← Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson
Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson
Co-Founder Bizzabo! Connecting with People in an AI World w/ GUEST!! Alon Alroy Co-Founder & CMO | Ep. 438
00:21:02
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. We share quick tips, things you can do right now, and then we add a little bit of chaos at the end of every episode. We also keep it short like this intro. Let's check it out. We are back for do this not that podcast. And I have an awesome guest. I really do. Now, if you're even remotely in the world of events, you know this dude, okay? Because he's a really big deal alone. Alroy, who's the co founder and CMO and chief customer officer of Bizzabo, you know Bizzabo because when you get your badge, you got that thing at the bottom where you squeeze it and connect with other people. It's the coolest thing of all time. But beyond that just squeezing the badge thing, they're really the first event experience, like operating system for hybrid virtual in person events. Basically, if you're in the event world, Bizzabo is one of those companies that you've been following that you're seeing everywhere. And Alone is like the guy name 40 under 40 leader name. He's been named the top 100 most influential people in the event space. The 19 executives that are shaping the industry. He knows about events. That's why I brought him here. Cause we're gonna talk about events in the age of AI and all things alon. How you doing, man?
- [01:08]
B
That was a great intro. Like I can keep listening to that even more. But thank you very much. I'm so happy to be here.
- [01:15]
A
Amazing. All right, so before we get into kind of AI and how it's crushing all industries and the event world, oh no, it's gonna collapse. But that's not the truth. Tell us a little bit, how did alone become alone? Like how did this all happen?
- [01:30]
B
Well, we are, my co founders and I actually are not events people. All of us served in the Air Force. Then we studied together in university and we actually each had their own domain. I studied business and law, another one, computer science. And we met at this entrepreneurship program that was a year long venture creation program. We actually had an idea that was very similar to Airbnb. It was back in 2011. We started working on that venture instead of going to a lot of events to potentially recruit investors and employees and to get feedback. And we felt very frustrated about not finding the right people. Everything was chaotic. And we started getting an itch to events and started speaking with a lot of people about the networking experience, the organization experience that was very lacking. And we realized that we're very passionate about solving a Big problem at a big market. We kind of like abandoned that other venture and started jumping in into that industry. And I think we had an advantage of not coming from the industry so we could ask all kinds of stupid questions and learn from all the people that we talked about. I, we raised some money from family and friends. That was early 2012. I moved to New York. I'm still here to get closer to the market and closer to hopefully getting to product market fit. And I interviewed, I don't know, hundreds and thousands of event organizers throughout the years and because I think that's how you learn, you ask smarter people on the problems and then you try and build solutions to satisfy that. And over the years I had the privilege of building all of our go to market functions, our sales team or marketing team or customer success team operations. So had to hands on, kind of like build everything from scratch. And we were grateful that over the years we saw a lot of ups and downs, but more ups than downs, raised a lot of money and kind of grew nicely. And today we are lucky to have some of the best event teams on earth use visible to power their events.
- [03:46]
A
I love it and I see it because when I go to events I'm using your technology, I'm aware of it and it's, and it's awesome. And I think you have a unique perspective. You know right now when people are going to events, companies will send somebody the event, oh, they spent a thousand dollars a ticket. What was the ROI in that? We got a booth. We just dropped 30 grand on a booth. What was the ROI on that? And they take a step back and they're like, you know what, this is a money loser for us. Why are we getting involved with events and now with AI it's like it's even harder to justify because it is. Do we even need to go there to learn anything? You just get it all out of ChatGPT or whatever. So how do we look at events these days in terms of the return on investment that we're making? And is AI destroying events? What's your take?
- [04:29]
B
Well, there is a lot to unpack here. Let's maybe start a bit about the AI and events. Just, just a little bit. I think we are, we're living in a super exciting, interesting times in which AI is all over us. Most people are super over overwhelmed with what's going on. But one thing we see very, very clearly because we have data that shows it that the number of events is at all times high. Actually more than pre pandemic which is Great. Because honestly, as a human, I'm very happy about it that people still believe in the power of handshakes and face to face meetings. But there is another factor to it. AI creates a lot of digital noise. It's so easy to send emails. I know you're a master at sending great emails, so you know that people get the highest number of emails ever. So there's a lot of digital noise. And to get through the clutter and build real relationships with the community, with prospect, with customers, I'm pretty confident that AI will not be able to replace that. So in your marketing mix, if you are in the business, that relationship is important. Events are probably will play an even more dominant role in the marketing mix today and in the future. There are many ways in which AI can enhance it. So I'm definitely not anti AI. Like on the contrary, I think it will make our meetings actually way more effective. Less time on logistical stuff, more time on intentional meetings that deliver on the promise. And you're like, okay, what is the ROI of events? Like, why are we running them? How should we even measure them? Honestly, event is a big, broad word and they have many, many different objectives. Some are related to influencing pipeline, then revenue, and some are about honestly planting seeds for relationship that maybe one day will turn into revenue. And some are all about brand and to make sure that your brand is seen because there are events that you just, you need to be there. You need to be there for the press, you need to be there for the influencers. You need to be there so the competition sees you and you need to be there sometimes even for your own employees. So the approach to ROI is unique and, but it, they can be very measurable depending on what the objective is.
- [06:59]
A
So. Okay. And I think that's really important. I'm glad that you said that because I agree that the word events is almost like, it's not fair. Right. Because you could throw a dinner with 20 people or you could put on an event that like Dreamforce, there's 100,000 people and somehow they're both, they're both events. Yeah, right. And so for, for everyone out there is like, well, I don't put on Dreamforce. I don't even put on a conference that has 500 people. But I, I would like to have events as part of my marketing mix. Is, is it like, what is, how do you go about saying we have no line item for this in our budget? We don't have anything to do an event, but I want to start a small event, like, how do you go about that internally? Say we're going to start out with a dinner, we're going to start with a hundred person thing. Like how do you actually initiate internally and justify starting out having events in your organization? Because I want to figure out how to do that for in person events for my own business.
- [07:51]
B
Yeah, no, that's a great question. And one tip that worked for us is the following. First of all, I'm a big believer in micro events and dinners and kind of like small field of out small field events. Having said that, even to run, let's say a 15 to 20 people dinner at a major city will cost you 10 to $14,000. So that's a lot of money. How do you go about it? One, you're very intentional on who do you invite. And two, at least for the first ones, partner with another brand because if you split the bill between three to four partners then you're looking at 2,000, 3,000. That's our approach, we take the role of organizing it, we'll reach out to a few partners, everyone chips in, they get the, you need to make sure there is a win win. As always with partners, they get a seat at the table, they get access to the whole list, they need to contribute to guests and suddenly you have a win, win, win. One, more interesting for the guest, they're able to actually engage with several vendors. And two, very way easier to prove ROI for 2000. Depending of course what your business and what are your, what's your ACV and all that. But that's a more risk free approach. And also when you split the promotional efforts with more partners, way easier to fill the room. So a strong proponent that doing micro events with the ecosystem as long as you have overlap around your ICP or ideal customer profile, so everyone can benefit from those in the room.
- [09:32]
A
See, I love that because it allows you to kind of grow from there. I think it's when people say to me, they're like, because we plan virtual events, they'll say, well you should a big in person one. I'm like, that's a massive roll of the D, that's a massive cash outlay and I have no idea how the hell it's going to go. But you do a dinner, you partner up with a couple people, it works. Okay, let's grow from there. But let's flip the script for a second here. Instead of doing these micro events, which I think is awesome, a lot of people either exhibit at events, they sponsor events they're thinking about, should I exhibit here? There Wherever. And so often people look at their ROI be like, oh man, that was terrible. We just didn't, we can't show any value there. What are some secret sauce things that people are doing wrong as it relates to exhibiting or sponsoring at events of almost any size.
- [10:20]
B
That's a great one because as you said earlier, some companies invest, sometimes they spent, but Sometimes they invest 30, 50, $100,000 in the booth. They invest so much in the design of it and how it looks like and to get the internal buy in and they say we have to be there and so on, so on. And then they forget to invest at least the same level of effort in activating their go to market team and actually preparing them for the on site experience. And then you see things like reps that are on their phones when an audience walks, or lack of outreach and prep before the event. And it's also very, very difficult to look at the numbers if they measure the numbers to prove the roi. Another thing that I found to be a bit crazy is that the lack of understanding of follow up urgency. If you speak with a prospect at the show, you should assume that that Prospect spoke with 20 other exhibitors and the speed to get to their inbox with a thoughtful, intentional, personalized note influence a lot whether you will continue the conversation or not. So practical tips is to work with your go to market team, set expectations on what are the metrics, what are the goals of each individual person who is attending, who is being paid to go pre, during and post. And it's important to distinguish between pre, during and post. Pre, you're expected to reach out post, you're expected to greet people, do demos, you're supposed to get to 10 leads, whatever, follow up, this is how you do it, this is how you're going to measure it. And it will never be successful without a good go to market plan and collaboration. So it's not enough to just have an amazing booth, it's even way more important to activate your kind of like go to market partners to make sure that that investment actually translates to results. Otherwise there will not be a next time in the age we live it, which everyone's maximizing for profitability. And you need to prove results specifically at a kind of like revenue driven events, which most of the exhibition at events are related to revenue driven objectives.
- [12:39]
A
I think it's so valuable for people to hear about being intentional before, during and after. Not even just about, you know, exhibiting, but if you are going to a meeting, if you're going to a cocktail party somewhere or whatever. You're not going, in my opinion, it's terrible to have a good time. You're going there because so and so is going to be there. You're going to try to get to know them, you're going to follow up with them. And I think, you know, to your point, I don't think enough of anybody, business people, marketers, whatever, are intentional about their human interactions. And when you were, you know, launching, you know, bizzabo, you entered into a category that had monsters in it, giant companies. And that had to be like, is this going to. Can we even get traction here? Why would anybody listen to us? Is that like, was that part of your playbook? Like, how do you enter in? Forget about events or whatever, but how do you enter into a category that's dominated by some massive companies and be able to break through like you all did?
- [13:33]
B
So we are indeed in a market that has an 800 pound gorilla market leader. The company name is a Cvent. They've been around. I think they celebrated their 25th birthday last year. Congratulations. Honestly, a great company. They got almost a billion dollar in revenue. So hats off. We believe that there are many things that we do much better. And of course as a strategy, they have way more resources than us. Like I'm sure many of your listeners compete with bigger organizations. And it was clear to us that we need to compete differently. If we do the same thing they do, we're always going to be behind because they're bigger, they're fast, they are, they have more resources. So we like to kind of like take the challenger approach. Meaning think about Avis versus Hertz. One, we're going to work way harder and two, we need to act like a speedboat. And I'll give you an example. During COVID March 2020, we only did in person events. The virtual was not even a thing. It was very clear to us that unless we do something very differently and be first to market, we are going to die as a company. If you go to our blog on March 22, 2020, you're going to see a blog post in which we launch a solution for virtual events. Now, we did not know that virtual events would actually become a thing, but it was clear to us we need to act fast and be a speedboat. You know, when C event launched the first virtual offering August, and even that was an announcement that it will come soon. Two weeks versus six months. In addition, kind of a challenger brand is all about truly understanding the real pains of your big competition customers and speak very specifically to Their pains. One of our more successful campaigns was what we call busy versus Venting. I'm sure that if you Google Busy versus Venti campaign by Bizzabo, you're gonna. It won some awards and all that. And I believe that one thing you can do is to do things that don't scale until you can't. We truly invested for our size, we invested this big campaign. We had these two characters similar to Mac versus PC or Android versus iPhone. I'm not sure if you saw these competitive campaigns. And we had Venti, which is a character that likes to vent, similar to maybe some c Vent customers. And that campaign only spoke to real paints. We heard on the phone from customers. And then there was a busy, which is a super cheerful character that highlights the things that we. We do better. So these days, you just need to do things that don't scale. We cannot scale that campaign, but it was very clear that we need to just challenge the. The big gorilla to go outside of our comfort zone and to make sure that it's kind of like this purple cow moment that the customers or the community will not be able to ignore. So to do some crazy things from time to time when you compete against a gorilla is something that I really recommend to do, and there could be backlash. You can get some scary letters. People will react with, oh, no, I can't believe they did it. And if it feels a little bit not comfortable, it means you are on the right track.
- [16:59]
A
Yeah. First of all, I love that, and I also think it's a great business lesson that so often. I love the show Shark Tank, but the problem with Shark Tank is everybody that goes on to Shark Tank, they're trying to invent a product that's never existed before. They think that go into a category that's competition because they'll never break through. But I'm of the belief that you want to look at the categories that have the most competition, because there's probably enough business there for one more company, maybe if that company does a little bit of a better job. So I. I love how you steered towards a category that was competitive, as opposed to just trying to recreate the wheel and make something that's never existed before, because obviously you guys have done very, very well playing kind of that challenger role. And I'm sure that's something that you thought about that, you know, there's got to be enough business there for everybody because events are exploding, right?
- [17:42]
B
Totally.
- [17:44]
A
Yeah. All right, so. All right, before we run out of time here, I'm just curious about Something non bizo events or whatever. Do you just, like, love events? Are you like, at Coachella and Lallapalooza and you just every day, like, what event am I going to go to this weekend? Or is that not what you're doing in your free time?
- [18:05]
B
It's a great question. I think I love people more than I love events. And I'm kind of like, I'm a super social individual and I believe events just kind of like bring that all together. So it's not that I'm in love with events, I'm in love with the outcome of events, that it's actually a superhuman thing. And during the pandemic, we did this kind of like when everyone thought that in person events will never come back because, look, we can meet virtually. Honestly, we were praying that everyone were wrong and we actually made a big bet, like, click the smart badge technology. We bought that at the peak of the pandemic when no one talked about in person events. And we were like, it doesn't make sense. Like, people will need to meet, people will need to engage. So we made a big investment that really paid off. But no, it's not about me being in love with events. It's me being in love with people. And events is just a great medium to. To bring them together.
- [19:02]
A
I guess you're a better person than I am. I like to sit home and I like to lie to people and say I have other plans. And I like to sit on my couch and just watch TV and say, oh, no, no, I'm out of dinner. But I'm really not at a dinner, so.
- [19:15]
B
We host people every Friday. We had 30 people at our apartment last week, so.
- [19:20]
A
Wow. Yeah, that sounds like a nightmare to me. Amazing. Well, by the way, if you invite me, I'll definitely. Unfortunately, I'm busy, but thank you for the invitation. All right, before we run out of time, we're going to put it all in the show notes. But how does we get involved with you? Should they follow you on LinkedIn? What should they do? Tell them everything.
- [19:37]
B
You can follow me on LinkedIn, you can follow Biz on LinkedIn. Biz.com is where to find us and evaluate whether we can help you. We'd love to help you talk. We talked a lot about micro events. We actually have a webinar about micro events in two weeks on visible.com you can find it or send me a note. I'll send you a link. But we generate a lot of valuable content, so feel free to just follow us and hopefully you'll find it valuable.
- [20:03]
A
Yeah. And I'm not just saying this because I'm staring alone here. He really does his company shares a lot of stuff and let me spell his name and the company so we all get it right? It's a L O N a L R O Y. Okay? You're not gonna find many of those on LinkedIn. So you could find him and Bizzabo is B I Z Z a B O Follow everybody. Connect. Do it all. Great guy alone. Thanks for being here, my man.
- [20:25]
B
Thank you.
- [20:27]
A
You did it. You made it to the end. But what? Wait. The party is not over. Listen, I want to keep hanging out. Subscribe to this podcast and if it wasn't the worst podcast you've ever listened to, give it a five star review. Why not? But you know what? I want to do even more with you. Go to guru mediahub.com and we can partner there. You can find out about all of our free events, all of our stuff. And if you're epically bored, go to jschweddelson.com and we could stay connected. You could find my newsletter and everything else I got going on. Thanks for being here and hope you subscribe.