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B2B Agility with Greg Kihlström™: MarTech, E-Commerce, & Customer Success
#27: Overcoming data silos with Brian Gates, RainFocus
00:26:22
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- [00:01]
Greg Kilstrom
The agile brand.
- [00:08]
Welcome to the B2B Agility podcast, where we look at the factors that drive success in B2B marketing, with a focus on the people, processes, data and platforms that make B2B brands stand out and thrive in a competitive marketplace. I'm your host, Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on MarTech marketing operations and CX, bestselling author and speaker. Now let's get on to the show.
- [00:35]
Today we're going to talk about event data and personalized marketing with Brian Gates, SVP of industry Strategy at Rainfocus. We're going to explore how great data can drive marketing strategies, the balance between personalization and privacy, and strategies for overcoming data silos within organizations. Brian, welcome to the show.
- [00:54]
Brian Gates
Thank you, Greg. Appreciate being here.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. Looking forward to talking about all this with you. Why don't we get started with you giving a little background on yourself and your role at Rainfocus?
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Brian Gates
Yeah. So I've been with Rainfocus since 2016. I'm currently the Senior Vice President of industry strategy, which I think is a relatively unique title in the industry. But I sit at the intersection of our go to market business strategy and customer experience and help work with our various departments there to help execute our strategy in both in terms of where we source customers, how we service those customers, and ultimately how we lead the market.
- [01:30]
Greg Kilstrom
Great.
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And to give a little context, why don't you explain a little bit about what rainfocus does?
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Brian Gates
Yeah. So rainfocus is a next generation event marketing platform. We were purpose built to really eliminate the data silos within organizations, especially around events, and most importantly, help unify what we call the event channel. I say organizations run events of all scales and sizes, from webinars all the way up to massive user conferences. And these are incredibly important in marketing and sales activities that unfortunately tend to sit on an island. And our whole platform does a great job of managing everything with registration all the way through the event management, details of speakers and content and exhibitors, and ultimately bringing that together and tying it back into your omnichannel strategies.
- [02:17]
Greg Kilstrom
Great, great. So, yeah, let's dive in here. And first thing I want to talk about is personalized marketing for events and just the importance of this. With a significant number of consumers expecting personalized marketing interactions, not just hoping for it, but actually expecting it, how should marketers leverage event data to meet these expectations and get the best results?
- [02:44]
Brian Gates
Events are such a powerful tool in building relationships, and I think that's when we think about how events fit in the customer journey. There's a wealth of information gathered and developed within an event that helps you understand that relationship and how it's advancing, how it's developing. So when you look at the spread of events that are run within your organization, those events are going to be deliver throughout that life cycle. So whether that's a webinar or a field marketing event or trade show or a user conference, these various touch points as they generate a wealth of information around what your consumer, your prospects are interested in that can help accelerate your marketing campaigns, that can help bring the sales team faster into the customer journey, which helps establish those relationships and help accelerate those to let's say, positive results for the business.
- [03:39]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. And so you know, a lot of traditional marketing you could say relied on a lot of third party data. And you know, certainly over the last few years we've been hearing a lot more about first party data strategies and the value of that. Just in general, Google's recent announcement notwithstanding, first party data is still very important. I, I continue to say that. So how do Xero and first party data play roles in, in developing, you know what you were just describing the, the personalized marketing strategies for events.
- [04:16]
Brian Gates
Yeah, I say events are fantastic sources of that first and zero party data. Just looking at kind of our studies of the market there events can generate up to 80% of the customer data profile is of that zero and first party data. So they're incredibly important to helping to understand your prospect. Part of, I think the nuance there is helping to understand first maybe what zero and first party data is. I always use this analogy and I think it dates me as well. But if you were to think about a mall. Right. So there now I've been dated.
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Greg Kilstrom
What's a mall no back like I'll define that next.
- [04:54]
Brian Gates
But if you think about a mall, you know, third party data is being able to see what happens across that entire mall. Right. You have a shop within that mall, you're able to see everything. First party data is being able to see what they do within your store. And zero party data is what they've done at your cash register where they've willingly given you that information. So I think that helps kind of level set what information is gathered and relating that back to events in the registration process. There is a ton of zero party data provided. Most organizations will ask a variety of questions around your preferences, what your interests are, what things are important to you, even your dietary restrictions. And so a lot of information helps understand and develop really kind of who that person is. Right. And it can be very Valuable for marketers and very valuable for the sales team. During the course of the event, there's a variety of data gathered around first party information, where they're navigating, which sessions they're interested in. Those are usually aligned to products or topics or degrees within the sales journey. Is this a prospect endeavor, is this a customer endeavor that helps set context for what say the user is following through with Based off the preferences they give you registration, now they're actually acting. And then even within the event you get to see what things they viewed, what things they attended, what did they like from that? From surveys, right. Was that a good speaker? Was that relevant content to them? Do they want to learn more? What partners did they go visit? All this information is gathered within the context of just a single event. And again, organizations, especially enterprises, will run thousands of these across the year. So you can just see the scale and the impact of what is gathered just across the event channel.
- [06:39]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah. And how should marketers then look at measuring success? I mean, you know, there's, there's very simple personalization. I, you know, I call it like the mail merge personalization where, okay, you know, hello, Greg, you know what? Yay, they got my name, they got my name from somewhere or whatever. But you know, to do what you're talking about, you know, using much more, you know, whether it's behavioral or other type of data, you know, how should marketers know, you know, not only how much they should be personalized, but personalizing, but also, you know, measure success of personalization in general.
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Brian Gates
Yeah. There's obviously degrees here. Right? There's a crawl, walk, run, it's a process on this. Right. I think for those that are in the kind of the beginning stages of this very simple thing is knowing people have registered so you can stop sending them.
- [07:32]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Brian Gates
Announcements to come register right now. That's very basic which surprisingly a lot of time gets overlooked. Right. So there's a simple opportunity. When folks say, looking at kind of a walk mentality, there is understanding what segments of your users have registered and then where are those segments engaging? And then I think kind of the run element there is looking at how that engagement is now connected into your marketing campaigns and connected into your sales handoff and qualification process. I say those things. There's, you're now getting that data out of the event silos and helping to ensure that. When I've told you that I'm interested in these things by actually going to your event and doing these things at your event, don't ask me that again. Through a marketing campaign. And don't let a sales rep ask something they already know. Right? So it's, there's degrees, I think, in moving up and say from kind of the starting stages all the way to more advanced stages are.
- [08:33]
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- [10:09]
Greg Kilstrom
You know, I think there's, there's been plenty of studies and research that I've read that, you know, while consumers are very concerned about their data privacy, they're also open to sharing information with brands that give them more relevant stuff in exchange for exchanging at least some of their data. How do you look at this or, you know, how would you recommend that brands look at this balance between, we want as much personalization as will be beneficial to, you know, the customer as well as the business. But we also want to strike that right privacy balance. Like, how do you, how would you recommend that brands strike that balance there.
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Brian Gates
The obvious thing there is transparency, right? I think being very clear on how, what information you're asking for, how it's going to be used to better the relationship with that individual. The more you can help explain, hey, by providing these details about yourself and your interest, we can provide this type of impact to your experience with us. And that, I think, helps let the consumer understand know why there's benefit to providing that information and make the decision whether or not they would like that level of personalization. I think that's part of striking the balance there of being respectful about what you gather, but also helping your audience be better advocates and more willing to engage in that. They've already expressed, I think, the interest in becoming more of a brand advocate by devoting time and travel and. And say, effort to be a part of that experience. So you have a willing audience, I think, in the first place. But helping to illustrate where you're going to add value to that journey for them, I think, just takes that the next step further. Yeah.
- [11:57]
Greg Kilstrom
And I think it kind of. It's also knowing that they're using it well as well. Right. I mean, just as an example, I'm a vegetarian, so, you know, I go to a lot of conferences and they always ask, you know, dietary restrictions or whatever. And, you know, so, like, you know, I go to a show and sometimes there's just terrible vegetarian options, for instance, and I'm like, well, you asked me, but you didn't listen. You know, so is it, you know, how does a. How does a marketer kind of understand that part as well? Like, okay, they're telling me why, but are they really doing anything useful with the information? You know, what's the role of the brand there? I guess.
- [12:41]
Brian Gates
Well, to your point, I think it's being dedicated around what you ask for. And if you're asking for that information, put it to use. There's organizations we work with, they say that will ask those dietary restrictions and they will not only use it for, say, that particular event, but that's also information that's incredibly important to when they move in the process and they're talking to the sales rep and they want to take them to dinner, probably steakhouse. Not a good choice. Right. So that helps. I say further along, I say that journey there where they get to know you and again, develop that relationship.
- [13:15]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah. And so certainly when we're talking about personalization, first of all, I think we have to talk about AI in every show. I think that's a rule now, regardless. But AI certainly belongs in a conversation about personalization. Where do you see that role in the near term? Certainly there's a lot of future promise about a lot of things. But, you know, where do you see AI really working now?
- [13:41]
Brian Gates
Yeah, to your point, I think there's a lot of promise around AI, and I think there are plenty of folks out there touting that those promises are already here today. Don't know if I've seen that. That being said, AI does a fantastic job of helping to break down big chunks of information so you can take action on it. Right. And it can help streamline some of those actions that you need to take. I think the role of AI is especially in the terms of events. It's going to offer value in helping you get to the right information faster and also help you find and have the experience that best aligns with your goals and your outcomes that you're looking for for the event. That being said, I think AI isn't a replacement for the term I keep using throughout this conversation here, which are relationships. And that's why people go to events. They're there to meet other individuals, peers, partners, colleagues, and they want to be able to have a connection there with them. AI is a way to help ensure that those opportunities or serendipitous things happen at the event. And I think it also helps a lot of those that are running events to be more efficient with their time so they can design better experiences and help, again, accelerate those relationships.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, part of, part of this conversation then comes down to, you know, we need good data to do great personalization and really create a great customer experience. And yet, you know, we collect all this data and different teams, different platforms, collecting all this stuff all over the place. So it's not generally speaking. And I work with a lot of large companies. The problem is usually not that they don't have the data, it's that they can't access it or it's all over the place. Right. So just like there's organizational silos, there's data silos, and sometimes they're one and the same, but sometimes there's all kinds of silos all over the place. So what do you see as some of the common challenges? And we even just the example that we gave of like, okay, I'm a vegetarian, I go to an event. But to your point, a sales team six months later may want to go out to dinner and chooses the wrong kind of restaurant or something like that. So it's like, it's beneficial at an event, but it could also be beneficial down the silo. What are some of the challenges that brands are facing with? You know, whether it's Event specific data or just, you know, data. And these, these silos, events tell a little story here. Yeah.
- [16:27]
Brian Gates
I got involved with this industry set about eight years ago. And prior to that I'd worked in marketing tech for a number of years. CRMs, marketing automation. And when I first discovered Rainfocus, one of the things that just literally blew my mind was the fact that events and the technologies that run events aren't connected into the CRM or marketing automation. Like that just boggles my mind. Like, what do you mean it's not connected? Why?
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Greg Kilstrom
No, no, I'm with you. Yeah, agreed.
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Brian Gates
So that, that's what got me involved with rainfocus. And I think the challenge there, right, is there is such a unique talent, I think for those that do event marketing because it really is such a beautiful skill where they can connect a customer experience that they have to whip up sometimes as short as a couple, like a week, sometimes it takes a year. Leverage all sorts of technologies, manage all sorts of stakeholders, different flavors of attendees across. Like the complexity involved in running an event from an insider's perspective is immense. And because of that, the industry is really kind of the event tech industry has developed kind of use case specific technologies. And so they'll have a webinar tool set, they'll have a conference tool set, they'll have a speaker management tool set. And so what happens there Is organizations buy 20 + different technology vendors to solve for events. And so you have this wonderfully executed event, but behind the scenes, or look underneath the covers there, just getting the event to operate in itself and connect all those technologies together alone is incredibly complicated. Now when you start to say, hey, how do I get this information from all these disparate systems out of them and into your CRM or into your CDP or into your marketing automation platform, it just is a non starter because it's a rat's nest over there anyways, so where do you begin? And that I think has led a lot of the event space to be very siloed. I think that paradigm is now shifting. I think Covid helped drive a lot of that where, you know, since everything had to be virtual, everything had to be in a digital space, it really drove a lot of digital transformation and really I think awakening the larger organization, you know, those that are running marketing operations, run the CRMs, run the CDPs, run the marketing automation platform, saw the wealth of activity and data there and like, wait a minute, we want that, we want to get that information. And now in person, events are back in the mix. We don't want to lose that. How do we keep getting that information? So I think that's driving a lot of the change in the industry there.
- [19:21]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. And so given that change, you know, there's probably a lot of orgs that are not, they haven't 100 solved for that. But you know, what, what does it start to look like when even, even if you're, even if 50% is done, whatever that means, you know, even if it's partially done, you know what, what starts to happen when, when organizations start to overcome these, these data silos.
- [19:47]
Brian Gates
Yeah. Just in our experience, I say with, with our clients, you know, there's a tremendous amount of cost savings. Right. When you, you move towards having centralization there and there's a tremendous uplift, I think, in terms of your overall customer experience. And say again, when you have your events that are a critical part of that customer journey now, tied into, at the very least your marketing campaigns, where you're not asking them the same thing over and over again, that in itself just streamlines that whole customer journey. And that I think is even just a first step there and helping organizations realize the value of having events as part of your marketing strategy and your martech stack.
- [20:30]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. And in addition to, I mean, again, I hate being asked the same question twice myself, so that alone is worth it for me as a customer. But what are maybe some other benefits for those end customers as well?
- [20:48]
Brian Gates
Yeah. I mean, from a attendee standpoint or your customer standpoint. Right. They feel known.
- [20:54]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Brian Gates
Again, going back to relationship, I have to keep asking your name every time we get together or every time I send you information. It's not a relationship. You don't know who I am. Right. And I think organizations invested an awful lot to help drive personalization across their digital channels. And you see the benefit of that. Right. Where organizations can generate offers that are relevant to that given user, they can provide better experiences for that. And then when you incorporate now as a virtual and in person experiences or even hybrid experiences that are run from the event team that just, that is, takes it to a completely different level. Right. Say your users and say customers feel like they're a part of the brand.
- [21:45]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's great. And well, Brian, thanks so much for joining today. One, one last question before we wrap up here. Taking a look, you know, a few months, even a few years out, what are you seeing? What trends are you seeing that are shaping the, what we're, what were the kind of events that we're going to have a few years from now, you know what's, what's shaping that and even in particular with data.
- [22:14]
Brian Gates
Yeah, I think the big thing there, looking ahead and thinking through what is the next couple of years or even beyond hold for us as organizations incorporate the event channel as part of their omnichannel strategies, I think you're going to see an explosion there of more targeted localized events that help bring like minded individuals together around topics they're passionate about. And I think when brands start to do that and do that at scale, you really uplift say the amount of advocacy that can happen in those brands and it just rising tide lifts all ships. So I think there's a move towards that as an industry to really help bring that together. The other element I think it's looking ahead there is how virtual events play in that mix and especially as those that are making purchase decisions are getting younger and moving up the corporate ladder there and being able to hold the budgets and say across organizations that audience is more digital forward. So how do virtual events start to play in that mix and start to bring together hybrid experiences, ar, VR, some of these other elements there to bring that in person, touch personalization again at scale regardless of where your audience is at.
- [23:32]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah. Love it. Well again I'd like to thank Brian Gates, SVP of Industry Strategy at Rainfocus, for joining us. You can learn more about Brian and Rainfocus by following the links in the show notes.
- [23:46]
Thanks again for listening to the B2B Agility podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show more easily. You can access more episodes of the show at www.b2b agility.com. that's b2b agility.com while you're there, check out my series of best selling agile brand guides covering a wide variety of marketing technology topics. Or you can search for Greg Kilstrom on Amazon. Until next time, stay focused and stay Ag.
- [24:21]
Brian Gates
The Agile brand.