ChatGPT. 

It needs no introduction because over the past few months it’s all anyone has heard about.

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But the noise is understandable.

The chatbot’s ability to write complex text - academic, journalistic, and programming, among others - in a human, friendly and intelligent way is unrivaled, leading Bill Gates to call it the most revolutionary tech in decades. 

Indeed, prompted to write a blurb about this very article, ChatGPT responded:

Pretty good… if a tad full of itself.

But how useful is ChatGPT really for B2B event marketing?

While many have praised the chatbot’s ability to answer questions, write essays, summarize documents and write software, others have criticized it for providing responses that are somewhat stilted, and basic. In which case, are event marketers better off just relying on their own skills? Or is this chatbot a marketer’s new favorite colleague?

As they say ‘Seeing is believing’, so we worked with ChatGPT on the standard roster of B2B event marketing activities - all your basics like finding an event venue, finding speakers, putting together a calendar of events, promotional material etc - to see if it lives up to the hype.

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‍Challenge #1: Cutting down time to source event venues

Usually, finding venues for events - whether a conference, round table or even a simple dinner requires lots of research.

“I spent so much time on Google trying to find a venue for a networking mixer in Vegas,” comments B2B event marketing specialist, Rishabh Bora. “It was extremely challenging for me as I was not familiar with the city at all - let alone the country - and so the time I put into coming up with even a shortlist of places took days because I had to first locate places and then vet them as per my budget and other criteria.” 

✅ How ChatGPT can help: With a simple prompt, ChatGPT can give you a list of venues appropriate for your event goals and budget. 

The prompt:

The output:

Evaluation: That’s a pretty good starting point that can save you hours on Google.

And this can be used to source event speakers too

ChatGPT can be also used similarly to source speakers for your event using a prompt like ‘What international speakers can I invite to talk at this event?

Key to curating a good list is the different criterion you want the chatbot to apply when coming up with a list of names - like domain expertise in X topic, for instance. Click here for other criteria you should consider too.

Time saved: 2-5 hours at the least

Verdict: Go for it

Challenge #2: Create event titles and descriptions within 1 minute

Catchy titles can help boost the registration rates for your conferences or webinars (see Rocketlane’s fantastically-named sessions for Propel '22) but it’s not easy to come up with these for B2B marketing events, especially when you have to factor in things like character count. 

✅ How ChatGPT can help: If you’ve ever spent agonizing hours trying to be witty or creative to no avail, ChatGPT can help kick start brainstorming.

The prompt:

The output:

Evaluation: The suggestions are straightforward and succinct, and the chatbot even uses alliteration to make the title catchy. At the least it’ll help you realize what you do and don’t want from the title. And the more detailed your prompt is, the better refined the ChatGPT copy will be.

And you can use it to generate event descriptions as well.

Evaluation: That’s a pretty solid description. It covers the broad strokes of what can be expected at the webinar, and uses industry jargon ‘traps, gadgets, rockets’ etc. With more information in the prompt about specific challenges or goals, the description can be further improved. 

Time saved: 2-5 hours at the least, depending on the creativity/nuance of your prompts

Verdict: Definitely helpful

Challenge #3: Help plan an event program

Event marketers usually plan for 6 months worth of events ahead of time to account for event format, types and size. But where do you start planning your B2B event marketing calendar? You may have a rough idea of wanting to do a few webinars and then perhaps a conference at the end of Q3, but aren’t quite sure how to put a plan in place.

✅ How ChatGPT can help: Even using a basic prompt, the chatbot can help you understand the different types of events you can plan for your audience to keep them engaged throughout the year. 

Chat GPT prompt and output:

‍Evaluation: We’re not going to lie, this is actually pretty impressive.

ChatGPT has planned a great mix of different event types, with each addressing a goal or pain point of the target audience. It serves as a good jumping-off point for your planning.

But as mentioned before, the more nuanced the prompt, the better ChatGPT’s output will be. So for instance, a B2B event marketing calendar for pipeline engagement will look entirely different to that of one aimed at customer engagement.

Time saved: Half a day 

Verdict: It’s not replacing you… as yet

Challenge #4: Write the best copy you’ve ever written for event SM promos

Unfortunately, B2B gets a bad rap for being boring, and by extension its events as well. That’s why spending a little extra time and brainpower to come up with creative and fun ways to come up with different ways to promote your event can make all the difference in driving registrations.

‍✅ How ChatGPT can help: Using just a straightforward prompt can help get the ball rolling.

The prompt:

The output:

‍Evaluation: Not bad at all.

And you can use it to write social copy for the post ideas it has come up with.

Chat GPT prompt and output:

‍Evaluation: It’s good copy (especially the disclaimer at the end!). And it gets the job done also because at this point, it has a lot of context about what you’re looking for. ChatGPT remembers the thread of your dialogue, using previous questions and answers to inform its next responses. 

And you can further refine the copy as per the social media channel you’re going to post on - for instance:

The prompt:

The output:

🔥🔥🔥🔥

And then why not ask ChatGPT to plan a calendar for promotion to boot. 

Chat GPT prompt and output:

Evaluation: No notes for this, just applause.

Clearly the chatbot can help streamline all your social media activities within a couple of minutes.

‍And you can take a similar approach with email marketing

In a similar way, use ChatGPT to write your promotional emails, registration confirmations, and reminder emails with the following prompts:

• Can you write an email invitation to Wile E Coyotes highlighting why this is a must-attend webinar?
• Can you write a last-chance to register email?
• Can you write an email reminding webinar registrants that the webinar starts in 1 hour.
• Can you write an email thanking attendees and letting them know the event’s content is now available on-demand?

Time saved: An entire day

Verdict: So fantastic you may be inspired to name your first-born after ChatGPT

‍Challenge #5: Act as real-time customer support on event page/app

A chatbot for event marketing on your landing page or mobile event app is indispensable because it helps your visitors get answers quickly and easily - whether they’re looking for directions to the venue or suggestions on which session they should attend. It helps to humanize your event and brand. And it frees up you and your team to focus on other tasks.

‍✅ How ChatGPT can help: It can help cut down time for you to put the questions and answers together - and add some personality.

The prompt and output:

Evaluation: It’s done a decent job, but the questions and answers are quite basic. 

You could probably get more from the ChatBot by first sharing a more full-fledged description of the event, and then prompting it for Q&A’s. And it’ll be up to event marketers to manually add a touch of brand personality or humor.

Time saved: 1-2 hours

‍Verdict: Very helpful

Final verdict: A friend indeed to those in need

Credit where credit is deserved: ChatGPT for event marketing delivers the goods more often than not. It cuts down time spent on research and writing, provides at least a framework of content that you can improve, and in general, speeds up your efficiency. 

This is especially effective if you combine the powers of ChatGPT and event automation - the combination of which (eg. getting ChatGPT to write your emails and then using the copy in automated email workflows), should cut your work in half. We’ll be keeping a close eye on how the tool can be integrated into events in real-time which opens up even more opportunities for its use.

But don’t worry event marketers, the ChatBot won’t be replacing you - at least not just yet. 

When the chatbot does result in lackluster responses, it can only be improved by you refining the prompt or providing more complete information to the chatbot. And it’s important to note that there is still a chance that it will create false or inaccurate information so will need a human marketer to check and approve everything it produces.

In the end, it’s a partnership between you as the event marketer and the AI. As with all friendships, you get out of it what you give.

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Other B2B event marketing tasks that you can use ChatGPT for:

• Attendee surveys
• Putting together event agendas
• Writing scripts for hosts 
• Create scripts for videos
• Creating promotional posts about/for your speakers
• Post-event landing page copy and promotions