We’ve recently written a number of posts on how events fit into the marketing mix and how event management technology should be positioned as a part of your marketing technology stack. But when it comes to event execution, where does event planning leave off and marketing begin? At Cvent CONNECT, Amanda Young, Global Meeting Operations at GE, explored the relationship between marketers and event planners in her session, Marketing vs. Events: Who Owns What?
Build Credibility
- Understand marketers: Many marketers are a blend of field marketers focused on "butts in seats" and brand marketers focused on company positioning.
- Increase your self-awareness: Planners are experts at their jobs. That doesn’t make you a marketing expert. Embrace the opportunities to learn from your marketing counterparts.
- Be Flexible: Maintain your standards of excellence, but don’t let perfection become a handicap (this may be a tip for my every day living!).
- Collaborate: Be a team player and don’t try to tackle each challenge alone.
- Show Results: Credibility comes with action and results. It’s not just about doing the work, but proving its success.
Create a Framework
Develop a Visual Structure
Outline the various event stages such as:
- Approvals
- Sourcing
- Planning
- Marketing
- Reporting
Map Against Key Actions
Once you identify your key stages, outline the operational actions or planning tasks that must happen at each stage of the event process. For example during the approvals stage, who needs to approve the event? Finance? Department heads? Thinking through these actions add the next layer to your framework. These operational tasks will serve as an outline for the technology capabilities that you need.
Identify Technology Systems
Last, map which technology systems handle each operational task. This technology map will help you outline the interplay between event planning and marketing systems, which will help define the interplay between marketing and event planning functions. Amanda's example of the framework being developed by GE shows the complexities of relationships in marketing vs. events, and how everything works together to achieve desired results. To watch the full session from Cvent CONNECT, visit here.
