🔋 The Transformative Power of Events ✨

Hey there,

Let’s just acknowledge the elephant in the email: I went to see Taylor Swift in June.

Three hours, 44 songs and my 12-year-old’s dream come true.

Taylor Swift is a cultural and economic force of nature, but whether you’re breaking stadium attendance records or attending a local networking gathering, the power of events remains as important for tech businesses as ever.

I’ll talk about that a little more in a moment, but first, here’s a picture of my daughter and me at the concert!

Why I love in-person events.

The Wondrous team have been lucky enough to attend several events recently (not all of them Taylor Swift) and, according to our B2B Fintech Marketing Landscape Survey, events were second in the list of most effective marketing channels to fill the pipeline.

This importance was reinforced by the attendees of a fintech marketing conference I attended last year, in which a staggering 73% said in-person events were currently driving the most impact for their businesses.

Whilst online events have their place, I think in-person events are so powerful because nothing builds trust as quickly as meeting people face-to-face.

And luckily for us, event formats are becoming more and more creative. The days of attending seminars in bleak conference rooms are mostly behind us - event organisers are moving toward venues and experiences that bring out the best in people.

The in-person events we’ve attended recently have been relaxed, informal and, dare I say it, fun as well.

If you want to start going to more in-person events but don’t know where to start, reply to this email and we’ll have a brainstorm.

Alternatively, you could always host your own…

The power of hosting.

Speaking of the transformational power of events, one of our clients, Zero Hash, hosted their own event in June.

Whilst hosting your own events usually demands more resources, the reward is that you get to choose who you want in the room. Providing you can make it enticing enough, that is.

That’s where we came in to turn their vision into a reality. Prior to the event, we created FOMO-inducing promo videos, an attention-grabbing landing page to make it as easy as possible for guests to sign-up, and social posts to nurture their audience too.

On the day itself, we produced a series of animated explainer videos that were used as introductions to each of the speaker sessions, as well as assisting with the design of the keynote speech.

Ben and Richard went down to support the filming of the day, and the next step for us now is to work on creating follow up video content that Zero Hash can share to maximise the impact of the day and keep it in people’s minds.

Remember: an event might only last for a day, but its impact can continue for weeks and months afterwards with the right post-event strategy.

Getting stuck in.

Andy Goring, one of our fantastic graphic designers, joined a client’s workshop last month.

Andy is particularly skilful because of his focus on the user experience. Everything he designs has the user in mind, and that’s why he was keen to get involved in the initial workshop to assist in mapping out the new user journey ahead of starting a redesign of their digital portal.

Thankfully he took a selfie whilst he was there too. It’s almost like he knew I’d want to include it in the newsletter.

The funnel of love.

Whether you’re hosting an event, attending, or speaking at one, events are really important for your top-of-funnel marketing. As the below graphic illustrates, that’s the “awareness” section.

But great events can play a role at every stage of your funnel. We created a handy 6-slide deck that offers advice about filling your pipeline which you can download for free here:

Were you there?

I’ve just got back from the Fintech Marketing Summer Conference in London.

It was great to be a part of the event to hear what's working well for others in the industry, so that I can keep learning and share those insights with my own audience.

On the subject of events, a fireside chat uncovered some of the other benefits that attending events hold for marketers, aside from awareness and networking opportunities: namely, the ability to listen in to sales conversations to hear first-hand from prospects what their pain points are.

Further, it's also incredibly useful to hear which messages the sales team use that land well. Are the sales team even using your well thought out messages? Perhaps not, but that doesn’t doesn’t mean their approach isn’t working even better. Events are a fantastic opportunity to improve the way you communicate around your product.

I also had the good fortune to bump into my friends Deanna Fernandez and Josh Mendelowitz of Marqeta!

(Networking hack: Deanna and I always wear our signature colours - orange and pink - at events. It helps us stand out!)

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back next month with some more tech marketing insights and Wondrous updates. As always, if you have any feedback for this newsletter, I’d really love to hear it. Just reply directly to this email.

Have a great rest of your July!

Sally and the Wondrous team.