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As a B2B marketer, staying up-to-date with the latest strategies and best practices is essential to your success. Now, a classic way to do this is by reading renowned books that have helped many a B2B marketer (scroll down to see our top picks!)

But since books may not be everybody’s go-to medium to learn these days, we’ve also curated some super-insightful podcasts that you can listen to no matter where you are! 

So without further ado, let’s get right to it.

 The B2B bookworm’s definitive wishlist:

For our list of must-read books for every B2B marketer, we’ve put together a good mix of thought leadership, actionable takeaways and a generous serving of inspiration. So if you’ve kept your reading habit alive in this digital age, firstly, we salute you! 

Set the mood, put on your reading light and zone out from the rest of the world with any of these valuable reads:

1. "Predictable Revenue" by Aaron Ross: This book provides a step-by-step guide to building a predictable and scalable B2B sales process. It covers topics such as developing a targeted prospect list, creating a sales script, and using outbound sales to drive revenue.

2. "The Marketing Performance Blueprint" by Paul Roetzer: The great thing about this book is that it readily offers a framework for improving marketing performance and driving results. It covers topics such as setting marketing goals, measuring success, and creating a culture of continuous improvement.

3. "The Challenger Sale" by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson: This book focuses on the importance of challenging the status quo and teaching customers something new in the B2B sales process. It offers strategies for creating value and differentiating yourself from the competition.

4. "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" by David Meerman Scott: Talk about a true classic in the field of B2B marketing and PR! This book covers the fundamental shift that has occurred in how businesses market and communicate with their audience. Scott provides practical advice on how to use the internet and social media to reach and engage with customers in a more authentic and effective way.

5. “Unleash Possible: A Marketing Playbook that Drives B2B Sales” by Samantha Stone: In this read, Samantha doesn’t just tell you what you need to do in order to facilitate high-growth marketing in a complex selling environment, but also tells you how you can do it. If partnering with sales to get the right results is on top of your priority list (and it should be), this is an important read!

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Plug into these podcasts

As of December 2022, podcasts had approximately 424 million listeners worldwide! And it’s no surprise - in this world where convenience is highly regarded, podcasts have the unique ability to permeate into all kinds of daily activity - you can consume podcast content when you’re travelling, on your morning jog, during your drive to work or even when you’re in bed!

Here are the shows that made it to our list:

1. "The B2B Marketing Show": Tune in to this show to listen to a wide range of B2B marketing topics, including content marketing, lead generation, and sales enablement.
2. "B2B Growth Show": This podcast is a gem if you’re looking for interviews with B2B marketing experts, entrepreneurs, and business leaders who share their insights on how to grow a B2B business. The hosts cover a wide range of topics, including content marketing, lead generation, sales, and customer acquisition.
3. "The B2B Revenue Executive Experience": Geared towards B2B sales and marketing professionals, this show features interviews with executives who share their experiences and insights on how to drive revenue growth. The show covers topics such as lead generation, sales enablement, customer experience, and more.
4. "The B2B Mix Show": This podcast is designed for B2B marketers and features interviews with industry experts and thought leaders who share their insights on the latest trends and best practices in B2B marketing. The hosts cover a wide range of topics, including content marketing, lead generation, social media, and more.
5. Backstage with Zuddl: Last but not the least, we have our own podcast on B2B events that we totally recommend. Since events are going to be a core part of driving revenue in 2023, we highly recommend you tune into our show to get on-ground insights from marketing leaders in the event industry. To start with, check out our super-popular episode with special guest Emily Kramer, co-founder of MKT1.

So there you have it, folks! Whether you prefer to learn through reading or listening, these books and podcasts offer valuable insights and strategies for B2B marketers looking to stay ahead of the game!

Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

2023. This new year brings B2B marketers the opportunity to be better and do better than last year.  This means that over the next 365 days, you can:

• catch up on everything you avoided learning in 2022
• sharpen your skills
• learn from the smartest people in the industry

There are a variety of ways to do this based on your learning style - you can read articles or LinkedIn threads online, listen to a podcast or attend some of the best B2B marketing events throughout the year. The perks? Based on the format of the event, it’s highly probable that you won’t have to travel, you can eschew awkward small talk, no one can tell if you’re wearing PJs whilst attending, and you’ll come away with insights and skills that create a competitive advantage in the modern digital climate.

While there are plenty of b2b events in 2023 you could attend, we’ve whittled the list down to those we think are worth your time and attention.

<p><a href="#jan-b2b" >January 2023 events</a></p>

<p><a href="#feb-b2b" >February 2023 events</a></p>

<p><a href="#march-b2b" >March 2023 events</a></p>

<p><a href="#april-b2b" >April 2023 events</a></p>

<p><a href="#may-b2b" >May 2023 events</a></p>

<p><a href="#june-b2b" >June 2023 events</a></p>

<p><a href="#aug-b2b" >August 2023 events</a></p>

<p><a href="#sep-b2b" >September 2023 events</a></p>

<p><a href="#oct-b2b" >October 2023 events</a></p>

<p><a href="#nov-b2b" >November 2023 events</a></p>

<p><a href="#dec-b2b" >December 2023 events</a></p>

‍

<span id="jan-b2b"><h2>JANUARY</h2></span>

‍Lead Generation World

When: Jan 8-10

Event type: In-person - San Diego

Why attend: The first recommendation in our event calendar is Lead Generation World. This b2b event brings together practitioners and experts in the field to help advertisers and lead buyers successfully navigate the lead generation ecosystem.

Attendees can expect to receive highly targeted and insightful content alongside exclusive networking opportunities with companies that can support their efforts.

<span id="feb-b2b"><h2>FEBRUARY</h2></span>

Global Virtual Martech Summit: Conceptualising the Future of MarTech

When: February 27 - March 1

Event type: In-person - Scottsdale, Arizona

Why attend: The three day B2B event features 80+ sessions and 20+ case studies around ABM, content strategy, demand generation, sales enablement and more, giving marketers practical hands-on insight into a variety of use-cases, and encouragement on what can be achieved.

This year, attendees can learn from inspirational marketing leaders such as:

• Arthur Castillo, Head of Dark Social & Evangelism at Chili Piper
• Carl Ferreira, Director of Sales at Refine Labs
• Dan Cafiero Senior Program Manager, ABM and Paid Media at Seagate
• Justin Keller VP Revenue Marketing at Drift

All signs point to a highly educational and value-driven experience, that should be one of the top among the B2B events in 2023 you’d want to attend.

<span id="march-b2b"><h2>MARCH</h2></span>

Social Media Marketing World

When: March 13-15

Event type: In-person - San Diego, CA

‍Why attend: As its name suggests, this event is targeted towards digital marketers and social media professionals looking to discover the best insider secrets and the latest trends, and to learn strategies and tools that will help grow their business. Here’s a glimpse of some of the sessions that will be held, and the speakers leading the discussions:

• Organic social marketing: How to Use LinkedIn Content to Achieve Meaningful Business Growth - Instructor: Daniel Kading

• Paid social marketing: The Short-Form Video Sales Letter: How to Sell More With Instagram and Facebook Ads - Instructor: Allie Bloyd

• Content marketing: Mastering YouTube Audience Development: Tips From the Pros - Instructor: Derral Eves

• Social strategy: How to Use AI Tools to Greatly Improve Your Marketing - Instructor: Paul Roetzer

It’s a B2B event where content marketers will find tactical, no-fluff information that you're not going to learn anywhere else in the world.

Adobe Summit

When: March 21-23, 2023

Event type: Hybrid - Las Vegas and virtual

Why attend: Adobe’s conference made it onto our B2B events to attend in 2022 article, and our events in 2023 list would be incomplete without it. The 3-day conference empowers attendees to discover the latest trends with more than 200 sessions and hands-on labs across 11 tracks, from juggernaut speakers across industries. 

There’s something for all stripes of B2B marketers this year, from content marketers to commerce practitioners:

Attendees will have the ​​chance to connect directly with peers and leaders from the world’s top brands. 2023’s speakers have yet to be announced, but previous speakers include:

• Shantanu Narayen, chairman and CEO of Adobe
• Rosalind Brewer, CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc.
• John Donahoe, President and CEO of NIKE
• Deborah Wahl, Global CMO at General Motors
  

Bonus: Adobe also hosts a pre-conference two days before the Summit kicks off, during which you can learn more about Adobe Experience Cloud solutions.

We love the tracks’ focus and exciting speakers - it really doesn’t get better than that.

CMO Summit

When: March 23

Event type: In-person - San Francisco, CA

Why attend: The Summit by Pavilion aims to help marketers learn the newest strategies and best practices they need to know in order to drive revenue through marketing efforts. 

Attendees can expect:

• Expert-led educational sessions, covering topics like using benchmarking data to build your budget, calculating ROI on marketing efforts, aligning sales and marketing

• Hands-on workshops to help you understand your approach to brand building

• Opportunities to network with CMOs and VPs of Marketing and Demand Generation from around the world

By attending this B2B event, you’ll get a front-row seat to learn from leaders who have succeeded in driving results for their teams. We love that it’s no-nonsense, and straight-to-the-point. This one’s a hidden gem.

<span id="april-b2b"><h2>APRIL</h2></span>

The Gathering Marketing Summit

When: April 26-29

Event type: Hybrid - In-person at Banff, Canada, and there’s a Gathering Global Online Pass available to let attendees experience content on-demand from home

Why attend: Whilst there are many reasons to attend this Summit (not least its name, location or intriguingly designed event page), at number one would be how it is billed: a safe space for business and marketing professionals to unite for inspiration, application and celebration.

Attendees are in for 3 days of 20+ workshops, keynotes and intimate Q&As from 50+ thought leaders and 12 award-winning brands.

<span id="may-b2b"><h2>MAY</h2></span>

Strategic Marketing 2023 - Reuters Events

When: May 8–9

Event type: San Diego, USA

Why attend: The conference aims to be a global platform to inspire and empower marketing leaders to map the digital DNA of your consumer, foster brand loyalty and community, and unlock innovation.

And who better to learn from than this roster of A-listers from the industry!

• Shannon Watkins, CMO, Jordan Brand at Nike 
• Kellyn Smith Kenny, Chief Marketing & Growth Officer at AT&T 
• Adrian Fung, Global CMO at eBay
• Sophie Bambuck, CMO of The North Face 
• Chris Brandt, CMO of Chipotle 
• David Skena, Global Chief Brand Officer of Krispy Kreme 
• Michelle Ganslem, VP, Global Insights and Analytics of McDonald’s

The event focuses on 4 key themes: Strategic Leadership and Growth, Brand Loyalty, Community, and Purpose, Engaging Content and Innovative Storytelling and Data Connectivity & Creativity. Each theme features insightful sessions that guarantee attendees leave with valuable insights. Here’s an example:

With delivering value at the heart of all activities and sessions at the event, Strategic Marketing 2023 doesn’t fail to impress. Definitely one of the top B2B marketing events in 2023 you won’t want to miss.

Gartner CSO & Sales Leader Conference

When: May 16 - 17

Event type: In-person - Las Vegas, NV

Why attend: At Gartner CSO & Sales Leader Conference 2023, sales leaders will gain unique actionable insights, practical tools and innovative guidance to exceed revenue targets despite the unrelenting uncertainties caused by inflation, talent scarcity and supply chain disruptions.

The event’s agenda tracks are carefully curated to this end, with each directly addressing topical challenges and goals faced by chief sales officers, sales operations leaders, and sales enablement leaders. Here’s a snapshot of the tracks and some of the sessions offered.

Track A: Reinventing Sales Strategies to Drive Growth

• Gartner Opening Keynote: Prioritizing the Human Touch: Connecting the Buyer, Seller and Sales Leader of The Future
• From No to Yes. Getting CFOs to Green Light Your Proposals in a Recession
• CSO Circle Roundtable: If You Build It, They Will Come: Commercial Coalition Around A Single Source Of Data Truth

Track B: Enabling the Commercial Organization of Tomorrow

• Be Choosy in Selecting a Sales Training Provider: The Must-Haves
• Making the Shift From Sales Enablement to Revenue Enablement
• Ask the Expert: How Can I Make Sense Out of Sense Making?

Track C: Revolutionizing Sales Operations for Greater Scope and Impact

• Winning Over Sales Ops Stakeholders... Even the Difficult Ones
• Look Under the Hood: 4 Levers to Developing High Quality Pipeline
• Ask the Expert: Artificial Intelligence & Future of Sales Compensation: The Possibilities to Be Prepared

Track D: Optimizing Revenue Technology to Boost Engagement

• Ask the Expert: How to Design a PRM Stack to Power Up Your Channel Partners
• 3 Strategic Technology Trends for CSOs to Watch
• Roundtable: RevTech Group Therapy - Share Your Horror Stories and Celebrate Your Wins With Revenue Technology Adoption

There’s also built-in time to network and learn from experts, thanks to:

• Roundtables where you can join sales executive peers from leading organizations to discuss relevant topics inspired by the latest research.
• The CSO Circle wherein you can join a cohort of vetted, senior sales leaders to enhance your leadership and business skills during these exclusive and interactive sessions.
• Workshops in which you solve current issues and develop new skills with your peers during these intensive and educational group exercises.

This one’s a must-attend.

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Gainsight Pulse

When: May 17 - 18

Event type: In-person: San Francisco

Why attend: Pulse is the world's largest gathering of Customer Success, Product, and Community professionals. It brings together business leaders and practitioners every year to share ideas, strategize best practices, and build relationships with the larger community. Over the last 10 years, Pulse has been home to more than 5,500 in-person attendees and more than 20k virtual attendees spanning six continents.

Accordingly, there’s something for everyone at Gainsight. Here’s a snapshot of the agenda:

Speakers this year include:

• Bart Hammond, Chief Customer Officer from Drift
• Christina Kosmowski, Chief Executive Officer of LogicMonitor, and
• Ryan Neu, Co-Founder & CEO of Vendr amongst others.

Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo 2023: Marketing’s New Directive: Reprioritize, Rethink, Realign

When: May 22 – 24

Event type: In-person - Denver, CO

Why attend: The Gartner Marketing Symposium is a gathering for marketing leaders to advance their thinking as strategic leaders and learn cutting-edge marketing practices to drive efficient growth.

The 2023 agenda is filled with tracks for CMOs and marketing executives, customer experience and loyalty leaders, marketing operations and analytics leaders, as well as digital marketing leaders. Here’s a glimpse of what to expect:

Sessions will be led by the world’s leading marketing experts. 

While this year’s line-up is still being finalized, if it’s anything like 2022’s roster (Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO, Accenture, General David H. Petraeus, Director, CIA (2011-2012), Nicole Malachowski, First Woman Thunderbird Pilot, and Mike Krzyzewski, Head Men's Basketball Coach, Duke University (1980 – 2022), attendees are in for a very exclusive experience.

The Ascent San Francisco Summit

When: May 23-24

Event type: In-person - San Francisco

‍Why attend: If you’re a CEO, CFO, CMO, CRO, VP or Director of a $20M-to-$1BN company, then this event is for you. Join 1,000+ business leaders for a bespoke networking and learning experience in which you’ll deep dive into the specific topics and challenges you’re facing today at work.

And just to give you an idea of who you’ll be meeting and interacting with - these are the companies that attended last year.

There are some really interesting sessions that you’ll be able to attend. A few of our favourites from the agenda:

• How to Craft a Value Proposition That Resonates in an Uncertain Macroenvironment led by Stacey Epstein, Chief Marketing Officer - Freshworks
• Listen UP!: How To Tune in to Customers & Turn Down the Noise by Karen Mangia Vice President, Customer & Market Insights - Salesforce
• How Sales Teams are Turning to AI to Protect Revenue and Drive Efficiencies Amidst Economic Uncertainty by Udi Ledergor, Chief Evangelist - Gong

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Customer Marketing Summit

When: May 24 - 25

Event type: Las Vegas

Why attend: Whether you’re a beginner or the leader of your team, you’ll leave with the insight you need to elevate your role through a three-pronged approach:

• Learn via interactive sessions that support you with the tactics, methods and strategies you need to know

• Discover tech solutions that can amplify your efforts and effectiveness

• Join a community to form genuine connections and create valuable relationships.

We love this holistic approach, especially since as an attendee, you’ll be rubbing shoulders with professionals from the world’s largest companies and most exciting startups such as Slack, Square, Adobe, Cisco, Ebay, Hubspot, Stripe, Amazon, Google, Deliveroo, Meta and Salesforce.

Sign us up!

‍B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC

When: 24-25 

Event type: In-person - Sydney, Australia

Why attend: This is APAC's largest B2B marketing conference focused on pipeline, revenue, growth, brand, leadership and personal career advancement! 600+ B2B CMOs and marketing leaders will gather to discuss their roles as business leaders driving revenue and growth while ensuring they personally stay relevant as modern marketers.

There are an incredible 70 speakers lined up this year. Here’s just a few:

And there’s an incredible variety of tracks and sessions on offer such as 

• GTM Strategy and Leadership
• Martech Audit, ROI & Optimisation
• Growing Brand with Demand
• Marketing with Small Budgets, Resources & Teams
• AI
• Programs to engage with the C-Suite
• Attribution reporting ROI

There’s so many incredible sessions on offer - marketers attending this event will be spoiled for choice.

SaaStock USA

When: May 31 - June 2

Event type: In-person - Austin, Texas

Why attend: SaaStock is a conference for SaaS founders on the journey to $10M+ ARR and beyond, and the event bills itself as gathering ‘the highest concentration of SaaS decision makers, with 68% of all attendees in leadership roles.’ This makes it the perfect environment for SaaS founders and their teams to grow their network, and build valuable connections.

60+ speakers have been carefully hand-picked because they’re proven to be world-class leaders, trendsetters and disruptors in SaaS. The lineup this year includes:

• Nathan Latka Founder & CEO, Founderpath
• Chris Walker CEO, Refine Labs
• Meghan Keaney Anderson VP Marketing, Jasper
• Noah Kagan Co-founder & Chief Sumo, AppSumo
• Godard Abel Co-founder & CEO, G2
• Scott Ernst, CEO, Drift
• Stevie Case, CRO, Vanta

We'd go to listen to these speakers alone.

<span id="june-b2b"><h2>JUNE</h2></span>

B2B Summit North America - Forrester

When: June 5-7

Event type: Hybrid: In-person at Austin,TX,  and Virtual

Why attend: Forrester’s B2B Summit empowers professionals with the information and insight they need to make bolder, smarter decisions in a turbulent 2023 landscape. The B2B event is laser-focused on giving marketing professionals actionable insights that they can put to use immediately to improve the bottom-line. 

To this end, the event has more than 100 role-based sessions aligned to the priorities of B2B marketing and sales executives and leaders in ABM, sales enablement, product marketing, digital demand, channel marketing etc. 

Speakers include:

• Dara Treseder CMO, Autodesk
• Bob Safian Advisor and Podcast Host, The Flux Group
• Cheryl Cook, Senior Vice President Global Partner Marketing, Dell Technologies, and
• Cindy Matos, VP of Transformation and Governance, IBM

Get everything you need to know about B2B marketing in 2023 in one go.

‍SaaStr Europa 2023

When: June 6-7

Event type: In-person - London, England

Why attend: : With 10,000+ SaaS executives, founders, and VCs all gathering for 100+ workshops and sessions 1,000 brain dates and mentorship sessions,Meet-A-VC 1:1 meetings, etc. it's clear that SaaStr is the B2B event to attend for anyone who works in SaaS.

This year’s speaker lineup includes:

And even a glimpse at the agenda will convince you of its value. We love the following sessions:

• Customer Centricity: Founder Secrets to Hitting Hypergrowth with Vanta
• 3 Crucial Steps to Successfully Hiring Your First Head of Sales with Greenhouse and Growth by Design’. ‘The Most Important Marketing Lessons Learned from Zapier and HubSpot with Zapier's CMO
• From 2 Weeks of Runway to a $1.5B Valuation: The Founder Playbook with Loom's CEO
  
  ‍And that’s just Day 1!

This one’s a definite ‘yes’ when you’re trying to decide which B2B events in 2023 you should attend.

Collision Conference

When: June 26 - 29

Event type: Toronto, Canada

Why attend: Called ‘The Olympics of Tech” by Politico, Collision brings together the people and companies redefining the global tech industry for 3 days of networking, learning, lead generation, and exposure.

They've got a great and diverse speaker roster this year as well:

• Adam Selipsky, CEO, Amazon Web Services
• Michelle, Co-founder, President and COO of Cloudflare
• David Singleton, CTO, Stripe
• Dave Rogenmoser Co-founder & CEO Jasper
• ​​Max Lytvyn Co-founder Grammarly

<span id="aug-b2b"><h2>AUGUST</h2></span>

MozCon

When: August 7-9

Event type: In-person - Seattle, WA

Why attend: MozCon bills itself as ‘Not Your Typical Marketing Conference’ and one look at their three-day event agenda will convince you to sign right up. Each day is filled with a great mix of activities - non-stuffy networking sessions, breaks for meals, and expert sessions delivered by the best and brightest in SEO, search marketing, mobile, conversion optimization, local search, and more. Here’s a quick glance:

Catalyst

When: August 21 - 23

Event type: In-person - Denver, Colorado

‍Why attend: At the world's leading partnerships conference, attendees can expect interactive and insightful content, unrivaled networking opportunities, and actionable takeaways to achieve your goals. This one’s a hidden gem.

Just take a look at all the companies that attended last year:

And this year, there are some terrific speakers lined up including:

• Aditya Basu, Partner Programs, Adobe
• Adrienne Coburn, Director, Partner Programs, Oyster
• Brianna Chapman, Strategic Partnerships, Ryder Ecommerce by Whiplash
• Tim Tsao, Head of Programs, Stripe

<span id="sep-b2b"><h2>SEPTEMBER</h2></span>

INBOUND 2023

When: September 5-8

Event type: In-person - Boston, MA

Why attend: Forbes called Hubspot’s annual event ‘Inbound’, “A must-attend event for agency owners and marketing professionals”, and for good reason. The event is one of the world's largest marketing conferences, with 26,000+ attendees from 110 countries taking part. 

The three day event always has tracks for Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, HubSpot Academy, and RevOps, with each featuring workshops by industry experts, fun activities, and opportunities to network. 

And the event always pulls in the biggest names in the world. Past speakers have included: Barack Obama, Viola Davis, and Dr. Jane Goodall. 

With speakers like these and session topics that cater to all types of B2B marketers, the conference is truly a value-driven source of knowledge and inspiration. 

SaaStr Annual 2023

When: September 6-8

Event type: In-person - SF Bay Area

Why attend: SaaStr, as everyone one in the B2B marketing world knows, is the world's largest SaaS community event on the planet, bringing together cloud and SaaS professionals from around the globe to learn from the top founders, VCs and execs in SaaS. From the CEOs of Slack and Zoom, to the founders of Datadog and Atlassian, to break-out leaders from Calendly to Flexport, everyone who's anyone comes to SaaStr.

In 2022, the event drew 10,101 attendees across 3+ days. 

12,750 mentorship connections were made. 

1,931 Braindates and mentorship sessions were hosted. 

There were 324 VCs in and 457 Founders in the Meet-a-VC Program. 

Plus, everyone let loose at a party hosted by DJ Duke Dumont! 

2023 looks to take things up a notch with more speakers, workshops, Braindates and more. 

Content

• 50+ hours of actional content and tactical takeaways 
• 300+ speakers from leading SaaS and Cloud companies

Networking

• 1,000+ 1:1s via Braindate 
• 100s of interactive, expert-led roundtables capped at 20 to ensure speaker & audience conversation 
• Dozens of workshops: deep-dives from up & coming leaders in SaaS

Funding

• Get funded at SaaStr Annual through our yearly Meet a VC program 
• Meet fellow founders and execs at your company stage
•  Pitch your startup live at our new pitch stage

Well-worth your time.

Dreamforce

‍When: September 12–14

Event type: In-person - San Francisco

Why attend: Salesforce's massive event pulls in tens of thousands of attendees every year to a temporary “national forest” in San Francisco. And it's no surprise why. Dreamforce always features a speaker lineup of heavy-hitters and A-listers. Just look at 2022's roster:

Furthermore, with 1000+ sessions to choose from, there's no doubt you will be able to learn from some of the brightest minds and biggest thought leaders in your industry. According to a survey conducted by Salesforce, 87% of Dreamforce attendees learned something that helped to accelerate company growth, while 86% solved an organizational challenge with learnings from the event. You can't argue with those results!

We've put together a quick but concise breakdown of everything you can expect at the conference this year. Click here to read.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2023

When: September 19 - 21

Event type: In-person - San Francisco

Why attend: Join thousands of the most motivated and ambitious founders, investors and tech builders for a 3-day conference focused on breaking technology news and developments  driven by big-name thought leaders. 

The three main takeaways from attending:

• Make connections that count: Whether you want to meet founders or investors, get advice or find your next gig, you’ll find the right people here.

• Tee up your tech stack: Learn what you need to know and grow in your industry.

• Hear directly from seasoned founders: Learn their best practices, how-tos, actionable tips and takeaways to help you avoid pitfalls as you build your own founder roadmap.

This year features 6 new intriguing tracks:

1. Sustainability Stage -  Discover emerging technologies that transform the way we engage with our environment, impact society and how we move from place to place.

2. Fintech Stage - Learn about the technology that is powering new ways of capturing and distributing value and wealth.

3. AI Stage  - Dig into the science behind the deep tech, the products it powers and the ethical, social and legal challenges that come with it.

4. Security Stage -  Gain the keys to protecting sensitive information and thwarting hackers intent on unlocking details of your business and your life.

5. Hardware Stage - Learn the mechanics and code behind the machines that enable us to get things done smarter, faster, and more efficiently.

6. SaaS Stage - Uncover Software-as-a-Service tools that reveal insights, power productivity and allow creativity and efficiency to blossom within your organization.

We’d sign up for this alone!

But it gets better. Here’s whom you can expect to learn from at the event:

We're excited for this one.

Outreach Women in Sales Summit

When: September 19 - 21

Event type: In-person - Napa, CA

Why attend: This Summit hosted by Outreach (the leading sales execution platform helping revenue organizations create and close more pipeline) aims to help you build your network of women sales leaders and allies, energize your body and mind, and develop actionable strategies to attract and grow more women in B2B sales.

It’s got a fantastic line-up of speakers! Venus Williams for one.

You can also look forward to hearing from:

• Mary Shea VP, Global Innovation Evangelist, Outreach
• Hang Black, VP Global Revenue Enablement GTM at Juniper Networks
• Jennifer Van Buskirk Executive Vice President and General Manager of Mid-Markets at AT&T Business
• Timothy Hudson, Global Vice President of Sales Excellence, Honeywell

And their agenda is packed with actionable, insightful sessions. Here’s just a few that we liked:

• Breakout: Take Agency of Your Adversity
  Inclusion does not ensure equality. Be clear on whether an invitation to the room is to serve, to sit, or to speak. Now is the time to stand.

• Panel: How Culture Impacts Outcomes (Personally, Professionally, Organizationally)
  ‍Building culture benefits everyone, but it's not for the faint of heart. Our panel of sales executives talks about what it takes to create and maintain a strong culture in today’s environment.

• Code Pink: It's Time to Create Sales Cultures Where Women Thrive 
  ‍It’s time to get more intentional about creating sales cultures that work for women. Get advice backed by research on how to create an environment where women sellers not only want to join, but will stay and thrive.

Definitely worth your time.

Product Marketing Summit

When: September 21 - 23

Event type: In-person - San Francisco

Why attend: PMM peers can come together for 2 days of networking, knowledge-sharing, keynotes, roundtables, and more. As an attendee, you will learn how to:

• Supercharge your go-to-market strategy
• Nail your product-market fit, understanding key personas and utilizing segmentation
• Measure PMMs impact and proving value across your org amongst other topics.

Speaker snapshot

‍Here are some of the hand-selected PMM experts you'll be learning from:

• Jon Rooney, Vice President of Product Marketing, Unity
• Tim Bowman, Head of Competitive Intelligence, Asana
• Julien Sauvage, Vice President Corporate & Product Marketing, Clari
• Julian Clarke, Director & Head of Product Marketing, Lattice
• Ted Fernandez, Global Head of Product Marketing, TikTok
• Ben Rawnsley-Johnson, Head of Product Marketing, Atlassian

A fantastic line-up.

You won't want to miss this.

<span id="oct-b2b"><h2>OCTOBER</h2></span

MarketingProfs B2B Forum

When: October 4-6

Event type: Virtual, and in-person at Boston

Why attend: B2B Forum is the ultimate destination for marketers to discover how to drive growth, elevate brand reputation, prove ROI, and stay ahead of the ever-changing marketing curve. You can look forward to tactical sessions, inspirational keynotes, and immeasurable connections. 

There’s something for all stripes of marketers. Some of the sessions that caught our eye:

• Using Content Marketing and SEO to Fill Your Pipeline
• Demand Gen: Score, Plan, Convert
• Email Marketing Rules: Modernize Email and Build Relationships
• Managing the People Who Manage the Machines

And our favourite: ‘Your Customer Is a Flamingo: Understanding the Many Routes They Take and the Content That Serves Them on Their Journey’

They've got a great lineup as well, including:

And to top it all, there's plenty of fun shenanigans in store as well - we're not joking, there's literally a section in the Program named specifically for this. Besides a 'Welcome Home' party, you can go on a Boston Photo Walk, attend a Dine & Doodle activity, and attend a 'B2B Carnival of Connections'. Not going to lie, we'd attend for these reasons alone.

SaaStock Europe (Dublin)

When: 16-19 October

Event type: In-person - Dublin

Why attend: Lauded as “the best SaaS Conference for founders, execs and investors in Europe, period”, this three day-event aims to help drive back-to-back, meaningful conversations with fellow SaaS founders, future customers, or 400+ investors to fund your SaaS.

It also aims to deliver unrivalled, actionable content through carefully picked 150+ speakers. 

This year's lineup features:

• Victor Riparbelli, the Co-founder and CEO of Synthesia, the world’s leading AI video creation platform for enterprises
• Denise Hemke, Chief Product Officer at Checkr, which powers the fastest, fairest background checks for businesses of all sizes
• Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing at Jasper, anAI writing tool designed to aid content creation.
• Philippe Botteri, Partner at Accel.

Sessions are carefully curated under tracks such as 'Accelerate Stage', 'Bootstrap Stage', 'Growth Stage', 'Founders toolkit', 'Sales Excellence' etc so that the content you can consume is hyper contextualized to you. We saw plenty of sessions we'd love to catch, including:

• How to Effectively Market With Little to No Budget presented by Angeley Mullins CCO, Resourcify (we're expecting this to be a packed house)

• Structure. Strategy. Standards: How To Change the Way Your Team Operates in an AI World presented by Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing at Jasper (especially pertinent with AI's growing omnipresence)

• Product is King, PLG Trifecta is King Kong presented by Pietro Bezza , the Co-founder & Managing Partner, Connect Ventures (not going to lie,we'd sign up for this session based on the title alone)

• Work Smarter, Live Smarter - How Unicorn Founders View The Ultimate Work/Life Balance For Success presented by Matt Cretzman Founder & CEO, Stormbreaker Digital and Tony Jamous Co-founder & CEO, Oyster ( a useful session no matter your profile).

2023 ANA Masters of Marketing Conference

When: October 24 – 27

Event type: Hybrid: In-person at Florida, and Virtual 

Why attend: This B2B marketing conference showcases the creative thinking and inspirational strategies that the world’s top CMOs and leading brands have implemented to meet and exceed their customer needs, drive growth, and inspire change. Indeed, its slogan this year is 'Force for Growth. Force for Good'.

The conference is known for its lineup of speakers and this year's roster follows that trend with a fantastic roster that spans marketing leaders from Crayola, The Coca-Cola Company, Mastercard, Hilton and to top it all, Jon Bon Jovi 🤯. Here's a list of heavy-hitters you can expect at the conference - shortened for the sake of brevity:

• Brad Audet, Chief Marketing Officer, Mazda North American Operations
• Bryan Bachner, Managing Director APAC & the Americas, FC Barcelona
• Adrienne Hayes, VP Marketing Global Devices & Services, Google
• Christy Hoskins, Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, La-Z-Boy Inc.
• Marissa Jarratt, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing and Sustainability Officer, 7-Eleven, Inc.
• Jocelyn Johnson, CMO, Girl Scouts of the USA
• Jon Bovi, Musician Extraordinaire
• Victoria Lozano, Executive Vice President of Marketing, Crayola
• Eli Lehrer Executive, Vice President & Head of Programming, The HISTORY® Channel
• Shakir Moin, Chief of Marketing, Coca-Cola North America, The Coca-Cola Company

The conference agenda is peppered with sessions curated to help you drive immediate impact at work (such as 'The internet is broken. Let's fix it', 'Merging Purpose-driven marketing with Gen Z data', and 'Are B2B and B2C Marketing and Brand Evolution really different?').

And did we mention that Bon Jovi will be performing?

Ambition Sales Summit

When: Late October 

Event type: Nashville, TN

Why attend: This one-day event is designed for any current sales leader looking to maximize their knowledge of revenue performance tactics and tools. Sessions are dedicated to inspirational-yet-practical knowledge sharing with thought leaders, and unparalleled networking with practitioners who will solve tomorrow’s sales challenges today. The conference is stacked with speakers from the biggest enterprise companies and smartest startups including Zoom, T-Mobile, Cisco, the Atlanta Braves, ADP, and more.

There's so much valuable content to absorb at the conference, and we particularly like the sessions focus on step-by-step actionable insights that can be put to use right away, such as:

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<span id="nov-b2b"><h2>NOVEMBER</h2></span>

Surf & Sales

When: November 27 - December 1

Event type: In-person - Playa Grande, Costa Rica

‍Why attend: Sales and revenue leaders, or anyone who wants to level up their sales or leadership game, build real, lasting relationships with other successful leaders in the industry can look forward to a week of reflection, learning, and growth - not to mention, surfing - in Costa Rica!

Days start with surfing lessons (tailored to your ability level) followed by daily sales workshops, trainings, and peer-led seminars with topics including sales management, recruiting, scaling and more.

Here are some sessions from earlier editions of the event to give you an idea of what you can expect:

- Intro to NEAT and Addiction Selling Models; Coaching: How to Self-Correct without Self-Destructing

- Enlisting Sales Ops to Take Sales to the Next Level

- How to Scale: Leading Through Change and Building Big Things, and more.

Packages are all inclusive of lodging, transportation, meals, surf instruction, 1-on-1 Coaching Sessions.

Check back soon for the full agenda and information on speakers.

<span id="dec-b2b"><h2>DECEMBER</h2></span>

AWS re:Invent

When: Nov 27 - Dec 1

Event type: In-person - Las Vegas, NV

Why attend: AWS re:Invent bills itself as “the most transformative event in tech”, inviting its global computing community to “get inspired and rethink what's possible”. It’s been around for the past 10 years, with each consecutive edition upping the ante with hard-hitting keynotes, new service announcements, fun, and inspiration.

Attendees can expect the latest news and developments in databases, analytics, machine learning, storage, etc. You can follow all the key announcements, and get a peek at the newest cloud technologies. There will be bootcamps designed to expand your understanding of AWS services and Breakout sessions, organized by experience level and led by AWS experts. At the Expo, you’ll be able to see interactive demos, and at AWS Builder Labs, devs can experience AWS in a live sandbox environment.

The breadth and depth of learning at the conference is unparalleled. Sessions are available on AI/ML, Cloud Operations, Security, Compliance, & Identity, Databases and Front-End Web & Mobile to name a few; they're curated to deliver value to those at different stages in their learning journey (beginner to expert), specific to job role and industry. Which all means that you're sure to find sessions extremely relevant to you.

Here are a couple of sessions that caught our eye:

• A Netflix story: AI performance engineering for optimization on Intel (sponsored by Intel)
• Adding AWS backbone to your network
• Are you well-architected?
• Build a serverless ordering system with toy brick
• Bot management and account takeover prevention: To block or not?
• Use generative AI to name your pet after your favorite song
• Using data to prevent heart disease and sudden cardiac death

We'll wager it's impossible to come away from the conference without uplevelling your skill or insight - albeit in areas you might not have been expecting!

Click here for a look at all the sessions available here, and book early to take advantage of reserved seating.

And there will also be AWS Builder Labs, a re:Invent Expo hall features more than 100 AWS Partner booths where you can find solutions to meet your business needs, networking opportunities with their PeerTalk platform, and a re:Invent Rec Center where you can play, and experience AWS sports collaborations like:

And what's Vegas without a show? Celebrate the final night at the annual re:Play party with exciting food catered by the infamous Wolfgang Puck, live music and all the classic re:Play activities guests have grown to love, like dodgeball and button mash.

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About Zuddl: Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

Over the past few years, the events industry has seen a rise in the prevalence of virtual events and webinars. In the association space, meeting online means that association members can still connect and share valuable resources and knowledge even when geographically separated. The success of virtual events in facilitating communication, engaging attendees, and fostering connection has solidified their use. 

Webinars allow your members to reach each other no matter where they are. Additionally, your association can seek out speakers from around the world, helping members make connections with and learn from people they may not otherwise have the opportunity to meet. In addition to providing a space for live connection, you can also record your webinars and upload the videos to your website or association management system to create a comprehensive collection of professional resources.

Your organization can take advantage of these benefits by following the necessary steps to prepare for the webinar, develop engaging content, and promote the event to your members. In this guide, we’ll walk through three strategies you can use to plan and execute a webinar your members won’t want to miss.

Prepare for the webinar

Taking the time to plan and prepare for your webinar is key to ensuring it runs smoothly and your members have a positive experience. But, it can be difficult to know where to start and how to navigate the basics of planning a webinar. Here are a few tips you can use to complete some of these first steps:

• Selecting topics. Choosing engaging topics is what will capture and keep members’ attention during your webinar. Access to resources and the opportunity to deepen their industry knowledge is a primary reason people why join associations. Offering webinars on relevant educational topics is essential to member recruitment and retention. A good way to get started is to research recent trends, technological developments, or major breakthroughs in your field and select a topic focused on one of those subjects. You could also use your association management software to research past events and determine which topics garner the most attendees.
  
  
• Sourcing speakers. Once you choose a topic, you’ll need to find an expert in your field who can bring their perspective and expertise to the webinar. While there are endless ways to source speakers, you can get started by asking members of your association to speak, requesting that members contact those in their professional network, messaging prospective speakers on platforms like LinkedIn, or using online speaker directories.
  
  
• Planning the agenda. Be sure to plan a detailed schedule that your webinar will follow and share it with everyone involved in the presentation. Estimate how long each section will take and assign times to keep everyone on track, ensuring you start and end on time. It can also be helpful to pad your schedule with a little extra time if you think there’s a chance certain speakers or sections might go over their allotted time or use this time for a Q&A between the speaker and attendees.

Once you create a detailed agenda for the event, organize at least one practice session for everyone who will speak during the webinar. Speakers will have a chance to try out their presentations without any members present, giving them an opportunity to make adjustments ahead of time. Plus, a practice run can help your association iron out any technical issues and other errors ahead of time and create smooth transitions between speakers and topics.

Ask attendees to get involved

A unique challenge associated with virtual events is keeping attendees engaged for the entire webinar to prevent members from dropping from the call early. To engage attendees during virtual webinars, give them the space to add their input and get involved during the webinar. A few ideas to try might include:

• Using pre-event surveys. Before the event kicks off, upload surveys to your social media pages, your next email newsletter, or through your association management software. Include questions like “which topics would you like to see in future webinars?” or “who are some professionals from the field you would like to hear from?” Then, use these responses to shape the content for the webinar. 
  
  
• Encouraging co-creation. In a business context, co-creation involves collaborating with customers to create a service or product. You can use the principles of co-creation in your next virtual event to turn passive viewers into active, engaged participants. For example, using and engaging with the chat feature allows you and your speaker to gauge members’ responses and field questions throughout the webinar.
  
  
• Adding polls or Q&As. You can use polls or Q&A features, considered to be a part of co-creation, in your webinars to gather important information from members that could shape the direction your webinar will take. For example, you might ask what the top challenge members face in their careers and have the speaker present on the subject that earns the most votes. You can also hold a designated Q&A section of the webinar during which the speaker calls on specific attendees and answers their questions, making them feel recognized and connected with the event.

In addition to these strategies that keep viewers engaged for the entire webinar, consider pushing the most anticipated, exciting part of the virtual event to the very end. In this case, your keynote speaker or the opportunity to ask an industry celebrity a question should be the last thing on the docket.

Leverage social media

Ensuring your webinar is engaging and runs smoothly is essential to providing your members with an enriching, positive experience. To spread the word about your next event to more current and prospective members and to learn what you can improve for future events, make sure to leverage your association’s social media accounts.

Social media is an accessible, affordable, yet highly effective means of promoting conferences, events, and webinars. Announce the event ahead of time on all of your social media pages—generally, you should announce events at least one month in advance to ensure members can fit them into their schedules. As the event draws closer, post additional graphics to remind members to attend along with any other online marketing strategies your association uses.

Once the event wraps up, you can continue to use social media to your advantage. Encourage attendees to post about the event and engage with those posts through your association’s accounts. You can also post impactful clips from the keynote speech or resources from the event to show those who didn’t attend what they’re missing and encourage them to join future events. 

Webinars are an effective tool your association can use to create additional value for its members, especially those who aren’t able to gather in person. With the right virtual event platform and association management tools, you can create a seamless, enriching experience and resource that members can reference again and again.

Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

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In Zuddl’s December product update, we bring you new features like onsite settings and the new recordings page to help you manage all your event needs from one place.

We’ve also made improvements to the registration process so that your attendees and speakers both have a seamless experience.

Magic link for speakers

Now speakers also can directly join events using magic links

Magic links, as the name suggests, allow participants to enter events simply by clicking a link, no questions asked. Earlier, only attendees could enter using magic links, but now speakers can too. You need to enable the magic link feature for speakers from the organizer dashboard. Once enabled, speakers can join the event directly when they click on the event invite link from their mailbox.

Recordings and Highlights

Access all your recordings and highlights from a single page

You can now access recordings and highlights from events, webinars, and studio under a single page. Earlier, recordings were split between studio and events, but now you can have them all together to manage them better! What's more? You can now also use event and webinar recordings to create highlights - this was a studio-specific feature earlier.

The new Onsite Settings

Onsite settings are available for in-person and hybrid events and can be used via the Zuddl Organizer app

The options that can be made available in the app are governed by the organizer-side settings. You can turn on/off features such as on-spot registrations, attendee check-ins, QR scanning, self-serve mode settings, and more. The app can also be set in the Self-serve mode as a kiosk and allow attendees to register and check-in to an event and print badges all by themselves.

Pinning polls, quizzes, and Q&As

Make your webinars more interactive with pinned polls, quizzes, and Q&As

We all know that polls, quizzes, and Q&As make webinars more interactive and engaging for audiences. This time around, we’ve gone a notch higher by allowing you to pin these interactive components to the stage, thereby adding more immersion to your webinars. Your attendees can also directly answer the polls and quizzes from the stage instead of using the sidebar, keeping their attention focused on what matters!

As an organizer, you can manage this feature from the studio backstage for webinars.

Preview the theme before you publish!

Now you can test out the theme before you actually go live

A new Mock speaker option lets you view the speaker tile layout with sample speakers before going live. You can also turn off mock speakers to test out other features such as chat, Q&A by interacting within the organizer dashboard itself.

And that's all for now, folks!

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Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

With 2023 just a whisker away, we can safely say that everybody’s curiosity to know how events will pan out in the coming year is probably at its peak… thankfully this article should help you quench your thirst.

As per our recent industry report, 2022 saw the comeback of in-person events. It was a welcome change as people had reached a saturation point when it came to engaging with a digital screen. However, the virtual element didn’t go anywhere - we saw B2B marketers continue to run webinars, virtual and hybrid events alongside in-person experiences; something we’d never seen before!

Now with the events world seeing so many firsts over the last few years, it’s only natural to expect 2023 to throw surprises at us. While there are some things beyond our control as event marketers, such as economic uncertainty or a pandemic (COVID-19, please don’t come back), what can we do to stay prepared for what’s to come?

It starts with getting the right insights - backed by on-ground learnings. That’s exactly why Bharath Varma, our CEO & co-founder, and Ketan Pandit, our Head of Marketing, hosted a webinar to discuss key takeaways from our industry report, The Future of B2B Events in 2023. They also shared their seasoned perspective on these trends and so much more!

In case you missed the live webinar, here’s a link to the recording that you can watch on demand.

But if you’re more of a reader, we recommend that you stick around and continue reading to see highlights from their conversation!

Learnings from attending events in 2022

When Ketan asked Bharath about his experience with attending events in 2022, some interesting observations were shared.

“The year started off with a lot of virtual events and then ended with like probably the most number of in-person events that have happened over the last three years!” said Bharath. “A couple of interesting observations from from the large-scale events i went to, like Amazon Re-invent, Dreamforce, IMEX and SaaStr are that they have been able to get pretty good attendance turnout, while not at par with the 2019 levels, I'd say it was very close to those numbers.”

He also added, “However, with smaller events attracting 500-1500 attendees, marketers saw a considerable drop-off in numbers with just 50% of pre-pandemic numbers attending their events, so that is a really interesting trend right there.”‍

Why creating demand for an event has been challenging

Highlighting one of the key challenges shared by B2B marketers in our industry report - creating demand for an event, Ketan discussed how getting the right attendees, or attendees itself, to an event is getting harder than ever before.

To this, Bharath added. “It's just so much easier to get people who are dressed up and who are already in their office to go to an event than to get your work-from-home staff to move from their house. So you're essentially not just competing with other events, you're also competing with Netflix and even all the podcasts that are out there. Also, now there's also an added element of your competing with the time with one who gets to spend with their family. It's an interesting dynamic right - if you're going to step out of your house at like five o'clock in the evening for a networking dinner, it’s just a lot harder to do now especially if you your kids at home and your family at home. So yeah, it's just a lot harder to leave your house than to go from the office and that's a really interesting learning."

How B2B companies can approach choosing their event format

Later on, the duo dove into the topic of event formats. With 2022 seeing all event formats co-existing, is there a way marketers can figure out when to use virtual, hybrid or in-person formats? To this end, Bharath shared his perspective - “Companies will really get into using different formats of these events based on the goals. You can be doing events to create top of the funnel, you can be doing events to move prospects along your sales cycle in the funnel right, or you can also be doing events to retain customers like to provide more value to them. So yeah - the goals of the event, coupled with the way your customers prefer to engage, should determine what format works the best for you. ”

Key focus points when it comes to spending on event tech

As per our industry report, over 50% marketers use 4-5 tools to run an event. Now, with more tools comes more complexity. "Marketers today deal with data silos, which makes it hard for them to unify their analytics", shared Ketan. He then asked Bharath about how B2B marketers can plan their event tech keeping expenditure in mind.

“It depends on where you are as a company. For instance, if you’re a company out there using like four or five different tools - one for webinars one for user conferences, one for field events and so on and so forth, if you're able to consolidate those tools and buy one solution, the question of how much are you gonna save is beyond dollars." said Bharath.

"It’s also more in terms of how much time you're going to save that's going to allow you to just plan better even programs right like make it more personalized, understand your customers or your audience better and spend more time designing your agendas, more time curating your speakers, etc." he added.

He concluded by stating the spends are not just about the dollar spend on the tools but also this amount of time that you're spending on some important aspects to drive demand, because that’s beyond tech… so consolidating tools can give you that space for other things.

Now that we've given you a glimpse, we recommend that you check out our on-demand webinar for the full conversation.

You could also head over to our trends report for more super-useful insights.

Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

‘Tis the season to be jolly, because we’ve already been showered with presents…

That's right! We’re super excited to share that Zuddl has won over 35 recognitions across multiple markets and categories in the G2 Winter 2022 Grid® Report!

Read on for more details.

But first, here's why G2 awards are a big deal

G2 releases reports every quarter based on a company’s market presence and authentic reviews and ratings from real and verified users. Buyers swear by this report while making software purchasing decisions. 

“Rankings on G2 reports are based on data provided to us by real software buyers,” said Sara Rossio, Chief Product Officer at G2. “Potential buyers know they can trust these insights when researching and selecting software because they’re rooted in vetted, verified, and authentic reviews.”

Now, without further ado...

Here are all the awards we won in each category:

Virtual event platform

• Leader 
• Leader Mid-Market
• Leader Small-Business
• Momentum Leader 
• Best Relationship 
• Easiest To Do Business With Enterprise
• Easiest Admin Mid-Market
• High Performer Enterprise

Event management platform

• Leader 
• Best Support Mid-Market
• Easiest To Do Business With Mid-Market
• Best Support Small-Business
• Easiest To Do Business With Small-Business
• High Performer Mid-Market
• Easiest To Use 
• Best Support 
• High Performer Small-Business
• Overall High Performer 
• Easiest Setup  

Webinars

• Leader 
• Best Meets Requirements 
• Easiest To Do Business With Mid-Market
• Best Support Mid-Market
• Best Support Small-Business
• High Performer Enterprise
• High Performer Mid-Market
• High Performer Small-Business

Event registration and ticketing

• Best Support Small-Business
• Easiest To Do Business With Small-Business
• Easiest To Use 
• Best Meets Requirements 
• High Performer Mid-Market
• High Performer 
• High Performer Small-Business

Event networking and matchmaking

• High Performer Small-Business
• Best Support 

Mobile event apps

• Best Support Small-Business
• Easiest To Do Business With Small-Business
• High Performer Small-Business
• High Performer 
• Best Support

Audience response

• High Performer Small-Business
• High Performer Mid-Market
• High Performer 

Event marketing‍‍

• Users Love Us 

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Highlights that made our hearts smile!

1) Leading the pack

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While the seasons changed, we not only retained our leader position, but also added a few more categories under our belt!

2) Best support

Event marketers love predictability when it comes to running an event. To ensure you get just that, our event specialists stay with you backstage throughout your event so that there is no room for panic due to unpleasant surprises.

3) Easiest to use and set up

In a world filled with complex event tech tools, we're stoked to hear that our platform is widely regarded as user-friendly, as our aim is to simplify the way event marketers plan an execute events, no matter the scale or format.

Now, we're super pumped up to simplify events and webinars for you in 2023!

Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

We’re not quite sure who came up with the phrase "If you build it, they will come”, but clearly it was not a B2B marketer in the 21st century. 

In this era, markets are already saturated, competition is fierce, and people are extremely picky with where they choose to spend their attention and money. There is just no scenario today in which you can organize a user conference, and simply expect people to flock to your proverbial doors. 

So, as with all things B2B, you’re going to need a well-thought-out plan, consistent monitoring, quite a lot of co-ordination, and a couple of excel sheets to get the results you want for your user conference, but it’ll be well the effort (just ask anyone who’s won Product Of The Day on Product Hunt #IYKYK). To this end - and to provide you with even bigger results - use the following 6 proven promotional hacks to maximize your event registration and attendance results.

Let’s get started.

Insane Hack #1:Start promoting your user conference 6-8 weeks before the event

Ideally, you need to start about 8 weeks before the date of your event - yes, we know, it’s tempting to think that that’s too early to start talking about the conference, but trust us, the earlier the better. Just ask Haptik!

By choosing your event promotion timeline carefully, you can maximize awareness, and increase attendance at your user conference. Break down action items into monthly, and weekly tasks - this will make it easier to execute, monitor, and optimize. Here’s a sample timeline to follow:

To make sure you’re staying on schedule, create a tracker - we've made a handy one for you here including ready-to-go email templates for all your blasts and follow-ups, thank us later).

Keep an eye on your metrics to see which activities are performing the best so you can double-down on them, and which ones are lagging behind, so you can pay a little more attention to those.

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Insane Hack #2: Have event specific branding

Don’t be complacent. It’s tempting to just use the company logo and colors for your event branding, but getting your design team to come up with a unique, event-only brand that stands out is well worth the effort. Keep in mind that your target audience is already attending a couple of events every month - and probably a few every week! Great event branding helps to distinguish yours from all the others out there, and makes the experience cohesive and memorable.

Here are examples of great event branding for user conferences:

IBM’s ‘Think’ 

The conference brings together IBMers and experts from different fields for a variety of workshops, experiences, networking, talks, and education. The event branding for the conference aims to align with different business units and narratives, but expresses the journey from individual components to large-scale solutions and insightful discoveries.

Salesforce’s ‘Dreamforce’

One of the largest global conferences held, Dreamforce connects their community for three days of learning and sharing knowledge, networking, and getting inspired to ‘blaze their own trail’ - attendees are playfully known as "Trailblazers". 

The event branding follows this thread, featuring national park-themed decor and design  - tree canopies for a 100ft. forest installation for instance, or staff members dressed up as Park Rangers - that is high-tech, creative, unique, and definitely so distinct that it leaves its competitors in the dust.

The moral of these examples is to go big on your event branding. Sure, it’s more work, but will help you deliver your message more effectively and emotively, and drive the attention and footfall you need.

Insane Hack #3: Show with video

B2B marketers who use videos in their campaigns see a 34% higher conversion rate, so it’s a no-brainer to incorporate them into your promotional activities. And here are even more compelling reasons to use video in your event marketing:

• Adding video to a single promotional event email can increase click rates by 300%
• 7 out of 10 B2B buyers watch a video during the buyer journey
• People are 27 times more likely to click on an ad if its video in comparison to a static banner.

Now that the case for use is quite clear, let’s narrow down the different types of videos you can create to drive interest and engagement:

• Teaser videos: Showcasing what attendees can expect at the event is a great way to leverage FOMO to persuade those on the fence about registering for the conference. These will be especially useful in email marketing. 

• Recap videos: If your company has already hosted a user conference, video highlights of the event will remind those who attended the first time around why they should return for the second edition, and via social proof, nudge prospective attendees into registering. A great example of this is Adobe’s Max 2022 hybrid event video recap, which captures the warmth, creativity, energy and community spirit at the event. Watch it here

         MozCon’s video recap is another fantastic example, especially since it features testimonials by previous attendees. Watch it here.

• ‍Invitation videos by speakers: Getting your speakers to introduce themselves and what they’ll be discussing at the event can go a long way toward building credibility and confidence in your user conference, and the value attendees can gain by showing up. Here’s an example of this in practice - Emily Kramer, Co-founder of MKT1, introduces herself and invites B2B marketers to join her talk.

The key is to use a variety of video content to attract the attention of your target audience, and then use it to connect with emotion and empathy with prospective attendees.

Insane Hack #4:  Make it easy to spread the word

With basics in place such as using an event hashtag in your social media posts, you’ll be able to catapult visibility and awareness of your user conference. But to boost efficacy, use a social wall.

A social wall is a feed of aggregated user-generated content in real-time, pulled from across a variety of social media platforms. Adding it to your conference can pay off seriously down the road.

• Amplifies event reach: Each tweet or post share spotlighted on the social wall motivates attendees to keep posting, which strengthens visibility and awareness.

• Stokes FOMO: Showcasing memorable moments can  generate a sense of excitement and urgency, which can entice last-minute holdouts to join the event. 

This is one of the easiest tools at your disposal to help you draw more attention, so make sure that your event platform partner has the capability to showcase user-generated content from the event on social media.

Insane Hack #5: Rope in speakers for promotions

We mentioned this earlier in Hack #1 but it bears repeating: your speakers are one of the best event influencers you have at your disposal. Thanks to their credibility and reach, they can be the catalyst that makes your conference the ‘must attend’ event of the quarter. But for this to work, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to promote the conference. Here are a couple of things you can do to that end:

Insane Hack #6: Get CS and Sales teams to reach out to customers and prospects respectively

Create a leaderboard to incentivize sales and customer success to increase the number of registrations for the event.

By adding competition and recognition as additional motivation for sales and customer success colleagues, you can ensure that you’re getting more of the right people to your user conference. And with attribution in place, you can also track which AE was responsible for driving the most attendee registration. 

This cross-functional collaboration will help keep the entire company’s eyes on opportunities to rope in more attendees. Alignment across teams is challenging, but one of the most effective ways to improve promotion results.

Protip: Don’t just rely on your CS and Sales team to drive registrations. Get everyone in the company involved! But make it easy on everyone by making a little kit/drive where everyone has easy access - include essentials like creatives they can post, a hashtag they can use.

Promoting your conference effectively requires smart strategy

A clearly defined promotional plan that thoughtfully utilizes your resources is really the key to getting all the right people to your user conference. You may have to tweak your strategy as you go along, but as long as you have a schedule that covers your bases and the backing of different teams in the company, you’ll be able to generate the results you want.

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Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

Have you been in a situation where you had a killer idea for a user conference, and you were sure the agenda would drive registrations in the thousands (ok hundreds! We’re no SaaStr!)? But the audience response was a lukewarm ‘meh!’?

Nothing crushes the spirit of an event marketer like poor registration (and poor turnout!), and event folks are pretty darn tough!

Most of the times when we look at building an agenda for an event, we are put in topics and themes, and panel discussion ideas that we think are of interest to the audience. But it’s more nuanced than that. A user conference agenda needs to be a careful balance of activities that deliver value for customers and the company, for instance track learning as well as product updates, roundtable discussions as well as talks by customers. 

Let us look at some tricks to building an agenda that will guarantee a fantastic user conference.

1. See how other companies are doing it

Not just competition, look at how other companies are building agendas. Afterall, inspiration can strike from anywhere. And wasn’t it Picasso who said “good artists borrow, great artists steal.”? No, we are not advocating you lift an entire agenda off someone’s event, but it is certainly a good place to start looking for ideas. 

Taking a look at how other B2B companies have curated their agendas allows you to discover speakers, session topics and trends that you should be familiar with but have slipped your radar, as well as to see how they’re organizing the conference days.

Take for example SaaStr 2022’s agenda. (SaaStr Annual  is one of the largest B2B conferences in the world, every year bringing together 10K+ founders and entrepreneurs to learn what’s new, what’s changed, and what’s a secret in the space.)

The conference usually has something for everyone - a startup owner seeking advice on how to scale their business, a company looking for a niche B2B software solution, or your everyday B2B marketer wanting to refine their ABM strategy. The 2022 event agenda reflects this, with tracks dedicated to Growth, Scaling, Customer Success, and Team Management. 

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You’ll notice that each track offers a blend of 

• Keynote sessions
• Masterclasses and workshops
• Networking
• Mentoring sessions

So, for instance, a Revenue Leader at Saastr 2022 could attend plenty of tactical sessions from world-known founders, and Q&A rounds. 

• 10 Lessons Learned Scaling to $1B Valuation with Drift's Co-founders
• Growth Day Q&A (with Alogolia’s CEO Bernadette Nixon and CRO Michelle Adams, Zendesk’s SVP Global Marketing Prelini Udayan-Chiech, and SaaStr’s GM and SVP Amelia Ibarra)
• Scaling Revenue in 2022: What’s the Same and What's Different? with Confluent's President
• Revenue Alignment: How to Pull Marketing, Sales, Customer Success Together with Divvy's CRO
• How to Scale a Platform and Ecosystem to $10B with Atlassian's CRO

The agenda is organized so well that each day drives new learning, new connections and immeasurable value for different persona types  - as should yours.

But keep this caveat in mind:  Because a competitor did it, and it was well received does not mean that a similar agenda would work for our audience as well. Your audience is yours for a reason - you offer them something no one else does - your viewpoint. 

2. Send out before-event surveys to gauge attendee interest in session topics

Getting your attendees to weigh in on what kind of content they want to consume, and what they’re expecting to take away from your event is exactly the direction you need to build an interesting and valuable event agenda. To this end, you can conduct a simple poll on LinkedIn or check in with your Sales and Customer Success colleagues about what customers are asking about, or even post in relevant Slack communities.

You can also gauge interest by customizing your registration form, as illustrated here:

Protip: An alternative to the text box shown in the example above is to let attendees pick the session topics they are most interested in, using a multiple-choice format. You can then use this insight to plan additional panels or discussion rooms in the agenda, and create more targeted marketing materials to hand out during the event. 

PS. Involving attendees from the get-go displays thoughtfulness and commitment from the organizer’s side, and can translate to a higher level of engagement.

3. Keep event sessions length to 45 minutes with breaks in between

Your attendees are going to lose focus and energy if your webinars and event sessions last longer than a typical Netflix show episode, so it's best practice to keep them between 30 or 45-60 minutes long.  

Within each webinar or event session, set aside time for an introduction, then at least 25-30 minutes for the main speech/presentation, followed by time for Q&A. Here’s an example of a structure to follow:

How to plan in breaks for virtual conferences

Schedule regular breaks in between sessions, ideally 5-10 minutes long. 

This enables attendees to:

• Stretch their legs to stave off ‘Zoom fatigue’
• Check their email and mobile messages so they aren’t distracted during a session
• Replenish the brain’s stores of attention and motivation
• Return to the event energized and focused

Protip: Arrange wellness or fun activities such as yoga or meditation or even a game like a scavenger hunt during some breaks as “palate cleansers" to make your event more memorable and fun.

Here’s an example of session durations at SaaStock. As you can see, they can be as short as 20 minutes.

4. Arrange sessions by ‘tracks’

As seen with Saastr, sometimes there are hundreds of sessions at a conference. Using tracks lets you group them under different umbrella topics - and importantly, make them visible on the agenda. This makes it easier for attendees to navigate the agenda.

As an example, here’s how Kaltura used tracks at their Virtually Live! event. 

Event sessions are grouped under larger topics such as branding, ROI, and data. Attendees can jump from one track to another, but grouping them as such makes it easier to understand the agenda, and make a choice on what sessions to attend.

5. Catchy session titles can make a difference

This might seem like a low-priority tip compared to some of the other points in this article, but you may be surprised to find out that it's actually one of the most effective. 

If you talk to your email marketing colleague or the copywriter in the team, they’ll no doubt tell you the difference a well crafted subject line or phrase can have in driving people to take an action. The same principle applies here.

Taking a little bit of extra effort to make your session titles more catchy and creative can make your event agenda that bit more memorable and entice more attendees to attend them. Rocketlane's Propel 22 conference for customer onboarding and implementation professionals is a stellar example, with session topics so catchy that they immediately grip your attention, yet provide enough context to make you want to attend.

Protip: A simple way to approach session titles is to make it as specific as possible about a problem, a challenge, or a goal.

6. Schedule your most in-demand speakers for the beginning and the end of the day

To start strong, schedule your most important speakers at the beginning of the day. They’ll be able to energize your audience and set the tone for the rest of the day, leaving them excited and interested for what is to come.

Similarly, by scheduling a high-profile speaker for the last session of the day, you can leave attendees uplifted and inspired to return for more the next day.

7. Plan in time for attendees to network and socialize

Aside from breaks between sessions, it’s important to give attendees the opportunity to meet one another, chat, mingle and make a new friend, business connection, or even a new investor - you just never know where a conversation will take you.  To this end, it’s a must for you to organize breakout and/or networking sessions during the event schedule. 

Here’s an example of how Private Equity International built in some networking time during their CFOs & COOs Forum New York 2022.

Breakout rooms: Virtual rooms in which attendees can gather can be used as spaces for socialization - for instance, you can name Rooms after topics related to the event theme, that are sure to bring together ‘birds of a feather’ groups.

Networking sessions: Use AI-powered matchmaking to connect with attendees with like-minded or complimentary goals and interests eg. investors, and startup owners. 

Protip: Energy levels can flag in the middle of the day, after lunch, and in the middle of the evening. Scheduling breakout and networking sessions around these times can help to get attendees energized and ready to go again.

A well crafted agenda is non-negotiable

A well-crafted user conference agenda can go a long way to driving up attendance and participation rates. Put a little bit more effort and time when building your own (with the tips from this article), and you’re sure to see it pay off.

Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

IMEX is one of the largest gatherings for event people across the globe. Thousands of event planners, producers, Professional Conference Organizers (PCOs), Destination Management Companies (DMCs) and event tech people from across the world gather at IMEX to find partners, figure out the next big thing in event management and check out the latest in tech powering events. IMEX America 2022, held in Las Vegas, was Zuddl’s first trade show event as sponsor participants.

Here are some of the highlights from IMEX America 2022:

1. The event was organized at the Mandalay Bay Convention center. That is a whopping 2.1 million square feet of meeting and event space. To give you a sense of the size of the venue, TWO mega events were running in parallel - IMEX America, and ExpCon Reality - both with thousands of attendees, and it didn’t feel like we were in each other's way.
2. Large trade shows like the IMEX take months of planning, organizing and strategizing before they come to life. This was evident in a mostly incident-free four days, which is a remarkable feat anyway you look at it.
3. We were averaging about 18,000 steps a day exploring the event. Even though we had a booth to manage, we wanted to seek inspiration for our events down the line. There’s always an opportunity to learn and grow.
4. IMEX America saw about 12,000 attendees, out of which a majority, say 60%, were destinations. So you could literally walk down from Boston to Puerto Rico to Canada, in the same aisle!
5. Another 30 percent were hotels and venues that wanted to be the destination of choice for buyers.
6. The remainder were event tech vendors, like Zuddl, with tools and platforms that support event execution. 

Who is the IMEX for?

I'm glad you asked. 

When you participate in a third party event, your goals could be one of two broad things - brand awareness and/or generating leads. Or you could be at an event just to meet your existing customers. Either way, choosing the right event is crucial to get a positive ROI.

At IMEX America, you will meet a lot of event planners, and associations. So if event planners and associations are your ICP, IMEX is the place to be. You’ll be meeting independent event organizers as well as large event consulting organizations. Between them, they run events of any scale - from a 100 attendee get-togethers to over 15000 attendee concerts!

Another fantastic takeaway from IMEX was the hundreds of event destinations to choose from. If you are tasked with shortlisting venues for your next in-person or hybrid event, then you’ll find a lot of options to consider at IMEX. 

With a lot of event tech vendors in attendance, IMEX also offered a wide array of tools and platforms for buyers to run their events. From face detection technology to audience engagement, and badge printing vendors to event hosting platforms - they were all in attendance.

How to get the best out of IMEX?

Now with over 12,000 registered attendees, hundreds of hosted buyers, and tons of exhibitors, it can be a really overwhelming three days if meetings and activities are not planned out well in advance. We did our homework, and knew exactly what to expect. Even then, we weren’t able to cover as much as we would have liked. 

Here are some tips to help you make the most of IMEX (or any large conference for that matter):

Book meetings way in advance

And by that I mean as early as four weeks before the conference begins. IMEX had a portal for buyers to contact vendors, and for vendors to run campaigns, which isn’t the best out there, but it was still something. Since IMEX is a buyer-first conference, it made sense for buyers to reach out to vendors. And each hosted buyer group had definite meeting targets to meet, so you could be sure that meetings would not be ghosted.  

Book your booth in advance ‍

Most booth sponsors lock in their booths as soon as the event is announced. This helps them secure the best possible location for their budget. And at events, it is all about location location location! 

Follow up quickly

Make it a priority to follow up with booth visitors and leads as soon as possible after the event. The likelihood of them remembering the conversation drops significantly as time passes by. 

Create memorable giveaways

‍You will be long remembered for brilliant swag than a run-of-the-mill pen. Don’t get me wrong - pens are great, but how many conference swag pens can someone have? We took these brilliant water bottles/sippers, stickers, buttons and tote bags that flew off our shelves faster than we could restock. Now someone’s child somewhere knows of Zuddl (or Zoodle :P)

Zuddl X  IMEX America 2022 1

Wear comfortable shoes

I cannot stress this enough. I saw people changing into sneakers by the second half of the first day. These convention centers are huge, and you will need to walk from one part to the other. Comfortable feet make for comfortable days.

So there you have it folks. Hope this helps you drive more value from your events. 

See you at IMEX (or some other event!) soon!

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Recommended read: Here's a sneak peek of event trends in 2023 as per our latest report.

Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

Of tools and tribulations - the current scenario

As an event marketer, if you're asked to describe how you run your events, our guess is that your response is likely to be, “Oh, where do I start! I use a plethora of tools to execute just one event.”... and this will probably be followed by a detailed description that paints a vivid picture about the sheer complexity of running an event… so on and so forth…

 … and that’s totally justified, because it’s true. 

Today, event marketers rely on many independent tools for specific tasks across the event lifecycle, such as:

• Creating a landing and registration page
• Setting up email communication and reminders
• Setting up the event (usually on Zoom or any other virtual event platform)
• Downloading session recordings and manually sending those heavy files for edits on another tool
• Downloading registrant/attendee lists and uploading them onto their CRM tool
• Building reports to see which leads attended (manually using Excel or Sheets)
• Building an after-event report that can be shared with the sales team

And while each of these tools are reliable, this multi-tool approach to events leaves a whole lot of room for speed bumps, stress and scattered data.

• Too many tools to manage and pay for
• Poor attendee turnout because email communication is broken or not configured correctly
• No clear picture of attendee behavior across multiple events
• Dependence on external support
• Delay in sharing content after the event
• No usable insights because of data silos
• Minimal sales and marketing collaboration because sales has no context of attendee behavior at the event

The obvious follow-up question to this is, is there a better way to run events? 

The answer is Yes… with Zuddl’s unified platform.

How humble! Now tell me, what does Zuddl’s unified platform do?

At its core, it simplifies the event tech stack and solves for better sales and marketing collaboration, optimizes the total cost of ownership, and makes it simpler for event teams of all sizes to run event programs at scale. 

How does Zuddl do this?

We're glad you asked. Our unified event platform is primarily focused on giving B2B marketers and conference organizers a simplified approach to events, end-to-end. Here's how Zuddl achieves this:

By un-muddling your event tech stack

By choosing Zuddl, you effectively replace multiple tools that you currently use to run events with one platform that does it all - this will reduce total cost of ownership.

‍By offering direct visibility into events that drive revenue

Zuddl provides you direct and actionable insights into attendee behavior - right from registration and event behavior to after-event engagement. This way, you can design events that contribute directly to pipeline or revenue. 

By democratizing data across internal teams

One of the biggest problems event marketers face is the lack of visibility into prospects across various events - webinars, conferences and other demand generation activities. 

With Zuddl, however, internal teams like sales have direct access to insights and hence can reach out to prospects in real time during events and engage better. 

By making event marketers more self-sufficient

With in-built tools and capabilities for creating landing pages, integrating communications, producing and editing stunning videos as well as quickly sharing relevant content with your attendees after the event, Zuddl empowers you to do it all!

The best part? It doesn’t matter what format you choose. Zuddl’s unified platform caters to virtual events, hybrid events, in-person events as well as webinars!

Want to check it out for yourself? Talk to us today.

Psst: Here's a sneak peek of event trends in 2023 as per our latest report.

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Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

At the risk of sounding cliche, we’d say humans are resilient. Consider the pandemic. Things were extremely difficult for everyone, and that too on all fronts. Lives, jobs, mental health… so much was at risk.

And yet during these trying times people found many ways to bounce back. Perhaps one of the best ways to combat the ills of the pandemic was building and growing communities. The situation during the pandemic made community more necessary than it's ever been. 

People who were out of jobs and needed a place that allowed them to go to help them find jobs found communities the perfect shelter. Communities helped them find empathy for what they were going through and helped them learn, for example, how to secure a job in the harsh climate. It may sound ironic, but the pandemic might have been the perfect storm.

Kishore C S, Content Lead at Zuddl, and Jared Robin, co-founder RevGenius, sat down for a fireside chat to discuss how communities have evolved, how people and business organizations leverage communities, and how communities can help engage customers in order to drive long-term growth.

Psst... if you'd rather listen to a podcast about this topic, click here.

The beginning of communities

In a wider sense of the word, communities evolved as something that’d support you, something outside of work. You had communities in schools, you had the church, you had sororities… And then there are meetup groups, there are events, and there are groups that border on being a community. 

They were also shaped to be a business model, in the way events and communities brought people together. It’s just that the bridge for leveraging community for your job and your professional life has doubled down the past few years. 

Thankfully, the digital revolution has made communities more far-reaching and more accessible than ever. That was clearly visible during and after the  pandemic. 

The first advantage of communities

On social media platforms people seem to do more selling than supporting.There’s nothing wrong with selling. Everyone lives by selling something, as the 19th century author Robert Louis Stevenson observed. But when selling is the predominant activity, other factors and questions about trust come into picture.

Community as a whole has been around probably since the beginning of time, the beginning of our lives. But the way they have entered business activities is very recent. And there’s a lot of reasons why communities are fast becoming important for organizations of all sorts. But the first advantage communities hold is that of trust.

People trust others more in communities than on social platforms. It’s like people are more eager to give when engaging communities. And the goal of being active in communities isn’t to drive leads further down the sales funnel. It’s more about helping them with their current needs. 

For instance, RevGenius may have a hundred people who have signed up to get into SAS sales. There will be cohorts, where we could take 50 people for a month and get them into software sales. And it’s all based on the spirit of helping - like these people won’t be paying anything. 

So communities have come to be identified with the goal of helping people at zero cost, or at a very low cost sometimes.

The widening reach and scope of community events

If you have any experience with communities, you’d have clearly observed two things. One, the reach of communities is growing rapidly, thanks to the digital space. And two, communities are growing in scope; business organizations are also leveraging them internally. 

With the pandemic behind us, we can look forward to in-person events that would strengthen the communities. All through, the focus is still to help community members. So if there were hybrid or digital events, the idea is to give more people around the world access to the community.

Communities within remote businesses 

Let’s see how lots of companies are approaching building communities through events. Initially, the companies were trying to improve their understanding of the virtual world, especially to see whether things were easy to adopt for everybody. 

1. Better quality: Companies have already seen enough evidence that adoption is not an issue. So now businesses are looking for better production quality at their events. They don’t want events to look like just another (boring) meeting. They want a different level of involvement and engagement as well.

2. More focus: At their own end, companies are also taking care that they keep things interesting, focused, and relevant. They are making sure the topics interest the audience. Outcomes are now at the center of these events. And ‘interactive’ is the operative word here.

3. Micro events: Companies are looking to not only get more focus but are also trying to drive productivity at the departmental level. Micro events involving communities leads to more intent, more engagement. Even big conferences are trying to be more subtle, more personal, and more engaged. 

How being interactive helps communities

You don’t always need to have a huge headcount; a smaller but more engaged group can be more effective too. Imagine you’re doing a hybrid workshop over Zuddl. The participants are women who are in institutional or B2B sales. And because Zuddl is built for making hybrid events interactive, everyone is super engaged and active - basically going great.

Then a saleswoman (let’s call her Irene) asks a question. Her job is to sell to hospitals. Because it’s the healthcare industry, with the insurance industry overlapping, there are lots of restrictions and policy guidelines on what she can do and what she can’t. And because it’s a unique, industry-specific situation Irene is describing, the resource-person has only so many things to say. 

In absence of interactivity, Irene’s questions would go unanswered, or at least under-answered. That’d have left her unsatisfied - not a good thing for events.

But the platform’s ability to get everyone engaged and interact leads to a better outcome. The other participants know what’s being discussed. So everyone begins to dig deeper. They begin sharing their experiences from different industries, thereby trying to build a wider paradigm. 

Soon, the underlying commonalities between different sales situations begin to emerge. Irene is able to connect the dots by uncovering the deeper connections between the different things the other participants are sharing. The overall quality of the discussion improves, with the result that Irene has found a very good answer to her question.

Community as the new influencer

Better understanding begins with better questions. And when you ask questions to people who’re close, they’ll first look at the use case and offer better answers. For instance, field marketers, who’ve been close to your customers for years, are able to niche down to the nitty-gritty in their answers. The people that look at everything best understand their community or their audience or their prospects or their customers the best.  

It kinds of adds up in the way we make decisions in our daily lives. We always check with our inner circle first. A community kind of works as our extended inner circle, where the trust is the same, like as you trust your brother or your best friend. 

Extend it a little. Suppose you’re traveling to some place and you’re looking to learn where you can find the best wi-fi. You’d likely head to Slack or some place where you’d see groups knowing and discussing this. And you can be sure you’ll have the right information. That’s like leveraging people in influencing type of capacities through the community.

The future of communities

Communities  are the future

The way people are engaging in communities, the way events are shaping up and getting interactive - all this is shaping communities in a very unique way. In fact, we believe that the trends point to something interesting: communities are going to be more massive, and yet more micro. 

That means the sizes of communities will continue to expand. But would that hurt the purpose of communities, namely that of helping community members? Thanks to the digital capabilities of platforms, the focus is not getting blurred. People can still reach out on a one-to-one basis and seek and offer help to very specific issues.

You’ll also see communities becoming more empowering. People will have a bigger say in the direction in which their communities are headed. That augurs well not just for businesses but also for not-for-profits and social movements. For example, communities can solve lots of social challenges. Or there could be communities that could solve the problems of individuals.

Speaking of communities, have you checked out Hybrid State of Mind? It's the place to be if you're looking for expert advice, dope insights and a whole lot of other news and views from the event industry.

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Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

A new season means new G2 awards! 🏆 🏆 🏆

We’re thrilled to share that Zuddl has won 30+ awards from G2, the world’s largest software review platform - including High Performers, Best Support, Easiest To Do Business With, etc. - for multiple categories in this quarter.

The awards Zuddl received include:

Virtual Events Platform category: 

Leader Fall 2022

High Performer: Enterprise

High Performer: Small Business

High Performer:  Mid-market

Webinar category:

High Performer Fall 2022

High Performer: Enterprise

High Performer: Mid-Market

High Performer: Small Business

Best Support Fall 2022

Best Support : Mid-Market

Best Support: Small Business

Easiest To Do Business With: Mid-Market

Easiest To Do Business With: Small Business

Easiest Setup 

Easiest to Use

Best Meets Requirement

Easiest Admin

Event management category:

High Performer Fall 2022

High Performer: Asia Pacific

High Performer: Mid-Market

High Performer: Small Business

Best Support Fall 2022

Best Support: Mid-Market

Best Support: Small Business

Easiest To Do Business With: Mid-Market

Easiest To Do Business With: Small Business

Easiest Admin Fall 2022

Easiest Setup Fall 2022

Event Registration category:

High Performer Fall 2022

High Performer: Small Business

Best Support Fall 2022

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We are proud and honoured by this recognition from G2 Crowd, and the reviews that have been instrumental in helping us win more awards this quarter (we won 6 awards the last time around). Our team looks forward to continuing to delight our customers by enabling them to run successful events that generate revenue with ease. We’re aiming for even higher on next quarter’s leaderboard.

But first, a quick refresher on G2 quarterly grid reports 

G2 releases reports every quarter based on a company’s market presence and authentic reviews and ratings from real and verified users. These reports are used by more than 3M buyers when making software purchasing decisions. 

“Rankings on G2 reports are based on data provided to us by real software buyers,” said Sara Rossio, Chief Product Officer at G2. “Potential buyers know they can trust these insights when researching and selecting software because they’re rooted in vetted, verified, and authentic reviews.”

Highlights from the G2 Fall awards that Zuddl won

1. Ranked as Leader in the Virtual Events Platform Category

The people have spoken! Zuddl continues to outperform competitors and be a leader in the virtual events platform category, maintaining our momentum from when we first received this award three months ago. 

Hosting a successful virtual event means delivering at all stages of the event lifecycle —pre-event planning, engagement during the event, and post-event activities. We’re thrilled that our virtual and hybrid events platform has enabled our small business, mid-market, and enterprise clients to drive the results, ROI and revenue that they desired.

This is what a happy client had to say about our virtual event platform:

2. Won High Performer awards in Event Management, Event Registration, Webinar, and Virtual Events Platform categories

Our wins in the categories of ‘Event Management’ and ‘Event Registration’, ‘Webinar’ and ‘Virtual Events Platform’ across Enterprise, Mid-Market, and Small Business highlight the success our clients have had in leveraging Zuddl to drive high performance across the event lifecycle - and regardless of the format.

Because Zuddl enables you to orchestrate and control all event activities from one platform and with all your tools in one place, efficiency improves, you can easily see when something is underperforming and take steps to optimize instantly. This means better ticket sales, attendee turnout, engagement, and lead generation.

Take a look at how our G2 reviewers rated our features:

The results, as you can see, are better than average performances - even our lowest-performing features outperform our competitors!

3.Won ‘Best Support’ awards in multiple categories

We consider this a big win because we put a lot of effort into ensuring that we’re there to help our clients keep everything at their webinar, or virtual or hybrid event running smoothly and everyone - sponsors, stakeholders, executives, and attendees - having a positive and value-driven experience.

Here’s why our G2 reviewers rated our Support so highly:

4. We’re also the ‘Easiest to Do Business With’! Not to mention, the Easiest to Use, and the Easiest to Setup!

When you find a company that meets your needs and is effortless to work with, it makes for a better relationship. These awards show our commitment to going above and beyond for our customers and platform users, driving a smooth, seamless, and stress-free experience all throughout the event.

Here's what our G2 reviewers had to say:

Leave us a review

If you’re a Zuddl user and would like to share your feedback on your experience of using Zuddl, you can leave us a review on G2 or feel free to visit our page to go through what other users have to say 🙌 

And if you want to know more about how our event solutions can help your business, don't wait to schedule a call with one of our representatives.

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Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

Today, we're throwing it back to when Emily Kramer (Cofounder MKT-1) and Ketan Pandit (Head of Marketing, Zuddl) sat down for a fireside chat to discuss the fuel and engine concept and how to pair them right to get the perfect marketing function. 

We've handpicked the highlights of their session in this article; you're welcome!

The growing complexity of marketing

Marketing, especially tech marketing, has grown complex over the years. A number of market-focused tactics have changed. Technology platforms have grown to be a great better, in that they can tell you, with a great deal of accuracy, which ad platforms work better for you. Even a number of marketing roles and titles have widened or altered beyond recognition.

And yet, lots of things about marketing have remained consistent. The foundation of marketing has not, and cannot, change. While marketing is increasingly finding a seat at the revenue table, its primary purpose and mission hasn’t changed. 

With that context, it becomes both interesting and challenging for marketers to build stronger teams that, in turn, can shape the marketing function.

Fuel and Engine in marketing

If you take away all the jargon from marketing and strip it down to its most essential form, you will find the fuel and engine concept in marketing expresses everything that marketing is and needs.

The fuel is the ‘what’ part of marketing. All the content you have developed, all the messages you have crafted, all the creatives your teams churn out… everything that goes out to your audience is the fuel.

The engine is the ‘how’ part of the marketing. All the channels that you use, all the distribution vehicles you deploy to get the message across, all the platforms you leverage, … all of these are a part of your marketing engine.

In brief, fuel is the all the assets you create while engine is your distribution arm.

The most common marketing problems to overcome

No marketing teams are perfect, no matter how large and resource-rich the organization or how experienced the team members. The three most common patterns or problems that marketing teams face are:

1. All fuel and no engine

This is where you have made a whole bunch of content, you have perfected the words after having spent a lot of time. But unfortunately, that content isn’t getting to anyone because you’re not focused on distribution.

The key problem: You have the ‘what’ but are missing on the ‘how’.

2. All engine and no fuel

The website is ready for conversion flows and everything is optimized but the messaging is almost entirely absent. No matter what stage your website visitor is at, you hit them with the same message. You ignore other things and only put the request-demo message in the loop.

The key problem: You have the ‘how’ ready but the ‘what’ isn’t in place.

3. Wrong engine, wrong fuel

You have a great engine, but unfortunately it’s meant for a different business model, not yours. The messaging is neat and all ready, you’re sending it through the wrong engine.

The key problem: There’s a clear mismatch between your fuel and your engine.

What marketing needs to focus on

Sales is focused on crushing revenue goals month after month, quarter after quarter. But what does marketing do?

Sure, marketing needs to be supporting the sales function in achieving the short-term revenue goals. But in addition to that, marketing should be able to build for long-term growth. And that’s done in a variety of ways. 

It could be through the following five actions:

1. Building the brand: Your customers know and trust you, and recall your brand so well that they will continue buying even if you’ve dropped your paid promotion budget.
2. Creating customer evangelist: It could be through UGC (User Generated Content) or finding and highlighting customers who are keen to share their positive experience with your brand.
3. Going beyond numbers: Your marketing teams should have at least a few goals that are not number-based. Instead, make sure they’re building the fuel for the future.
4. Always be experimenting: If you aren’t constantly running experiments on your homepage all the time, you’re wasting the traffic. Your marketing teams need the experiments and their learnings to keep improving their strategy. 
5. Studying all kinds of results: Some of your experiments won’t have great results, but you can learn from them all the same. Learn even from the traffic that doesn’t convert.

The definitive solution: Building your marketing team

It is evident that what worked for some other company won’t work for yours. That’s because all organizations are different. So one thing to do is to build a framework that will work for you.

More importantly, build the right team and you can prevent or overcome all sorts of marketing challenges. So how do you build a marketing team?

The conventional approach - the T-shaped person

Traditionally, people would suggest you hire a T-shaped person.

A T-shaped person is someone who is great in one area and has general knowledge across all the rest of the areas. Startups often do this - they get someone that’s really deep in one area, but doesn’t have much breadth. 

A better approach - hire the π-shaped person 

Times are changing, and you want your hiring strategy to change accordingly. 

A π shaped person is someone who is an expert in one area, and pretty competent in another area. And he has a good general knowledge across all the rest of the areas. Think of a product marketer who also can write well. Basically, you should be looking for a person with skill overlaps.

What about hiring contractors and freelancers?

Sometimes it’s easier to hire for your own teams, and at other times it makes more sense to have a contractor or an agency.

But how do you make a choice between hiring a full-timer and hiring an agency?

Sure, you can outsource a number of people or agencies for lots of tasks. But even after you’ve signed up with the best agency, how do you make sure they deliver the right quality?

An important thing to remember is that contractors and freelancers, no matter how good, will only be as good as you can manage them and guide them. They aren’t going to be great if they’re not given guidance and context for the company. 

So this is the crux: Activities that require deep expertise are best left to contractors if you’re not going to need that on a regular basis. Contractors have been working on the same thing over and over again, for a long, long time. Also, for work that’s done in spikes, i.e. at irregular intervals should be outsourced.

And with the remote working model widely accepted, it’s easier for people to work from where they want. That brings in a lot of different kinds of people you probably wouldn’t have been able to hire earlier.

As for your own teams, be really clear on goals upfront. When you’re building a startup, you want people to know what they’re working toward. 

Psst... More of a listener than a reader? Listen to Emily and Ketan's conversation here.

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Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

It’s no secret that events are one of the best ways to source leads for your business. In fact, one study even found almost 7 out of every 10 respondents (68%) used events to generate qualified leads. Hybrid events, in particular, present tons of opportunities for marketing, because they combine the advantages of both in-person and virtual events. 

Against that, B2B marketing is turning more complex. Stiffening competition, compliance, and a host of other factors are leading to sales cycles that are longer than ever before. 

Fortunately, marketers have found that micro events are just the right solution to drive growth.

But before we talk about how micro events can grow your business, let’s understand what micro events are and what benefits they bring to the marketing table.

What are micro events?

Micro events are small sized events that are designed to drive better engagement and connection with a smaller audience.They are more often virtual or hybrid than in-person, and that’s for a number of reasons. For instance, attendees at virtual microevents don’t have to worry about health hazards or social distancing regulations. Even if there is in-person attendance, with hybrid micro events the small number of in-person attendees makes it easier for the organizer to manage and comply.

What is perhaps most interesting about micro events is that they can be either completely independent, stand-alone events or run-up events leading to a bigger, overarching event. In the latter case, they provide both a window during which to better engage the audience and a promotional activity with which to drum up the excitement ahead of the marquee event.

Consider the annual Salesforce conference that will be held in San Francisco very soon. Despite being a big, respected brand, Salesforce doesn’t want to take chances in making the event a big success. As a result, they will arrange multiple micro events whose different themes will dovetail with the goal of the annual conference. 

How micro events can grow your business

Some of the benefits of organizing micro events are pretty obvious. For example, they are easier to organize and promote, since you are looking at a much smaller number of attendees. 

In addition to that, micro events present very real, very achievable opportunities to grow your business. Here are the five important ways your business can grow with micro events

1. Micro events provide better interaction

Over 45% of marketers target generating pipelines through virtual events. That can be possible only when the event provides you with opportunities for quality interactions. 

By the very virtue of their small size, micro events make it possible for every attendee to participate. Smaller group sizes encourage people to interact with one another. Detailed conversations help you understand the pain points of your target audience at a deeper level.

Later, you can use these insights to frame your solution in the language that resonates with your audience. And don’t forget that better interaction is also a major reason why micro events are easier to sell!

2. Micro events offer complete flexibility

So what happens when we say micro events give you better opportunities to interact? Collecting insights is a great outcome, yet there’s more: flexibility to re-pivot.

Let’s imagine you’re holding a micro event where you originally intended to discuss how your digital platform can offer competitive intelligence. But right off the bat you figure out that the challenge your audience faces is not so much of the insights as is of interpreting those insights. 

While it may appear to deviate from the original goal, you can actually repivot the event in order to walk your audience through how to use the insights. This helps your audience get real value from the event, value that translates to superior attendee experience. 

If you were to be organizing a big event, chances are such a pain point may not have reached you - and even if you could figure it out, it’d not be possible to shift the focus because of the sheer size and preparations for the event.

3. Micro events means more hands-on activities

Imagine your Chief Product Officer is on the stage, the in-person audience is 100 strong and there are another 350 virtual attendees. How easy would it be for your CPO to carry out a deep-dive  product demo and hold the audience’s attention for an hour?

Chances are, it’d be tricky. That’s because in front of a large audience, such product demos can quickly slide into being one-way communication - the speaker talking and the audience listening (or at least politely giving that impression). Engagement levels can drop pretty fast, you know.

On the other hand, detailed product demos can be interactive and engaging in micro events. Because of the extremely small number of people attending, everyone gets an opportunity to ask questions and get involved. What’s more, the smaller numbers enable the presenter to easily gauge the non-verbal cues of the audience and make extempore changes.

In essence, product demos are one of the many hands-on activities that you can carry out in micro events but probably not in huge events.

4. Micro events means you conserve resources

This one’s so obvious that we don’t need to elaborate this too much.

Micro events, because they involve small numbers, are very budget-friendly. A location that could accommodate, say, 250 people could itself cost you upwards of $3,000 for the venue alone. In contrast, micro events are far less expensive. 

Besides, when you have very small numbers for in-person event, or an entirely virtual event, your cost of compliance for pandemic related regulations drops drastically. Don’t forget that social distancing norms in certain locations could require you to hire twice the size of the venue you’d otherwise need, which could be a big drain in your budget.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you’re skimping on the efficiency or data security of the event. At Zuddl, for instance, we take data security very seriously. We regularly conduct third-party penetration tests, vulnerability testing and similar audits so that your attendees and speakers get a completely safe and pleasant experience. 

5. Micro events allow you to respond faster

The past decade or so has been marked by disruptive forces and few, if any, industries are left untouched. In that context, organizing huge events that require months of planning and organizing face an unpleasant risk of being labeled obsolete.

The pace of change everywhere creates an unusual challenge. You plan to add value by drawing attention to and discussing a major industry challenge. However, some unprecedented changes that happen elsewhere can suddenly reduce the value of what you were trying to deliver.

Let’s say you begin organizing a huge event around a big problem your industry is battling with. But when the actual event happens three months later, things might have changed enormously. Regulations might have changed, some disruptive startup might have at least partially solved the problem, some alternative methods might have emerged, rendering the problem largely irrelevant… any of these can take the steam out of your event. While this doesn’t happen often, the risk is always looming large.

Micro events represent agility. You plan, promote and make it happen in a matter of 2 or 3 weeks. This speed presents a dual advantage. One, you are not at a risk of being seen as outdated. And two, you can respond faster and enjoy the early mover advantage. 

Opportunities ahead

What The New York Times said in 2010 remains true today … “(events need) to generate interest and convert that into actual leads...” Virtual and hybrid events of all sizes do exactly that and that’s why they are here to stay; each kind comes with its unique strengths. 

So if you’re wondering where to begin, learning about how a powerful end-to-end platform can hugely simplify things for you is a good place. And because technology has grown sophisticated than ever, be demanding in what to expect from the platform. The security of the platform, its integrations, its ability to encourage and smoothen networking, give you a consolidated solution for your entire event lifecycle… all this and more will tell you if the platform is a good fit for you.

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Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

If you’ve been following our webinars, you’ll know that we recently featured Dave Dabbah, CMO, Robocorp on a fireside chat about marketing, events and beyond. In case you missed it, you can always watch it on demand here or listen to this podcast that captures the essence of the conversation.

Tell you what, let us spoil you silly by telling you the best parts of our conversation with Dave Dabbah in this blog. It can’t get easier, can it?

Here are four lessons you can take away from our webinar with Dave Dabbah:

‍Let your passion and curiosity fuel you

According to Dave, it's important for marketers to let curiosity and passion drive their work. He gives his own experience as a kid to illustrate this point.

“Back in the day, my friends would get copies of Sports Illustrated while I was getting copies of Ad Age and Media Week as a child. It was fascinating, you know, cuz like you'd be reading about products and then, two months later you'd actually see the television spot, you’d feel like you had some, some inside sort of knowledge about what was happening with brand development even at a young age.”

Don’t be afraid to explore different avenues

Dave also highlights the usefulness of having worked in different roles before taking up a marketing role, highlighting how knowledge and experience in other functions can add a lot of value to storytelling.

“Having had a bit of a sales background and a business development background, sort of coming into the Silicon Valley, I felt like that really benefited me, um, a lot. And, and one of the things I tell young marketers today who are just graduating from college, is this; don't be afraid to go into sales, for, for a couple years, you know, experience what the sales people are experiencing. And that will make you a, a far better, especially B2B marketer.”

Don’t go for a one-size-fits-all approach

Some of you may already know this, but what Dave says about distinguishing the marketing needs of a big corporation from a B2B startup is worth reading multiple times.

“B2B marketing is significantly harder than marketing a consumer brand. Those are, you know, sort of two different things, entirely. A lot of what we've seen with some of the really successful big brands in the Silicon Valley and the enterprise software space over the years is [that] they end up using a lot of consumer marketing tactics to put their brands into the marketplace. 

And, that's great, when you are, you know, IBM and you have, a hundred million, television budget for a 12 month period, but when you are a startup in the B2B space, how do you really get your brand message out in an effective way? I think, you know, over, over the years, that's something I've gotten, you know, pretty good at, um, trying to figure out.”

‍Repurposing content is the way forward

As he talks about getting back to doing events, Dave makes a great case for repurposing content as a long-term marketing strategy.

“When we got back to events during the pandemic, we were not just spending money on the event, you know, before the event or during the event, but also actually getting content out of the event that could be repurposed and reused, down the road.”

Want more of these marketing gems? Go watch the webinar on-demand now. 

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Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

In 2014, the LEGO Group launched LEGO® Ideas.

The goal was to create a platform where passionate fans and creators could share ideas for LEGO products, give feedback and vote, with the most convincing ideas turned into official LEGO® kits. And as a result, it is why today we have the brilliant Vincent Van Gogh: Starry Night, the intimidating Earth Globe, and the iconic Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. These are direct results of co-creation.

What is co-creation and why is it worth reading about

Prahalad and Ramaswamy in their journal article ‘Co‐creating unique value with customers’, define co-creation as “the joint creation of value by the company and the customer; allowing the customer to co-construct the service experience to suit their context.” In simpler terms, it is when a company and a group of its customers, jointly produce something that is mutually valuable.  

The value, it’s important to note,  is in the experience. And as J. Pine and Gilmore put it in their piece ‘Welcome to the Experience Economy,  “An experience occurs when a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event.”

Why is co-creation especially important at virtual events?

In today’s digital-first world, with attention-spans shrinking and Zoom fatigue so prevalent that it has its own page on Wikipedia, consumers need more than traditional audience engagement strategies in return for their attention, time, and energy. That’s where co-creation can make a difference at your virtual events.

Because co-creation involves the participation of stakeholders, they switch from being mere consumers to active contributors. It’s a shift in perspective, but an important one. Attendees are no longer passive bystanders at virtual Stages, listening to speakers present at sessions, and simply watching on.

They now become partners and constituents with the power to co-create content with their community.

This is why Twitch, the American video live streaming service, is incredibly popular - with 30 million daily active users and 2.5 million people watching Twitch streams. Co-creating entertainment is at the heart of its success. “For unfamiliar audiences, Twitch is certainly a platform that is heavy on interaction and different types of input, and that is part of its formula and beauty for dedicated users”,  writes Dr. Nicolle Lamerichs in a paper titled ‘Material Culture on Twitch’. “Each stream is perhaps best read as a community or experience, rather than a content or story. It is in the interaction that Twitch becomes interesting, and in the ways in which audiences actively tune in and out of different streams.

This is the approach to engagement that virtual event organizers now need to adopt.

Three ways to improve co-creation at virtual events

1. Tools to empower co-creation

[Consumers] want to engage, interact and influence brands, seeking to ‘exercise their influence in every part of the business system’ (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). Extrapolating this to virtual events means that every single attendee has influence,  so event organizers need to be proactively looking for ways to help them express themselves. To this end, engagement tools in-built on a virtual event platform like the following are invaluable.

• A Chat function on your virtual event platform for instance enables multiple individuals to have a dialogue. Attendees can let speakers, each other and you as an organizer know what they really think about the content being shared. It also helps to create the effect of a shared experience regardless of how the attendee is joining the event, and in turn, a sense of community. For the individuals involved, the value of contributing to the group chat can be psychological, driving feelings of appreciation, and higher self-esteem.

• A Raise Hands feature (like Zuddl has) that lets an attendee join speakers on the virtual stage to ask them questions directly ‘face-to-face’ and join in conversations in  a way that makes the entire experience more immersive.

• A Q&A tool emboldens attendees to ask questions as part of a group in a way that they might have felt uncomfortable doing so at a traditional in-person event.

• Polls in particular actively promote an interactive viewing experience. They maintain that human connection by preserving the in-the-moment experience.

1. Speakers, for instance, can use a Poll during a session to gauge opinions of attendees, and use the results to steer the direction of the remainder of the session so as to truly drive value and insights for attendees. 
2. Organizers can leverage Polls as the beginning point of a back-and-forth exchange to collect feedback and market research from attendees and use the input and insights to improve your features, brand or business.

2.  “What’s in it for them?” is the question you need to answer

Getting hundreds of attendees to do more than drop by your virtual event platform can be daunting. Not surprisingly, incentivization is one motivation. For virtual event organizers, gamification is the best way to achieve this. Simply put, just like with any point-based game or video game, gamification is the application of elements like the completion of tasks, earning badges, points, rankings, and the setting up of leaderboards with prizes for the toppers to visually encourage participants to achieve goals.

What this means is that you, as the organizer, can use gamification in virtual events to nudge attendees towards meaningful interactions that produces high-quality content and which can boost engagement among a wider audience. It’s a simple and fun way to drive value for all stakeholders - attendees, sponsors, partners, and your organization too. For instance, if the purpose of your event is to highlight a new product at a virtual conference or summit, you can incentivize actions to get feedback from attendees or suggestions on features to help improve it.

Keep in mind though that compensation is not necessarily the only motivator. McKinsey’s research on ten co-creation projects found that most participants  (28%) were  driven by curiosity and a desire to learn, followed by those who were driven by entertainment and social play (26 %), and a third motivated by building skills (26 %). Therefore, using gamification based on these motivations might result in a more valuable experience for attendees and in the long run, for your business.

3. Zero latency is mission critical

There is absolutely no room for live streaming lags or delays at your virtual event. Even a 30 second lag can make the difference between your attendees feeling like they’re watching a great looking Youtube video that gets stuck buffering, or  the intimacy and sense of community created by a speaker/presenter reacting to questions, suggestions and comments by attendees in real time.

The  immediacy provided by a zero lag platform is integral to generating more authentic interactions between co-creators.

To sum up…

Embracing co-creation isn’t easy, but the potential rewards can be significant. If virtual event organizers are able to provide modern consumers with the specialized viewing experience that they’re looking for, it can help build a culture of innovation and collaboration, strong relationships with invested constituents which in turn can result in business benefits down the road. Just ask LEGO.

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Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

In the context of modern day business, hybrid events occupy a special place. That’s because such events bring creative opportunities with which growth marketers can attract customers, generate revenue, and drive growth.

Hybrid events - events that engage both in-person and virtual attendees equally well - aren’t new. But after the pandemic, marketers have rediscovered some of the unique benefits of hybrid events. 

With hybrid events, attendees and speakers are not constrained by locations. That helps your business create brand awareness and expand your footprint across different geographies a lot more easily. Which is why you see (and likely attend) so many of them these days.

And yet, some amount of confusion and a handful of myths about hybrid events prevail. Some organizers are unsure of the hardware required for hybrid events. A huge myth, for example, is that live-streaming an in-person event makes the event a hybrid event. 

This post looks at the 5 principal myths about hybrid events. We hope dispelling them will help you better see the true value of hybrid events. Here goes!

Myth 1: The virtual element of a hybrid event will reduce in-person attendance

Because you don’t need to travel in order to be a part of it, hybrid events are easier to attend. This makes organizers feel that once people begin to attend virtually, they would avoid attending an event in-person altogether.

The fact is quite the opposite. In nearly all cases, your audience for virtual attendance vis-a-vis in-person attendance is different. Your virtual audience is often people who haven’t been to your events earlier. They are, therefore, there to explore and see how things go. 

Moreover, virtual audiences and in-person attendees have different expectations from the activities you conduct during the events. For example, your in-person attendees can get into treasure hunt games while your virtual attendees might be checking out the virtual fairs on the platform.

Finally, there’s the question of venue capacity. Your in-house attendance is restricted by the size of the hall you’re holding the event in. This limiting factor requires you to know a few days to weeks in advance how many people will be attending physically. You can practically never accommodate people at the last moment at an in-person event, because the venue can house only so many people. 

In contrast, you can keep the link for virtual attendants open almost till the last moment. People with unpredictable schedules naturally prefer virtual attendance. 

Myth 2: Organizing hybrid events is a complicated task

To be honest, hybrid events can only be as good as the platform you choose for the virtual segment of the event. Anything standard and you lost the ability to really create a valuable and meaningful experience for your remote attendees.

Sure, anything that’s successful takes planning and coordination and all that, but hybrid events are not even half as intimidating as some people make them out to be. An intelligent platform for hosting hybrid events takes away the pain and nightmares you’d commonly associate with organizing hybrid events. 

Further, there are two clear reasons why organizing a hybrid event is easy. One, the platform will have the technology sorted out so you don’t need to lose sleep over the event. And two, adding a new virtual attendee doesn’t need any additional effort, nor does it take any substantial increase in resources. Which means you can keep promoting the event without worrying whether you will be able to accommodate larger numbers.

Myth 3: Hybrid events don’t engage attendees adequately

If you have the right platform for your hybrid events, attendees will be engaged more than adequately.

Latency is a good example where a robust platform can make the difference between a dazzling event and poor experience. For instance, Zuddl works on a zero latency streaming basis. That means you can eliminate relay lags of upto 40 seconds, something that’s common with dated technologies like RTMP, notorious for glitches and gaps.

Without the time lag, speakers, in-person audience and virtual audience get the same, fulfilling experience. Conversations between contributors and attendees flow smoothly. Virtual attendees also get an immersive experience as they go live on the LED screen at the in-person venue. Little wonder that engagement hits a homerun every time!

Myth 4: Hybrid events may have very limited opportunities for sponsors

Honestly, we don’t know where this myth originated from. 

Paradoxically, the truth is the exact opposite: hybrid events actually present more opportunities to the sponsors. Here is why: sponsors can place their logos and brochures and other promotional materials at more places than they can in purely physical events. That’s because there is little to no space restriction.

Secondly, sponsors have a much better shot with contextual placement of their material. Whenever a virtual attendee specifically shows interest in a certain kind of product or service, the sponsor will be able to display relevant material.  In this situation the sponsor knows they are talking to their audience at just the right time.

Finally there is the benefit of the wide reach unlike a purely in-person event - a hybrid event gives sponsors access to a global audience. That means sponsors can reach much bigger numbers,  generate a larger number of leads and actually sell their product or service in a geography they normally weren't able to serve earlier.

Myth 5: Hybrid events are only relevant during the pandemic

During the pandemic, some people felt hybrid events were more like a stop-gap arrangement and that once things returned to normal, hybrid events would vanish. Not surprisingly, this has not happened.

All the stakeholders including contributors, organizers, sponsors and attendees have discovered that hybrid events make great business sense. Organizers have made enormous investments in terms of resources and commitment for hybrid events - naturally they want hybrid events to stay.

It might sound a little unusual, but the way hybrid events have been successful, it makes us feel that hybrid events would have happened anyway, pandemic or no pandemic. That’s because hybrid events enjoy some unique benefits that organizers and sponsors do not wish to lose.

Your next event

Growth marketing is all about being agile and adopting efficient methods to seek new customers. As more marketers begin embracing hybrid events, there’s no reason for your organization to hold back. 

Now that this article has debunked the major myths of hybrid events, you’ll want to understand how such events can work for you, and more importantly, how you’ll go about organizing one. And if you’re like most businesses, you’ll want to first learn about the setup and logistics of hybrid events. So why not drop us a line - we're here to help you throughout the event lifecycle, from coming up with custom-fit strategies for your use case - and of course in technical support and problem solving.

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Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.

Hybrid events are poised to be the future of MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences & exhibitions) events as well as internal events (company offsites, sales kickoffs, new hires onboarding sessions etc.) for organizations. So the need for organizers to know how to set up a seamless and engaging hybrid event is more critical than ever. 

It can be intimidating, we know. So, to make this process more straightforward, and to ease your trepidation, we’ve put together a simple guide on how you can go about hosting your first hybrid event.

1. Pick your hybrid event venue(s) carefully

Choosing the venue(s) for your event is a little trickier than it seems. Not only do you need to keep the basics in mind - attendee capacity, technology capabilities - but you also have to factor in safety and health protocols and guidelines. And if you want your event to be as eco-friendly as possible, there is an additional set of factors to consider. Click here to read more.

Nevertheless, here are the basics you need to look for in a hybrid venue:

• Robust internet connectivity
• Space for attendees and any equipment needed (stage, lighting etc.)
• Provides in-house support
• Lets you hold dry runs 
• Has safety measures in place

Click here to read a further breakdown of these basics.

2. Choose the right virtual and hybrid event platform

This is the big one. Finding a virtual and hybrid event platform that can help you execute a seamless event experience for all your attendees, regardless of whether they are attending in-person or virtually is mission critical. 

The platform you pick will have to serve as the connective tissue between attendees and speakers,  attendees in different locations and venues in different locations as well. So here’s what is essential:

• Zero lag: A platform that lets you present your stream to your attendees in the lowest latency environment and eliminate the typical RTMP delay.

• User-friendliness: No matter how much a platform boasts of its capabilities, it won’t make a difference to you as an organizer or as an attendee if the platform is not easy to use. Look for platforms that allow you to build in days instead of weeks, and that require no knowledge of coding for the creation of the virtual venue.

• Customizability: Customization enables effective branding, marketing, and audience engagement - all critical to the success of an event, and in generating ROI for an organizer. Needless to say, organizing a virtual trade show is going to require different elements than a virtual sales kickoff, so the more flexibility a platform has in accommodating your needs and specifications, the better.

• Live engagement tools: Build a sense of community in your event with engagement tools such as Chat, Q&A, Polls, Emoji & Raise Hands that enable attendees to participate irrespective of where they are. For instance, for events hosted on Zuddl, virtual attendees use the in-platform tools to take part, while in-person attendees  use our mobile app. This way all interactions are facilitated and captured via a single platform. 

• Networking capabilities: A platform that lets virtual, and in-person attendees and speakers connect in virtual booths and also network in real-time via the mobile app.

• Analytics: Your platform should let you capture a breadth and depth of real-time data from both in-person and virtual attendees at your events — including daily attendance, audience engagement and more. 

While these are the essentials required, click here to read other important questions to remember when evaluating platforms for your event. 

3. Set up your virtual venue

As mentioned, based on how user-friendly the hybrid event platform you pick is, setting up the virtual venue can take from hours to weeks, so factor this into your planning timetable.

When setting up your virtual venue, keep in mind that you’re trying to create an experience that is exciting enough to rival a Netflix show or a sale on Amazon. Therefore, curating a variety of spaces and activities, such as the following,  is key to retaining attendee attendance, attention and engagement. 

• Lobby: Event lobbies can help people remember you vs the 5 other events they may be joining that week. Using our platform tools, you can create a warm, welcoming, exciting area that sets the tone for your brand, event, and customer experience.

• Stages: Stages usually play centerstage at any event. This is where virtual attendees can view live keynotes, panel discussions, roundtables that are occuring at the in-person venue(s). Stages should have engagement tools that attendees and speakers can use to share opinions and join in the conversation. The layouts should also be customizable, so that you can add your company branding to the backdrop or that of your sponsors to drive visibility and awareness for them. Protip: Zuddl offers event organizers a Backstage feature that enables easy management and coordination of speakers and content. With this capability, you can control the rotation of speakers, pre recorded content and transition videos and images, and stay on top of timing. 

• Virtual breakout rooms: Rooms in which attendees can meet and talk in smaller groups help drive more in-depth conversations and create a ‘shared experience’ for in-person and virtual attendees. You can use Rooms for a variety of purposes, from team brainstorms and workshops to just casual social rooms where attendees can socialize and talk about sessions happening on the stage.

• Networking zones: Networking, which matches attendees for 1:1 video-chat meetings is a great way to help bridge any distance between in-person and virtual attendees. Click here to read more about whether Quick Networking and Smart Networking would be a better fit for your event.

• Expo area: Setting up a virtual expo zone enables your sponsors and partners to create virtual expo booths to showcase their products and services. It's a great way to drive value for them, and for attendees as well.

• Fun zones: There’s plenty of opportunity to make your event an exciting one for attendees to spend time at. You can turn one of your Expo Booths into a photobooth for instance to make your event just that little bit more fun, interactive and memorable for your attendees, or set up virtual games. 

4. Brand everything

A large part of creating a hybrid experience that feels unified and shared is branding, because consistent branding throughout the event, at both the in-person venue and your virtual one, ties both experiences together.

With this in mind, you should completely brand the in-person venue with your company decor and signage, and use similar videos, colors and graphics for your virtual venue as well. This helps in creating a shared and connected experience. 

“Creating a polished and branded meeting venue was very important for us from the beginning,” says Lindsay Meyers, Senior Director, Office of Special Events of the University of Maryland (UMD) when discussing how the UMD team set up their first hybrid board meeting.  “Being able to curate every aspect of the experience was critical. We wanted to design everything in a way that trustees would immediately feel they had come to the right place, and also capture the energy, professionalism, and pride of previous Foundation board meetings.” Click here to read more about the event.

5. Stay on top of event communications

While this specific piece of advice is part and parcel of all event planning, it is especially important in the context of hybrid events. You can assume that most of your attendees do not know quite what to expect from a hybrid event, so all your communications to registered attendees should help them understand what to expect. 

Keep in mind that you’ll need to tailor instructions for virtual and in-person attendees.

For in-person attendees for example, you will need to specify guidelines about the in-person venue - where it is, if there are any COVID negative proofs they need to bring, any instructions about checking if, safety protocols in place, etc.  An event schedule, highlighting rooms, activities, and networking opportunities is key, as is explaining how they will be able to connect with virtual event attendees at the event.

For virtual attendees, you will need to share instructions on how to access the event, an event schedule, as well as how they will be able to connect with in-person attendees at the event. Keep in mind that your attendees will be tuning in from all over the world, so share event timings in an accessible way - ie. in PST/ EST. 

6.  Create an engagement strategy that brings in-person and virtual attendees together

More than ever before, we’re yearning for human connection. Build your hybrid event engagement strategy around this tenet, and look for ways to connect in-person and virtual attendees in ways that make them feel part of the same shared experience. Here are some suggestions:

• Pre-event/Pre-session chat: Connecting attendees with even one other person ahead of time can make them feel more excited, comfortable and confident in attending the event and meeting others, and can even embolden them to participate more during the event.

• Birds of a feather sessions: These sessions, which can be hosted in virtual breakout rooms, can serve as relaxed town hall-like space where like-minded virtual and in-person attendees can chat about their interests, leading to potential collaboration. You can choose to invite a speaker to the session to facilitate group discussions, or you can make it more informal and simply encourage attendees to have unconstrained conversations about set topics. 

• Speed networking: This type of networking works in a similar fashion to speed dating but with the advantage of AI-matchmaking. It helps attendees connect with others at the event based on similar interests. For this activity, you will need a virtual event platform like Zuddl that has this capability. Click here to read more. 

• Stage interactions - Plan in live sessions that shake things up, get everyone energized and create a greater sense of connection. At these sessions, you’ll need to play the role of a thoughtful moderator - using Polls to remind all attendees that their opinions matter in real-time, and encourage everyone to ask questions using Gamification - via the mobile app or using the event platform.  These simple actions can go a long way in making each of your attendees feel ‘seen’ and valued, and will encourage them to keep participating.

• Virtual watch parties - One of the advantages of virtual Breakout Rooms is that attendees within a Room can together watch what’s happening live on a Stage. In this manner, it functions as a Watch Party of sorts. It’s a great way to intertwine virtual and in-person attendees in real-time. 

7.  Use analytics to uncover relevant insights, faster

One of the greatest benefits of hosting a hybrid event is that it gives you access to accurate real-time data that you would not otherwise get from a traditional in-person event. This means that with an event platform like Zuddl, you can pinpoint which speakers, sessions and content drive the most interest and participation from attendees, and which are not performing well. 

You can then leverage these insights to make immediate changes (for instance, replacing  poorly performing marketing collateral at an Expo Booth), create valuable follow-up assets (for instance, a downloadable how-to guide related to a session topic), and refine subsequent events (for instance, working again with speakers whose sessions got the most engagement).

To sum up…

We know that organizing a hybrid event can seem intimidating. There seems like a hundred moving parts to keep track of, and not enough time in a day. With this guide, you can go about organizing your event in a calm and purposeful way. Each recommendation will help you build an event experience that is fun, impactful, and memorable.

Over to you

So you just went through the most comprehensive guide for setting up a hybrid event.  From finding the right technology to planning strategies for engagement,  there’s a lot you need to do before the event can be termed a grand success.

Which is why you want to have peace of mind when it comes to the virtual event platform. Choosing a platform that’s extremely user-friendly for both attendee and organizer as well as 100% customizable is one of the smartest decisions you could take. 

We’d be happy to show you how we can help. Why not get in touch with us today?

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Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.