Episode Summary
In this insightful episode of Tech Qualified, Meredith Metsker hosts Lindsay McGuire, Associate Director of Content and Campaigns at Goldcast. They dive into the art of crafting effective event strategies for small marketing teams. Lindsay emphasizes the importance of aligning events with business goals, highlighting how different event types serve varied objectives – from brand building to community engagement.
Lindsay shares practical advice on efficiently running events with limited resources. She stresses the significance of roles like hosts and producers in ensuring the smooth execution of events. The discussion also explores leveraging virtual events to extend brand reach and content strategies, underscoring the value of audience engagement and feedback in shaping event direction.
Concluding with key insights, Lindsay offers guidance for small teams considering event strategies. She advocates for using events as content generators and prioritizing audience needs, ensuring impactful and sustainable marketing efforts.
Lindsay McGuire
Associate Director of Content and Campaigns
Noteworthy: Lindsay was involved in creating and growing the show “Event Marketers Live,” which has been successfully running for two years.
Key Insights
Strategic Use of Events for Diverse Business Outcomes
Lindsay McGuire discusses the multifaceted role of events in business strategy. She describes how events can fuel various outcomes, such as community building, brand expansion, and audience diversification. These events are not just for sales and pipeline development but also play a crucial role in customer retention and business expansion.
Balancing Sales and Brand-Building in Event Strategy
Lindsay highlights the importance of balancing sales-driven goals with brand-building and community strategies in event planning. She advises that focusing solely on one aspect, like revenue generation, can skew the success of an event.
Audience Engagement and Thought Leadership through Events
Emphasizing audience interaction, Lindsay discusses how engaging with the audience during events can reap multiple benefits. By providing platforms for audience participation, businesses can build brand affinity, trust, and establish themselves as thought leaders.
Episode Highlights
Designing an Event Strategy for Small Marketing Teams
Lindsay McGuire and Meredith Metsker discuss the first steps in designing an event strategy for small marketing teams. They emphasize the importance of understanding the goals behind the strategy, whether it’s for live virtual events, large-scale conferences, or in-person field events. Lindsay advises starting with a clear understanding of the desired outcomes from these events.
“I think it definitely depends on what you want to get out of that event strategy right? There’s lots of reasons why you would want to do live virtual events or large scale conferences and summits or whatever type of event you’re putting on or even in person field events. So it honestly really starts with what’s your goal?”
Overcoming Budget and Work Constraints in Event Strategy
Addressing concerns about budget and workload in event planning, Lindsay provides insights into the value of virtual events. She reassures that despite budget constraints, virtual events offer benefits outweighing potential losses or challenges. Her approach highlights the minimal risks involved in virtual events and the importance of understanding audience attraction.
“The virtual side I’d say there’s not a lot to lose. Right? Like if anything you will see benefits versus any losses or any painful moments or things not working out because as long as you’re doing the research to know what’s going to attract your audience.”
Maximizing Content Creation Through Events
Lindsay discusses how events can be a rich source of diverse content. She explains how a single event can generate various content types like video snippets, blog posts, guides, infographics, and social media posts. This part of the conversation highlights the efficiency and effectiveness of using events to fuel a comprehensive content strategy.
“And from just one hour of time from me and these two guests I mean I can crank out… hundreds of pieces of content. Because you have little video snippets you can pull that stuff into blog posts into guides into infographics into social media posts like on and on and on.”
Long-Term Value of Event Content
Lindsay emphasizes the long-term value of event content beyond just live attendance. She discusses the importance of creating content that continues to attract and educate audiences even after the event has ended, including on-demand viewing. This part of the discussion sheds light on the sustained impact of event content in engaging the audience over time.
“I’m also concerned about people coming back to that content for on-demand viewing and getting value out of it after the event. I also care about people seeing that content after the event even if they haven’t like gone to the event, even if they weren’t either registered or an attendee.”
