Events may at long last have the CMO's attention—deservedly so, since they consume up to 60% of the marketing budget at most B2B companies.
That's because event tech is transforming the analog meeting into a full-scale "digital production."
So much so, CMOs now face a formidable "event tech stack," a digital gauntlet comprising CRM systems; email delivery platforms; event websites; online communities; registration systems; event personalization platforms; onsite networks; session scanning and survey tools; audience engagement, second-screen, and polling systems; beacons and sensors; games; event apps; lead retrieval systems; learning management systems; social media suites; analytic suites; and vendor sourcing and travel management systems.
That's a ton of tech to choose from and "B2B marketers sometimes need 12 different tools to run an event," says Alon Alroy, CMO of Bizzabo.
A new conference launches this month to help marketers tackle the stack.
Transform USA promises to help attendees develop a "coherent data and digital strategy," according to its founder, Denzil Rankine.
Transforming a meeting into a digital production sounds really sexy. And the big-data metrics, personalization and amplification event tech can provide are long overdue.
But without a strong business-first philosophy—asking of every piece, "How does this serve our marketing goals?"—a CMO could easily find herself overpowered by the event tech stack.
HAT TIP: Gary Slack inspired this post.