Cracking the code on smart web design with Dara Burg and Andres Perez

Andres Perez [00:00:00]:

Iteration is so important and there is always a better way to do something and a way of talking to yourself and creating something even better. So if I have one tip, it's just look at what's been done before, how do you make it better and just keep improving upon it and eventually you'll get there.

Alyssa Peltier [00:00:17]:

Great events, create great brands, but pulling off an event that engages, excites and connects audiences, well that takes a village. And we're that village. My name is Alyssa.

Rachel Andrews [00:00:29]:

I'm Rachel.

Felicia Asiedu [00:00:29]:

And I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier [00:00:31]:

And you are listening to Great Events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

Felicia Asiedu [00:00:41]:

Hi everyone. What has been going on in this wide, wide world of events? My name is Felicia and I am your host for today's episode. Now for today's episode, as I always say, super excited. When is Felicia not excited? But we are going to talk about web design, which I just think is so interesting and I would be a poor host if I didn't have some guests. So here today I have Dara and Andres joining me. So Dara, say hello.

Dara Burg [00:01:08]:

Hey, how are you guys?

Andres Perez [00:01:09]:

How is everyone?

Felicia Asiedu [00:01:11]:

I hope they're doing well. Can you tell us a little bit about what each of you do?

Dara Burg [00:01:15]:

Yeah, so I can go first. So I am on the event marketing team here at Cvent, and I help market all of our tier one events and trade shows. So our biggest ones are Cvent CONNECT. We have both the US and the UF version, which I get to work with Felicia on, which is awesome. So I do pretty much everything from the start to the end of the event. So working on things like our website, emails, all of our paid digital strategy, everything that we do to get attendees to the event, and then making sure that they're having a great time at the event with lots of great communication and all that good stuff.

Felicia Asiedu [00:01:50]:

Phenomenal. Andres, how do you fit into this?

Andres Perez [00:01:52]:

So I am a UX designer sitting on Cvent's web design team. I create experiences for all things cvent.com. So if you're ever on that website, that is what my team handles. I'm also the lead designer for anything on Cvent Community. We're doing some really great stuff over there. So definitely always recommend you go and be a part of that. And last but definitely not least considering that's what we're here for. I am the web designer for our Cvent CONNECT registration site.

Felicia Asiedu [00:02:19]:

Awesome. So I'm going to start by saying this. I know lots of people listening. We have great podcast listeners and some come from large organizations similar to ours. Or they have event marketers, web designers, UX designers, but there will be a lot of people listening that do not have this idea of the split roles. So just so that our audience knows, we're going to talk about both sides of this coin and make sure that people know there are simple things you can do, but then there's also a little bit complex we can do. So we want to hit both audiences, but why don't we start talking about strategy. Everybody needs one, whether you're a big company, small company, lots of roles, or just one. How do we go about thinking about that website strategy when it comes to our events? Dara, is that all you?

Dara Burg [00:03:01]:

Yes. So I wouldn't say it's all me because we have so many different hands in the pot working on the Cvent CONNECT site, but really I'm the one that's rankling all the cats and making sure that everybody's on the same page. And then Andres also helps a lot with coming up with our UX strategy once I have all of the content and things put together. But I help to craft the flow of our website, making sure the strategy aligns with the vision and the goals of the website. But that really starts with going back to who our attendees are and trying to figure out what our key personas are that we're targeting. And once we have that info, that's where we start to build out the website strategy. You need to know who you're trying to talk to before you can build your website in the first place, and then of course, what your event goals are too.

Felicia Asiedu [00:03:46]:

Good tip. Good tip. And Andres, how do you play a role there with the strategic side Dara said, UX?

Andres Perez [00:03:52]:

Yeah, of course. So it's one of those things where you do have to know your audience, but a lot of humans think alike. Sometimes it has nothing to do with your exact role or where you come from, but more or less how you think. It's kind of just gathering what is the majority of the population, how are they thinking, how are they using this website, and how do I craft an experience that kind of encaptures the most amount of people that I can?

Felicia Asiedu [00:04:21]:

How they think. That's so interesting. I remember when I was studying marketing, we were talking about psychology and the colors that people would use. I remember we learned that I would say fast food, giant chain that was yellow and red. I'm not going to name any names. And they were like, they chose those colors because psychologically they make you hungrier apparently. And I was like, wow, that's crazy. So when you say how people think, could you give us some examples of that?

Dara Burg [00:04:44]:

One of the interesting things about website strategy is that you're actually taking the cumulative knowledge of every website that any person has been on. So each of them have to have repeatable patterns. So when someone drops on your website, there's certain things that they're going to expect from having been on other websites in the past. So one of the first things that we start off with when we're working on the Cvent website is thinking about the user journey and how the average person would go through the website. So how can we get them to register as quickly and efficiently as possible and get them the information that they need? So we have gone through several iterations of our site, literally trying to get the number of clicks reduced so that it's easier and faster for people to get to the register button, but then also making it super clear that they can get the information that they need on the homepage. So I want to get the fast facts of an event when I go to a website. So what's the pricing? What's the people that are going to be there, what am I going to get out of the event? What is the event about? I need that simple info on the homepage so that I can then make some quick decisions. I think Andres gave me some really interesting tips too about, hey, people don't read. So a lot of people skim more than they read on a website. 

Dara Burg [00:06:03]:

So it's really important to get that behavior in your head when you're writing content because I know when I'm writing content or writing stuff for the website, I can get super verbose. So it's nice having Andres work with me sometimes because he'll be like, Hey, you need to cut that down for real, because this is looking way, way too long and no one's ever going to read three paragraphs or whatever you've written.

Andres Perez [00:06:23]:

So just to piggyback on that one, how do people think is that most of the time they don't, right? So how do you make things as simple as possible for them to digest this information? And that's one of the things that we try and keep in mind is that how do we give them clear and concise messaging to be able to digest that information without them having to think too much? One of the most important things that we try and keep in mind is not to make your users think. We want to deliver this information so that they can get from point A to point B as quickly as possible.

Felicia Asiedu [00:07:01]:

Yeah, that sounds so cool. And I know we keep saying UX, that's user experience. So for those people that are not sure and they're like, UX, that sounds like some technical thing. It's like, no, it's just how do your users experience your website. Would you say that's right?

Andres Perez [00:07:16]:

Correct. And when you look at UX holistically, it lives anywhere. It's not necessarily just a website, it can be a product, it can be even in the real world, how is something built? What is it that you're experiencing? Is it how you make something? Is it how you're using a product? And I think that's something that maybe go over a lot of people's head is that this isn't just something that is just for tech. It is something that you want to create that experience across anything that a user uses or touches or is a part of.

Dara Burg [00:07:48]:

Yeah, I think we have so many event planners probably listening to this podcast and they're experts of user experience really, because what they're thinking of is when an attendee comes in, what their journey is on site and thinking about what that holistic journey from start to finish is. And that's what we want to bring in and infuse on the website as well, is that that's really your first touch point of your brand and your event. So that's part of the attendee journey. So you want to make sure that that is part of your overall user experience that you're thinking of. It's not just the onsite experience, but the digital experience as well.

Felicia Asiedu [00:08:24]:

I love that. I was thinking exactly the same thing. It's like all these experiences and that's what everyone's living for these days experiences even within business. So these principles, are there some key principles of UX that you want to make sure come through on an event website?

Andres Perez [00:08:41]:

Yeah, for sure. So there are plenty that I can name, but if we are speaking to the majority of audiences, I think there's three main ones to keep in mind. First one being the attention, where is the attention going? You got to kind of keep in mind the patterns that the eyes follow on the page. So what is the first thing that their eyes are landing on? What are their eyes moving towards? What pattern are the eyes moving in? And a lot of the times typically we use something called the F pattern, which means you're going from top left, top right, next row, left to right, left to right, and if you kind of stray away a little bit too much from that, then it goes back to making your mind think a little bit more, which is what we try and lean away from. So sometimes these patterns are there for a reason and we want to follow them. So it's just one of those best practices. The second one, which I would argue is just as important as attention is typography. Typography is so important.

Andres Perez [00:09:40]:

 What are your font sizes? Do they make sense? What are your font styles? In terms of font styles you want to keep it to max two, but if you can do it with just one, do it with just one. One of the things that I like to say, just to put emphasis on typography. I'm not sure if you've ever heard anybody say this or if you've experienced it, but when you're watching a really, really beautiful video that's high resolution 4K, and it's like one of the most amazing things you've ever seen and you put it on and you play and it has bad sound, the whole video is automatically ruined, right? Sound is the most important when it comes to video, it's a very similar situation with web design and anything UX design where typography is more important than your visuals and if you can nail your typography than you're nailing your website. And then the third one that I have is accessibility. What colors are we using? Are they being contrast? You want to make your website as usable as possible for as many users as possible.

Andres Perez [00:10:36]:

And the Cvent platform lets you do this easily. If you want, when you upload an image, it gives you the option to upload all text, and we make sure on our end that we have all text for every single image because if not, if a user is using the screen reader, it's just going to read the final name and that might not be descriptive for them as to what the image is. So yeah, attention, typography and accessibility for sure always nail those.

Felicia Asiedu [00:11:00]:

Amazing. I'm just like, I'm sitting here with my mouth, I'm going, yeah. Oh my gosh, that's so true. And Dara, I'm wondering, is this where your brain is when you're thinking about this website, you're like, right, I've got to think about these things. Or do you think you've been educated by Andres? What do you think?

Dara Burg [00:11:15]:

Yeah, definitely. I definitely think I've been educated by Andres and some of our other peers. It's been super helpful, especially with the accessibility mindset throughout the whole website. That was something that just we built on as time goes on. And that has just become more and more important. I think sometimes we think of accessibility as, oh, this is an extra step that we have to take and this is going to take a while for us to update our website to do this, and it's just going to take extra time and energy. But one thing that I've really found out about accessibility, having worked on it on the website for these past couple of years, is that when you make your website accessible, it's making your user journey better for everyone. So even though yes, it's an extra step and something else for you to think about when you're putting together your website, making it accessible for people that have accessibility needs, actually it's an improvement for your website as a whole.

So one example that I'm thinking of is the color thing. So where there's color contrast issues or where you have issues where a person that's visually impaired could see, it's just going to make your website look better in general to have accessible colors on it. And then for things like adding descriptive CTAs to your link,

Dara Burg [00:12:22]:

so that's where when you're looking at your website, it'll say, download A PDF versus just saying, download this. Your user's going to have more understanding of what's going on on your website, and it's going to be a lot easier for them to go through the process than if they didn't have those accessibility features on. So it's not just for those that have accessibility needs, although that is of course a huge priority, everything's going to rise up from the bottom and make it better for everyone too.

Andres Perez [00:12:49]:

I want to say real quick that although it is an extra step and an extra layer to think about, I want to just put out there that it doesn't take an absurd amount of time as long as you're designing with accessibility in mind from scratch. When you start your website from scratch and you're keeping in mind the color contrast and how you're labeling your things and the awe images, when you work that into the progress, you'll be surprised that it doesn't take up as much time as one would think. So it's just better to do it from the start.

Dara Burg [00:13:17]:

And there's an interesting element too with accessibility that kind of goes back to the first point of attention to that principle and what we talked about about people don't read, and there's kind of the skimming aspect to websites. So the way to make things accessible language wise is everything needs to be on an eighth grade reading level. So as a marketer, this can actually be quite a challenge because you're going to be drawn in and want to use some of this corporate jargon. You're going to want to use some of this language that maybe is within your own event. So one example that always jumps out to me is innovation pavilion with our Cvent CONNECT website. What is an innovation pavilion? Would you know what that was if you were just some random person that dropped on your website? So you want to make sure that everything that you are putting in content-wise is to as broad of audience as possible and that people can understand regardless of either their reading level or their experience in the industry. So just having that lens when you go in of like, if I didn't know anything about this event, would I know what this is?

Felicia Asiedu [00:14:21]:

Absolutely. And I remember speaking to one of our event planners, she happened to be Italian, lived in the UK for ages, and we were talking about accessibility, but we were talking about accessibility from I guess the perspective of disability. And she was kind of saying, but hold on, I'm just a foreign language speaker in the UK. I don't understand what you guys are talking about sometimes because you're using words that doesn't translate in Italian, and I haven't learned that English. And so like you said, download the PDF is very clear, whereas get it now, they'd be like, get what now? What are we talking about? So it's so interesting.

Felicia Asiedu [00:14:58]:

So when you think about languages and designing your site, do either of you have any experience of like, okay, this is in this language. I know we do see them in German, for example. Do you ever have to think about, okay, how is this going to transfer language wise?

Dara Burg [00:15:15]:

I know that that was a big one for us, especially with CONNECT Europe when we were designing the site, is how do we make this understandable both for the German audience and the English audience? So there was a lot that we had to either look at the translation, but I think not just language, but terms and phrases. So coming from the US and working on a European event, there's tons of different words and phrases that are different between the two. So I think this is one where having collaboration from your teams and also having a lot of other eyes and mindsets that go through. I know sometimes it can be painful to have people go through your website and look at it with a second pair of eyes and you're like, dang it, I just thought we had all of this finished perfectly. But I think exposing to a lot of different stakeholders and groups within your company, maybe even those that have never been to the event before, that will be so illuminating to see what comes up as those weirdo language words that you're like, oh, I didn't know that this was actually not intelligible. So it'll help kind of give you that fresh perspective that you need.

Felicia Asiedu [00:16:16]:

Such good advice. Andres?

Andres Perez [00:16:17]:

Yeah, no, Dara kind of nailed it right there. So I'll just kind of put a bullet point under hers as for being the main point, something I just want to put out there is we try and be as inclusive as possible. It goes back to we want to design for everyone, but sometimes that can become really hard. There are so many people from different places and speaking different languages. And so one of the things that we try and do is just do a little bit of research beforehand before we start designing it. So who's coming to this website? What language are they speaking? What terms are they using? And so this is the small part that we can do to make sure that we're covering most of the crowd, but definitely love what Dara had said before.

Dara Burg [00:16:56]:

And I think the research aspect is huge for us. That's where you can dive into your attendee data from previous years, and you can literally see, okay, we held this event last year, we're holding it again this year. What's our attendee breakdown? And we can look at this is the type of person that attended in-person. This is the type of person that attended virtually, and look at that level of detail. And then that will really help you form your content strategy for your website. Because maybe for example, for our Cvent CONNECT events, we have 30% supplier and 70% buyer or event planners attending. So we know that that's the content ratio that we want to have on the site.

Dara Burg [00:17:33]:

We don't want a hundred percent of the site to be supplier focused because that's not our main audience. But looking at that reg data that can give us a breakdown of, okay, we need to include the suppliers there, but the majority of our audience is event planners. So we can have that audience be front and center on the homepage.

Felicia Asiedu [00:17:48]:

Yeah, that's so good. And I remember you said just a little while ago about your stakeholders. So within that research you are finding out who are the people coming, you've got all these different stakeholders, how do you juggle and hey, look, I work here too, right? Cvent has a ton of stakeholders and I'm one of them, Felicia [inaudible 00:18:08]. So how do you juggle all of those opinions that come in, Dara when you're looking at these websites?

Dara Burg [00:18:14]:

I think my comment about data kind of applies here too, is that that is your hard and fast source that you can use to justify your decisions. And especially when you're looking at things like the website, people can have a lot of opinions and think differently about how things look. So I think data is a really great one. Even looking at things like, okay, maybe what pages were clicked on often last year, because sometimes people want to add new pages or add things to the navigation and you're like, I don't really know if we need that or if that's necessary. So sometimes looking at your page traffic, one thing that we look at closely is also registration rate. We use our cvent.com site as well where we look at things like, okay, what was the user's click journey through different steps of the path. So this data that you can get will really help you in your discussion with stakeholders because you can't really argue with data. You can always come up with new ideas and ways to do things, and testing is always a good idea too.

Dara Burg [00:19:10]:

Okay, that's a great idea. Let's test it, see what happens. And I think that those are two really great ways to kind of respond back when we're having challenges.

Felicia Asiedu [00:19:18]:

Yeah, absolutely. Our CEO says this all the time, Reggie, he's like the data will let anybody know what decision to make. So I think we've been a little bit indoctrinated, but it's absolutely right.

Dara Burg [00:19:28]:

Oh, 100%, yeah.

Felicia Asiedu [00:19:30]:

And any marketer will tell you they're always looking at data. So yeah, definitely a good way to go. I'm going to move us on just a little tiny bit and talk about still with stakeholders. I guess Andres, Dara is your main stakeholder in this scenario, right? So do you have any moments where you're kind of like, this is not going to work? What I'm being asked for, I just have to kind of push back against it. A few pain points there, maybe?

Andres Perez [00:19:56]:

Dara and I work very, very well together. If I had to choose one pain point, I think it would be how content is written and then how it gets delivered. So one of the things that is very common is that when content is getting drafted, whether it comes from Dara and her stakeholders, is that most of the time it comes from let's say a Word document or a PDF file. And when you're drafting up that content, what can look like a very small amount of content on a document like that can look like a lot on the website. So there is a lot of stakeholder management that needs to be done from a content perspective being like, wait, let's take a step back here. This is a lot of content. What is the most necessary? But something that I appreciate about working with Dara and we created this relationship over the past two years now, is that we both understand what's in the realm of realism. So the more and more that you work together and the more and more you start looking at the pain points and addressing them, the more and more efficient you get, right? 

Andres Perez [00:20:52]:

So we're going out to our third year doing 2025. At this point, the train is running smooth, and if there's something that I have concerns about and I take it to Dara and I'm like, Hey, this is really long. We might need to shorten this. This might not be so important. She understands that part of it as well. And we usually work very well together to come to some sort of compromise, I guess we'd say.

Dara Burg [00:21:16]:

Yeah, and I think one really great thing that Andres always does too, is he will usually provide me a visual example. So he will say, he won't just say, we can't do this. I'll be like, okay. But he will usually give me a really concrete example of why, and he'll show me, here's what it looks like laid out on the page. And then once I see it laid out, I'm like, oh, yeah, that does not look good. So we go back to the drawing board.

Andres Perez [00:21:39]:

It's definitely one of those things, and this is stakeholder management in general, is that what I like to do is that when I want to back up my reasoning for something is I'll do it both ways. I'll do it the way that they intended for it to be seen, and then I'll do it what I think is the best way of doing it, and then I'll present both to them and I'll be like, Hey, this is what you originally came with. Here's how we can make it better. And that eases their mind a little bit to just be like, Hey, we tried this way. It's not like you just completely disregarded their wishes, right? So yeah, definitely. They worked hard too. They did their part. So you don't want to just take it, toss it and throw in the trash. 

Andres Perez [00:22:15]:

You just want to iterate upon it. And that's UX in general, right? Iteration is so important. The first draft is never going to be the final draft, and as long as you keep working and you keep iterating, you'll get to that better product.

Felicia Asiedu [00:22:26]:

It sounds like I'm doing a counseling session, which I absolutely love, but I think what I got from that is great open communication, trying things, working together. Visualization sounds really like it's a key thing so you can see it for yourself and not just saying, no. I think that's really great advice. And for those people that are working in that solo environment, I think they often have to be everything and manage all the stakeholders coming to them saying, I need this on the website, I need this on the website. So maybe they can have what you've just articulated back to their stakeholders and make sure that they're able to visualize why these things will or maybe won't work for them. Sometimes it can be harder when you're working solo, right?

Dara Burg [00:23:10]:

One of the other things that has helped me is kind of a mindset of, I'm stealing this from this organization called Girls on the Run, which I volunteer for all the time, but it's called Assume Positive Intent, and it just means that no matter who you're working with, just assume that they have a positive intention going in. So probably the person that wrote a paragraph and half about what they want to put on the website, they probably did that with all the best of intentions of how that was going to look, and they thought, this is going to be perfect. So when you go back to them, you just don't go in with the mindset of, oh, this person just doesn't get it, and they want to make our website look bad, but come into it with a, they just might not have an understanding of what the user experience is like on the website. So sometimes it's just a little bit of a mindset shift there too.

Andres Perez [00:23:56]:

I really like that a lot. I think one of the things that I keep repeating to myself when working with any stakeholder is that, yeah, we are all on the same team and we are all working towards the same goal, and one person's way of doing it might not be another person's way of doing it, but again, that end goal is still the same. So I really like having that positive intent there.

Felicia Asiedu [00:24:20]:

Awesome. Love it too. I think, again, sounds like counseling for my entire life because I had that in marriage counseling, funnily enough, was assume positive intent from your partner. So I guess we could bring that into work as well and be like, Hey, look, we're just trying to do a job here.

Andres Perez [00:24:37]:

And not just some work. Take it everywhere else in life. Do everything with positive intent. Yeah, it doesn't have to be just your relationship, work, do it with anyone.

Felicia Asiedu [00:24:46]:

I love that so, so much. That's why our podcast is awesome. So I'm going to bring us on home with some top tips. I'll go one by one. If you could try and give us top tips for maybe two things for when you first start thinking about the website, what are some top tips, and then when you are really trying to drive that reg, you're like, this is what the website is built for. What are the top tips there? So Dara, we'll start with you, first thoughts,

Felicia Asiedu [00:25:12]:

 and then how am I driving reg?

Dara Burg [00:25:14]:

Yeah. I think first thoughts goes back to that persona conversation that we were saying. You have to start with who is my user base. Once you have that, then you can start building out the framework of, okay, what kind of content does that person need to see in order to register? And then once you have that framework, then you start adding on all of the UX and the design on top of that, so you know that you're going to want to have all that crucial information that I talked about before, the pricing, the convince my boss, what is the event, those simple things. And the agenda, of course, is super important for that. The agenda at a glance or agenda, whatever level that you have. Once you have those key components, then let's add the UX on top. That's going to give them the ideal experience when they land on the website. And I think that starts with not just the content, but also looking at your brand. How does your brand apply to web? So that's a very important consideration that we take whenever we're starting a new website or starting a new registration site is, okay, how does our brand apply in this environment? And making sure that that's cohesive, because that's a huge part of it as well.

Dara Burg [00:26:16]:

For the reg portion of it, how to drive people towards reg. I have a few little tricks up my sleeve for that. I think one is the urgency banner along the top. Whenever we have some kind of special discount or something going on, I always love to throw up a good urgency banner that's like, Hey, we're having a discount for this week only, or sessions are filling up. Make sure that you're registered now. That kind of urgency banner can help a lot. I think one thing we added to our website as well that I really like is the chatbot feature. 

Dara Burg [00:26:45]:

So just people being able to talk to the chatbot and ask specific questions about accommodations, agenda, reg, whatever they need, making sure that the information is accessible in multiple ways, so maybe I can click through the pages or I can chat with the bot. Just making it as easy as possible for people to get to that final reg step.

Felicia Asiedu [00:27:04]:

Love it. Andres, anything different or your own tips?

Andres Perez [00:27:07]:

Of course. Yeah. I always look at last year's version and I look at what went well, what we want to keep, what we want to introduce, and maybe what didn't go so well, what we want to get rid of. Like I said earlier before, iteration is so, so important, and there is always a better way to do something and a way of topping yourself and creating something even better. So if I have one tip, it's just look at what's been done before, how do you make it better and just keep improving upon it, and eventually you'll get there.

Felicia Asiedu [00:27:37]:

Love it. Any of those candy drops, like an urgency banner that you're like, ah, that catches people's eyes. Any of those last little tips you could give?

Andres Perez [00:27:47]:

Oh my gosh. Okay. If we want to talk about the biggest one I've gotten, both of us, we've gotten so many questions about how we did the video banner on the CONNECT website, and so I'll address it here a little bit because it's one of those things where, yes, it is done with custom code, but I'll preface it by saying that I'm not a developer. I focus a lot on creating the experience and then most of the time then I send it off to a developer, but it was done by me and I don't know how to code. So if I could give motivation to any event planners out there, any hospitality professionals building out their websites is don't be intimidated by it. You can learn HTML CSS, and it is not a difficult thing. I think that as long as you have passion for the project and vision for the project, then it can be done. And if you're working on time constraints or maybe you really, really can't do it, then we have Cvent services as well that we offer to be able to create those experiences for you.

Felicia Asiedu [00:28:45]:

That is a super, super way to wrap up. I love that so much, and I am a product of what you just said. I remember when I was first in my marketing role, a little executive just doing a little bit content here and there, and I would always switch my view to see what the code looked like, just because I was intrigued. And then I'd start changing the text as good marketers should, when you can just change the text so it doesn't say me, it says my, and you're like, oh, I know what the side bits mean now.

Andres Perez [00:29:11]:

You're already a coder. You're already there, expert.

Felicia Asiedu [00:29:16]:

Perfect. So I think if I can do it, and trust me, I certainly am not a coder. I think anyone can get in there and have a play, so awesome. Thank you so, so much for joining me today. Are there any final things you want to say or any thoughts? Feel free to say no, but if you have a one thing that just popped in, any lasting thoughts?

Dara Burg [00:29:34]:

I think Andres and I are always here to answer any questions. We would love to connect with you all and have discussions about this. We were onsite at CONNECT and we just had so many great customer conversations and talking with prospects as well about how to make their websites better. We love talking about this stuff because we're huge just nerds about both the website and event marketing, so we're always here to have a little chat about this stuff if anyone ever has any questions.

Andres Perez [00:29:59]:

Yeah, for sure. We're always here to talk. And if there's one thing that I can put out there is that everything you do, do it with love, care, and passion. I think Dara and I are two people that work well together because we both care about the event. We both care about what's being displayed, and we both care about creating that experience, and you can take that and apply to anything. If you do it with care and you put love and passion into a project, people recognize that, they see it, and then in the end it gives you the best product that you can have.

Dara Burg [00:30:27]:

This episode has ended up being very motivational and sappy in the end. We thought we were talking about web design and we came out with motivational life advice.

Felicia Asiedu [00:30:36]:

I love it. That's how I love our episodes to be. So if you've loved it and you've enjoyed it, I would say go and follow Dara, follow Andres and me obviously, and tune back in for some more. Thank you so much.

Andres Perez [00:30:49]:

Thank you.

Dara Burg [00:30:50]:

Thank you.

Alyssa Peltier [00:30:54]:

Thanks for hanging out with us on Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

Rachel Andrews [00:31:04]:

And you can help fellow event professionals and marketers just like you, discover great events by leaving us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.

Felicia Asiedu [00:31:13]:

Stay connected with us on social media for behind the scenes content, updates and some extra doses of inspiration.

Rachel Andrews [00:31:21]:

Got a great story or an event to share. We want to hear from you, find us on LinkedIn, send us a DM or drop us a note at greatevents@cvent.com.

Felicia Asiedu [00:31:30]:

Big thanks to our amazing listeners, our guest speakers, and the incredible team behind the scenes. Remember, every great event begins with great people.

Alyssa Peltier [00:31:39]:

And that's a wrap. Keep creating, keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.