:43

100%. It’s, you know, this is the way we’ve done it. So let’s, let’s continue to go, you know, go to events or build event roadmap the same way we have in our template. And, you know, let’s follow the marketing roadmap, of like you said, setting up the registration page, sending out emails, directing them there. And, you know, once they hit that, well, we’ll send them a post event email. And, you know, following that, everybody knows that cadence, that event Bible, but it’s, you know, the extra, the extra little bit is, you know, partnering with sales, getting that juicy information that people actually want to come to the that event for making sure that outreach is affected, making sure it’s on the right channels, etc.

Christian Klepp  04:27

Absolutely, absolutely. And we’re going to unpack that bit later on in the conversation. But I did have one follow up question for you, Brynna, just based on what you’ve been saying in the past couple of minutes. And it might be difficult to like quantify this, but maybe part of the reason why a lot of people have defaulted to the virtual events and zoom is partly also because of the cost factor. So how do you I guess, from your experience, you know that clearly plays a role in terms of, like, companies making decisions about whether to do in person or virtual events. How can marketers overcome that barrier? Because that is a big one, right? I mean, if you, if you’re talking about, like, attending a trade show, for example, right? Those aren’t understatement of the year. Those aren’t cheap. 

Brynna DeSantiago  05:21

Correct. I would say we there’s this idea that all events are expensive, and you’re right. You know, signing up for a trade show is never cheap. You pay for the booth, you pay for travel, you pay for the swag. You know, on top of that, it’s hard to do that, you know, under 10k for example. But there are events, you know, that our local and smaller scale that I think a lot of people forget about, you know, creating more intimate moments, whether that’s, you know, I know that I have one customer located in in Austin, and I know that I have one prospect in Austin, and I have two sales reps in Austin, you know, like a four to 10 person dinner is considered an in person event, and hosting, you know, more smaller scale things that fall into a really doable budget is like a more bite sized way to I that I approach that because, again, anytime that you can get one of your customers who loves you guys talking to one of your prospect doesn’t matter where they’re at, whether that’s over drinks or at a dinner, and you’re spending, you know, you could spend a small amount on that tab. 

Brynna DeSantiago  06:24

So I think about events as less of this monster of an item to tackle, and thinking of them as more as bite size. But also, like you said, with the cost, I think it’s all about, you know, where that, where the budget comes from, obviously. And I personally would love to spend more of my money to go to an in person and be face to face than, for example, on ads. So there’s time, there’s things where, you know, obviously the give and take and understanding where that in person like ROI (Return On Investment) comes from, and, you know, having that be part of the budget strategy, I think is a huge conversation point.

Christian Klepp  07:02

Absolutely, absolutely. I’m gonna move us on to the next question, which is about, well, key pitfalls that marketers should avoid, and what should they be doing instead? 

Brynna DeSantiago  07:13

I think going back to budget, that’s one of the biggest pitfalls. Either we say, Okay, we’re going to a trade show, let’s and we have, you know, this huge chunk of budget, let’s blow it on this trade show. And sometimes we, you know, overspend at events where you didn’t need to do, you know, a full platinum sponsorship that includes X, Y and Z, potentially having a small booth and doing a more low impact event could have been just as you know, impactful for your team. So I think the consideration is, like I said, Not and not thinking that events in this one swim lane, oh, an event is going to a trade show and spending 100k on a booth. I think that’s what everyone’s first thought is, you know, and how can you be super strategic and technical and kind of scrappy with it, because there’s ways to attend multiple events a year, have a small booth, a small presence. Sometimes you don’t even need to have a booth if you’re sponsoring different items, you know, within the event. So I think it’s the biggest pitfall is either spending too over indexing and spending too much on one event and just not being strategic and wasteful with that, or thinking you don’t have enough money to spend event when you just have, you know, 5, 10K for one event this quarter, and thinking that’s not enough to get, you know, a couple people in the room. So being more strategic, of like, where are those? Who are the people we need this you know, this quarter, this year, are those? Do we need to get get our cost customers talking with our prospects? Do we need to get our prospects talking with our product team to understand our product more like? Who do we really need to get together in the same room, and let’s work backwards from there and be as strategic with this spend as possible? 

Christian Klepp  08:58

Those are definitely some great insights. And I had another follow up question for you, or, let me rephrase that, I want to dig a little bit deeper into the pitfalls, right, just from your own observation. And I’ve heard this from like multiple people that I’ve interviewed on the show. I’ve seen it myself as I’ve gone to trade shows and events. Do you feel that post pandemic. You know, people coming out of the pandemic and what have you, many of them have reverted to, I’m just going to say the same bad habits when it comes to events somehow, like there were, there were tactics that were already in place at conferences and trade shows that were probably not well, though there was room for improvement there. And you’d feel that as we were going through the pandemic and things became more digitized, or there were more virtual events, one would assume that that there would have been some kind of natural evolution, especially in the event space. But then sometimes, but I. Didn’t notice that. Coming out of it, some people have still reverted back to, well, I’ll just give you an example, right? So, it’s not so nebulous, cold calling everybody that, um, leaves their details at the booth, right? Things of that nature. Have you? Have you noticed any of that? 

Brynna DeSantiago  10:15

Yeah, I think, and I agree with you, it’s kind of funny. You’d think we would have progressed post COVID, or, you know, realized what didn’t work for us, and leave it in the past. But to a certain extent, some of that stuff, people are doing it because it does work, like, you know, whatever, that percentage of, you know, cold calling everyone who dropped their business card, or cold calling everybody who’s attending and, you know, trying to get them to pick the pen up at your booth. I think to a certain extent, some of those business tactics still work, so that’s why they’re being done. But it’s less about whether it’s working, and more about like, cutting through the noise, and if everybody is getting cold calls spammed by emails. You know, I saw a recent LinkedIn post about using socks as swag, and how some people still love the socks and some people hate the socks, but if the socks get the people to stop by your booth, and it works for your audience, and you have meaningful conversations with your prospects that lead to a meeting because of the socks, you know, lead into the socks. So it’s, I think there’s ways to be disruptive, and, you know, break those patterns. But if some of those patterns are still working and prospects are reacting to them in a positive way, I think it’s a sign to lean in. But how do you lean in uniquely and differently, not like all the other vendors?

Christian Klepp  11:38

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay. Here comes another question, and you brought it up earlier on in the conversation about being able to stand out somehow and position perhaps even your company or the event differently, right? Because, as you said, marketers, especially in the B2B space, we’re kind of guilty of like just following this checklist and just ticking off all these boxes. So just from your experience, and feel free to bring up examples if you can. How can B2B companies stand out and come up with something that’s a little bit more creative, perhaps a little bit more unconventional, that would convince the so called prospects to attend the event. 

Brynna DeSantiago  12:22

I think it’s all about, you know, breaking out of that little box of fear. I think in marketing, we live in our Ivory Tower that we want everything to be perfect, and we want to have a full campaign, fully planned with, you know, all of like you said, everything check box before we release it to the public. And we like to stay within the boundaries of our industry. You know, some industries are a lot more like, conservative. If you’re marketing to marketers, you know, we’re one of the like, we’re a little bit more fun in general. But still, there’s, there’s, you kind of have to stay in your swim lanes too. You don’t want to be too flashy for certain ICPs (Ideal Customer Profile). But I think this stuff that is, at the end of the day, it that is most successful is the marketing that takes a risk and is creative. You know, for example, where my company is guilty of this. You know, when we’re a tech company with navy blue colors, you go to a conference, every single booth navy blue, talking about efficiencies, AI, automation. You know that then there’s like, it’s all looks the same, correct? So how do you one like visually stand out? But also, you know, from the event, like you said, what’s the hook? And I think it’s doing something creative and out there that nobody would think of. Last year, one of the most successful events we did was we did something off of, like, the Step Brothers, and we hosted a boats party themed from Step Brothers, and totally out of, like, totally out of connected to nothing we were, you know, doing from Step Brothers. But it was hilarious. People loved that. And it really got people to, like, hook them in. So I think being bold and creative, and, you know, that’s a very broad term, but we all stay safe and you know, are pitching all like I said, we’re all pitching efficiency and all of these buzzwords and like saying what you actually do at the end of the day and then bringing something fun into it, is what people want to do.

Christian Klepp  14:17

Absolutely, absolutely, I think mostly in B2B, people Just don’t want to rock the boat too much, right? 

Brynna DeSantiago  14:23

Exactly, and it’s a little scary, and I think it’s hard, like, there’s the, you know, internally, it’s sometimes hard to pitch things that might rock the boat, or things that like reference pop culture, but those are the things that people glob on to and think are hilarious, or, you know, telling a story with more unique swag, for example, sometimes it’s hard to pitch that somebody to see the vision, why somebody would want this. But, you know, taking a risk, and if it doesn’t work, you pivot for the next one.

Christian Klepp  14:52

Absolutely, absolutely. And you spoke a little bit about post event, right? So what happens after? The event is done, and, you know, done and dusted so called. There’s that phrase like the fortunes and the follow up. And, you know, part of that, that cold calling initiative I brought up earlier, that that is also part of that follow up cadence, right? But what have you seen work in terms of following up with prospects once the event is done?

Brynna DeSantiago  15:21

Yeah, there’s definitely that, like speed to lead, and that’s still, that is still real, you know, there’s still studies that say, you know, the person who does follow up the fastest is more likely to, you know, get that lead at the end of the day. So I think, you know, following up quickly is obviously one of the biggest, most effective ways. But how do you do it in a, you know, not spammy, not overly salesy way? You know, there’s different people who had different touches. There’s people who didn’t see you at all at an event. There’s people who saw your booth, didn’t stop by, there’s people who talk to you. And how do you, you know, have one cumulative strategy for that? And I think it’s using that event as less of a like you said, let me just cold call and blast all these people with my message and why my message is good for them, but use that as a touch point for how you can become more of a partner with them. You know, hey and casual touch point. I’m one for keeping it, you know, not over professionalizing it and keeping it more, you know, casual, if I didn’t, if I went to an event, and someone randomly emails me and, you know, said, Hey, Oh, I saw you read the event. We didn’t actually get a chance to meet. We actually haven’t ever met. But, you know, I thought I was interested in this, and thought you would like this. That resonates a lot more with me than a, you know, four paragraph, overly marketing, graphic email that has, you know, the company values and all that stuff right away. Because, you know, I want to talk to a human being at the end of the day. So using those post event touches as a way to show your humanness in this world of automated, you know, follow up and to be more of a partner of, you know, Hey, I saw your earth event. We actually work with teams like you, you know. And we help save them, you know, whatever your whatever your value point is, we make their teams more efficient. If you were wanting to follow our, watch our webinar next week, that you’d be interested, you know, very like light touch to keep it, to keep it more educational. And for those people, because it’s so overwhelming attending events and then being that the ICP that gets spammed afterwards. 

Brynna DeSantiago  18:34

Yeah, worth it. And one thing that we love to do is send handwritten notes to anybody who you know either had a meeting at our booth or physically stopped by our booth that was memorable in that sense, you know, yeah, there’s no follow up, there’s no there’s nothing, you know, no call to action from that note. Besides, thanks for stopping by. It was really great having a conversation, excited to continue our, you know, professional relationship and learn more from each other. And that light is similar to what you said of you know, that personalized, anything you can remember about that person is always, I think, a super again, it’s a light touch point. So there’s always this pressure to after events, to, you know, get these leads, you know, meeting books, whatever you need to get them to that next step. And there’s that, I think there has to be a little bit more of a light approach to that as well in certain to certain elements. Obviously, when someone’s raised their hand, we’re going to book that meeting. But for people who haven’t had that, more of that partner and casual approach to them, you know, to be more of a peer with them. Them, versus selling something to them will pay off long term when now they’ve seen you at two or three events over the last couple years, and yeah, they weren’t ready to talk to you last year, but now, like you haven’t pitched them for the last three years, but now they know what you do, so obviously that’s more of a long term play, but that really helps build that with your brand.

Christian Klepp  20:19

Absolutely, absolutely. So moving on to the next question. And I think it goes without saying that putting an event together, right? Is that collaborative effort, right? It’s a bit of I sometimes like to call it an ecosystem, because it’s not just the marketing people that are working on it. It’s also the sales people it’s getting, perhaps even the sales people will like get their clients to attend or go to the booth and what have you. So the question is, how can marketers work more collaboratively and strategically with sales regarding events, and how can the marketing team be held accountable?

Brynna DeSantiago  20:57

Yeah, I think that’s great. I mean, the only every successful event I’ve ever had is because of the sales team. And I think one of the thing that working with the sales team does specifically is they help create the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) behind the event. They help create that, that buzz that this is a good event to go to. And you know, customers are going to be there, prospects are going to be there. The people that everyone wants to talk to are going to be there, and usually they’re the ones who have those relationships already built. You know, typically, if we’re sending marketing blasts like a customer prospect might not know my name, but they’ll know a lot of these sales reps names. So using the existing relationships and trust that they have with their customers, with their prospects they’ve been talking to for months to kind of say, you know, like, Oh, hey, you know, I’m talking with other CTOs like you, and you know, they’re going to be here, and we worked with them. But having that open kind of network that then the sales team usually has built, is a huge way to leverage that. And I think you know strategically that just takes a lot of it, sometimes internal work of you know, whether that’s a weekly meeting to discuss events and you know what the sales team is responsible for and the marketing those teamers responsible for, but I think it’s about time that, you know, obviously, our goals are the same. We want both book leads. We will both want to close deals from this event that’s unified. So that helps unify us to a certain extent, but to unify us even more, you know, we could set like, to hold marketing accountable to your specific question. We can obviously set specific, you know, lead goals for an event that would, in theory, hold marketing accountable. But to a certain extent, I think you need that. You have to be able to work with sales and marketing and like, the handoff to sales is kind of what helps hold marketing accountable. 

Christian Klepp  23:01

Yeah, no, that’s absolutely right. That’s absolutely right. Okay, so Brynna, at this stage in the conversation, I mean, you progress with plenty of stuff that’s actionable, but like, if there was somebody out there, a B2B marketer that finds themselves in this situation where they’re most likely planning for an event, what are like three to five things that you would encourage them to do to leverage in person events as part of their B2B marketing strategy?

Brynna DeSantiago  23:29

I would think the first thing is what I touched on earlier, whether for post event, doing a handwritten note as follow up, I think is a huge, huge thing that is really small to execute. We use, you know, we have a direct mail platform that helps us do that, but that is something you can literally do by hand, and mail out one by one. So it doesn’t cost a thing, and it has a huge impact. And you’re able to, like, have that personalization, like you were saying, put those little nuggets that you’ve had with each person. So I think that’s something huge, that people can action on. 

Brynna DeSantiago  24:04

Another thing, I think, is using the sales team as a lever to pull for outreach, particularly for events. So I think, like you said, sometimes we, you know, we’ll send the marketing blast, we’ll send a couple adventure emails, throw them in an ad campaign, potentially, and call it a day, but using the sales team to take that one step further to potentially, you know, map out your like top 50 to 100 VIPs that you need to speak with at that event and call them one on one, send them a gift ahead of time. You know, that’s one strategy we love to do. Is that it can get pricey, speaking of budget, but, you know, talking about your top 50. 50 people we want to speak to at that event, what can we send them? That’s, you know, themed for the location that we’re going to, themed for the content of the event, or just, you know, like a travel kit. There’s a lot of generic stuff you can send as well, but using a gift pre-event to kind of get that buzz going, I think, is another huge strategy. 

Brynna DeSantiago  25:13

Let’s see. And then one more. I think, at the events, one thing that’s super great is, like I said, Being unconventional at the event. So I again, will, this is something all the hill that I’ll die on is, I think we kind of over professionalize and over index to, you know, I’ll just call it boring. That is what it is, you know, these trade shows. So I think letting one of the things that’s great about people at events is people love people, and when you let other your team’s personalities shine through in person, whether that’s like what they wear within reason, obviously, what they wear, or, you know, things that they can do walking around the conference. I think there’s a lot of things like our sales reps, they’re the key to the sauce, because they’re they have amazing personalities, and that shines through and everything they do. So how can we get away from two people standing behind a booth and suits, you know, talking about, like you said, pitching you this technology that everyone else is pitching you to real people who are having real conversations. And, you know, authentic conversations of that. 

Christian Klepp  26:23

Those are definitely some great tips. And it just reminds me of, I think it was an event that happened about two years ago, and this is one of the dangers, going back to your point of not putting sales people in the booth. I believe I passed by a booth that there the two gentlemen, I think, were engineers, and they were clearly not very comfortable being on the conference floor or the trade show floor, so they just buried themselves in their laptops at the booth and avoided eye contact with passers fly. That, for me, is like the worst way to, well, to run a booth, or to, you know, in terms of having a presence at the trade show, it’s almost like you’re invisible, right? So it’s going back to your point about like, having the right people there and letting them shine, so having those sales people that are going to make eye contact with you, that are going to walk the floor, so to speak, and not having these, these people that would rather be well, anywhere but here.

Brynna DeSantiago  27:28

Yeah, and, you know, we always need technical expertise to a certain extent. But I think everybody, like, like we said, they lean, they over index to this over professional and being, I think, nervous to have, you know, personal conversations at booths and things like that. So how can we, how can we warm people up in that nature, versus just hitting them with, like, here’s what we do, and here’s why it’s important, you know, and connect, connecting that back to why everybody’s there at that, you know, at that event for the first place?

Christian Klepp  28:02

Yep, absolutely, absolutely. So Brynna, based on your experience and observations, um, are there any trends that you see that are shaping the future of in person events? And if yes, how can B2B marketers prepare for those changes?

Brynna DeSantiago  28:17

I think one of the big changes is, you know, AI (Artificial Intelligence) in general, obviously, everybody is utilizing AI and their marketing and sales tactics, and I think everything is getting watered down with AI to a certain extent. You see, you know, outreach emails that look very similar. You can tell the tone is similar when it’s something that’s written by AI. You can tell when, like a session, like the content of the session has been, you know, all of the AI is just starting to dilute things. And so as you’re going into events in, you know, you have that valuable in person, time and connection with somebody, it’s so important. Like, I mean, I use ChatGPT daily. I’m not saying let’s not use AI, but to use that as, just like, the starting point, and overly personalize it to you know, your brand, who you are, because it just gets boring, like seeing the same messaging over and over again. And I think we’re gonna need to find a way, like messaging wise, but to differentiate yourself, just in how you’re sending emails, what, how the tone is, all that type of stuff. But you know, while you’re actually there, if you look the same as everybody else, there’s no point in going so like, like, the budget is super valuable, and that time is almost priceless, I would say. So how can we make sure that, you know, like the messaging that we’re leading into an event with whatever that are, our value is that we’re leading with that it is, like, extremely distinguishable, just for our brand.

Christian Klepp  29:59

Absolutely. Right, absolutely like, like, with every other industry vertical, right? Like AI has crept into the event space as well. And I for one, would say there is, there’s a place in time for AI. I think marketers just have to become better at being able to draw the line in the sand and say, Okay, this is what we should be using AI for, and this is probably where a more human intervention, for lack of a better description, comes into play. 

Brynna DeSantiago  30:29

Agree. 

Christian Klepp  30:30

I did have one follow up question for you. Bren on in terms of trends, like, where do you see? Where do you see things going in terms of like, O2O? And I know that that’s more like high level stuff, but having, like, the more digital aspect of the event played just as important a role as the physical, in person aspect. So for instance, apps, right?

Brynna DeSantiago  30:55

Yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s all going in the right direction of making an event more streamlined and more like if, like I said, it’s valuable time. If people are traveling, taking the time to travel, book a hotel, they shouldn’t be wasting their time on things that they could watch online or watching a video or could be sent in an email. No one wants to do that. They want if they’re going to be spending time in person that session, better have extremely valuable nuggets, or what you’re saying to them at the booth, you know, better be something that they haven’t heard before. So it’s, I think, I think we’re going to see more digital events and in person events kind of paired together, because I feel like that’s the that’s the secret sauce of, you know, we saw you in person, we met you, we talked, but you’re not ready, you know, we only met one time. We only talked for 30 minutes at the booth. We’re not ready to see a demo of your product. Or, like, you know, I’m in this kind of vast space of needing to know more, but, like, we’ve had this touch point. So that’s good. I think there’s a great combination of doing a digital event, you know, with in person events, and how can you use that technology to basically add on to that the relationship and foundation you’ve built in person?

Christian Klepp  32:18

Yeah, yeah. No, exactly, exactly. Okay, you talked about it a little bit earlier, but let’s talk about metrics, right? It’s one of these, love it or hate it like topics, how do you talk to people higher up about like, okay, we’re making progress, and we this. This event was successful. So what? What are some key metrics that you would advise B2B marketers to pay attention to.

Brynna DeSantiago  32:45

I think the most you know key and glaring metric for everybody is obviously the ROI for each event. So you know, how much did we spend? How many quality leads did we get? Whatever that you know, however you define those. Did we get any deals that closed from that event, you know, and that’s obviously a very black and white way of looking at it. That’s the main, you know, my North Star metric for events is, you know, looking at last year, what was the ROI, what we spent? And, you know, along with that, with if the ICP, you know, is it this, our tier one accounts? Is this our tier two accounts? You know, where does this fall in the market that we’re hitting? And if it’s, you know, if it’s 50% of the attendees are in our tier one a list. But you know, we’re spending more this event is has 100% of our tier one attendees. Obviously, we’re going to allocate more. So looking at the percentage of the attendees as well that really fall into your sweet spot, I think is a huge indicator. 

Brynna DeSantiago  33:48

But one of the, you know, I think metrics this, I wouldn’t even define it as a metric. This is more of a I think it’s too hard to define. But something that I really look at is, from each of those events, what good conversations came out of that, like, did we talk to a couple of customers and we found out, you know, a couple of trends that were happening? Or did we were we able to be at the booth and talking to a customer and introduce them to another customer prospect, who you know, they shared what they were doing, and now this prospect has booked a demo with us because of that conversation. So like that is not a measurable black and white metric, but it’s something that I really look at from events, is like a heat check of what were the really juicy things that we got, that we from a specific person, that there’s no way we wouldn’t have gotten over a zoom call, because it was unprompted and just came up naturally. And an event that has more of those natural occurrence and more of those natural like, oh my gosh, we found out this, this and this. We need to put this into our marketing messaging. Or we, the sales reps, heard this and this, like product. We need to take this right? You know, so an event that has way more of that feedback and nuggets to take back to our team again, like you can that’s not a hard metric that I’m taking to the executive team to say we should go yes or no, but it’s a really good indicator for where those good conversations are happening, and also where you’re going to get buy in from the sales team. You know, if they went last year and they heard so and so, had the best conversation with their customer that led to an upsell, that led to this deal, like everybody internally is going to be more excited about that event, pitch that event more like and that’ll just lead through.

Christian Klepp  35:41

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And it goes back to, like, Okay, well, how many new relationships were built? Right?

Brynna DeSantiago  35:46

Exactly, a very gray area. And, you know, marketing, that’s one of the things, you know, more more building, more of, like a band, brand building activity, I would say, versus a, you know, lead building activity. But how much of that was really impactful?

Christian Klepp  36:03

That’s right. That’s right. Okay, Brynna, please get up. Get up on your soapbox. This is the soapbox question in terms of this topic, right of in person events, okay, what is the status quo that you passionately disagree with and why.

Brynna DeSantiago  36:23

I think the idea that, like I kind of stated this earlier, the idea that you have to spend a lot of money to be successful at an event, you can be extremely scrappy, have an extremely small budget, and pull off an extreme, you know, a very successful event with a small team. So this idea that, Oh, we want to do events, we need to have a events team to do this, and we need to create a, you know, a whole campaign, or, like, I think it creates more red tape, and it’s like, we need to cut the red tape and cut the fluff and just say, hey, we need to execute on this event. It’s, you know, just part of the part of the day to day tasks that we’re doing. So I think people, and within that people create more of a need to, like, create a whole program for it, which, you know, you do need to to scale any program for events. Obviously you need to have more of that foundation built. But sometimes you just gotta, like, let it rip and fly and, you know, try something with the event, and if it doesn’t work out, like I said, pivot. And I think there’s too much of a fear around that. 

Christian Klepp  37:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. 100% agree with that. And it’s something you brought up earlier in the conversation, where you can do many more of these, like these micro events. These are, like, more intimate, they’re more targeted. They’re, you know, they don’t require as many resources. I could be. This could be slightly controversial, but I’m going to say it anyway. I found in my experience, at least, I don’t know about you, but I find a lot of people that believe that, you know, it can only work if there are big events. They tend to be people that come from corporate or maybe bigger agencies, because that’s what they were used to. And they had those bigger teams at their disposal. And if they’re suddenly, um, in smaller outfits, they’re like, Oh, well, it can’t be done, right?

Brynna DeSantiago  38:25

Agreed? I think there is just that level of, you know, kind of big company, corporate culture that comes with events, and it’s a lot different. I think if you’re at a startup, versus that you know, you have at a startup, you have the ability to be more scrappy and, like, cut through the red tape, like I said, and just have a fun, unique idea for an event. And you can throw that obviously bigger company has to go through a lot more approvals, and that’s where I think, when you reach that step of having to sell it internally and pitch people internally. Like, this is why I want to do this event. This is why we should go here. It really helps when you have that buy in, like I said, from the sales team, or when you know, like, when you can say, These people are going to meet these people and really give that lay, that foundation for who’s going to see who. And like, what, what the ROI is from that.

Christian Klepp  39:20

Exactly, exactly. Okay. Here comes the bonus question, Brynna, you ready? 

Brynna DeSantiago  39:28

Hit me? 

Christian Klepp  39:29

Okay? If you were to pick a song to be the soundtrack of your life, what song would that be, and why?

Brynna DeSantiago  39:36

The hardest question I have. Yeah, the soundtrack of my life, like Florence & the Machine, is one of my favorites. So I would do like, the Dog Days Are Over. That’s one of my favorite songs. It’s classic. It’s, I think, because there’s a. That’s like song one, I love the melody in it, and I think there’s like it, the melody of the song has this natural, like rhythm and builds. And my life, I’ve, you know, learned, like, there’s just these natural um, day to day that is monotonous, and it builds, and it’s great. And, you know, so I really like the melody, but also, you know, the messaging and that song of like the Dog Days Are Over. There’s always this continuous move towards the next step. And I think it’s like every, every time you get through a dark phase, whether that’s, you know, at work, or personally, it’s like, oh my gosh, this is behind me. But that just continues to happen in life, and there’s always going to be the next, the next hurdle to jump over. So I think that’s one of mine I’ll just say that.

Christian Klepp  40:47

I love it. I love it. Yeah, it’s like, highs and lows, right? So…

Brynna DeSantiago  40:51

 Yeah, exactly. 

Christian Klepp  40:52

Fantastic. Fantastic. Brynna, this has been such a great conversation. Thanks again for coming on the show and for sharing your expertise and experience of the listeners. So a quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Brynna DeSantiago  41:07

Sounds great. I’m the Head of Marketing at Encapture. I work with financial institutions to help partner with them and automate their critical processes. About 10 years in the marketing space, working with revenue teams closely in the sales side as well. You can get in touch with me on LinkedIn, and would love to hear from y’all. Thank you. Christian,

Christian Klepp  41:30

Fantastic, fantastic. So once again, Brynna, thanks for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. 

Brynna DeSantiago  41:36

Sounds good. Thank you. 

Christian Klepp  41:38

Thanks. Bye for now.