Turning a two-day event into eight months of content with Mark Huber

Mark Huber [00:00:00]:

A couple things come to mind. I think frame the ask in a way that makes it really easy on the person that you want to interview. So easy that they can just show up and not have to worry about anything. And then once they're done, you can then give them a whole lot of good looking content that they can then reuse and repurpose in their own way.

Alyssa Peltier [00:00:20]:

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 [00:00:32]:

I'm Rachel.

Felicia Asiedu [00:00:33]:

And I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier [00:00:34]:

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

Hello, everyone. What has been going on in this wide, wide world of events? My name is Alyssa, and I will be your host for this week's episode of Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. Now, we're kind of in this summer season, we're on the heels of what was likely a very busy spring season. As we know, a lot of events take place in the spring. So, I'm assuming many of our listeners today are on the heels of a very big event and wondering how to get the most out of that event. Content that they've just painstakingly taken months to strategize, to create, to align to all their marketing programs. But we so often see content living and dying within the four walls of the event space.

Alyssa Peltier [00:01:24]:

It is such a common challenge that we see very prevalent in our industry, and one that can be tricky and time-consuming to overcome. And so we've decided to dedicate an entire episode with a very specific speaker, guest host this week on our episode for the podcast. So, I am super excited to introduce and have Mark Huber with us today, who is an expert in this arena. He is known for his ability to turn a two-day event, two-day conference into over eight months of engaging content, which is just gold for a marketer like me. Also happen to have a background in content strategy as well. So I want to hear all about this. Mark. So, Mark, you're here to share your secret sauce with us on Great Events. Welcome to the show.

Mark Huber [00:02:10]:

Thank you for having me. And I'm excited. I was sick, so we had to reschedule. You were sick, so we had to reschedule. So we're finally doing the thing. Yeah.

Alyssa Peltier [00:02:18]:

Yeah. I mean, that's what happens after events, right? We just had our conference in what, beginning of June? I'm like, just now in recovery mode, so. And hopefully we've got our content at work. I'm not the team that's, that's producing that anymore. But I would love to talk to you, Mark, a little bit more about how you make it happen within all of your wealth of experience. So can you tell our listeners where you come from, where you're at right now, just a little bit about your background as it pertains to event content and events?

Mark Huber [00:02:43]:

Yeah. So, currently, I'm the VP of marketing at a company called UserEvidence, and I've worked in various B2B SaaS startups over the last probably seven to eight years, and then been in the startup space for about ten years. So I think getting into events kind of just happened as like a happy accident and being at different startups and not having an event team and being forced to learn the beast that is in-person and virtual events. So, a lot of my experience has been at different companies that just didn't have events people, and then learning very quickly on what to do and more importantly, what not to do when things go wrong at events.

Alyssa Peltier [00:03:22]:

What was the, when it pertains to event content, where did you see the opportunity and or potentially the problem?

Mark Huber [00:03:29]:

Yeah, so one of the companies that I worked at, I was actually in a marketing operations role, and that forced me to really measure the ROI and impact of every single thing that we were investing in. And we were a series D startup at the time, so we had a ton of money and realistically wasted a ton of money and wanted to just spend a ton of money on events. And the ROI on these events, if we weren't getting leads, was basically just nonexistent. So, for me, it opened up my eyes of like, all right, if you're not generating leads out of events, which you're obviously trying to do at the end of the day, how can you extend the shelf life of events? And I think for me, it opened my eyes up to looking at events as a way to create content while you are there. And it's something that I wanted to do for quite some time and finally got the opportunity to do at user evidence.

Alyssa Peltier [00:04:20]:

That's an interesting notion. So when we're talking about content, you're not necessarily referring to the sessions or the long form content. You're actually using the event itself as a platform for content creation. Can you unpack that for me a little bit?

Mark Huber [00:04:35]:

This might be a little bit of a hot take, but I feel like with, let's say, the last maybe four or five years of the Rise of podcasts and LinkedIn and newsletters and videos and whatnot there's so much content that you can now get from experts and creators in the space that you typically would need to go to events to get in the past. So, for me, I don't really care about the sessions and the presentations at events, and I feel like I'm probably speaking for many people that they also feel the same way. A lot of this stuff is just recycled things that you've already seen in a podcast or a newsletter, or somewhere else. So when I think of content at events, I'm trying to come up with unique stuff that you're not getting anywhere else in a kind of raw, honest, and slightly unpolished format because it's so much more believable.

Alyssa Peltier [00:05:24]:

What type of content are we talking about here? I know you mentioned a couple like podcasts, but are there any additional kind of assets that can come out of an event?

Mark Huber [00:05:30]:

Yeah, so there's a bunch. The thing we'll talk about here is really the one-on-one video interviews that I did at an event called Spring in Austin, but we're also using an upcoming event in the fall to do kind of a similar playbook with some video interviews, but then also turning these into short podcast interviews as well. And then kind of cool. One of the events that we're sponsoring in December of this year is a cybersecurity event, and I came up with a slightly unusual request that in our sponsorship agreement, I wanted to negotiate use of the podcast studio that they had so that we can record mini podcast episodes with guests and really decision makers at our target accounts.

Alyssa Peltier [00:06:09]:

So, is this both events that you host or produce on behalf of your organization and also events that you're attending? So, like those sponsored trade shows, for example?

Mark Huber [00:06:19]:

Yeah, so it's entirely the latter. We're just not at a size or marketing budget to host our own events right now. I think get there in time, and I'd love to do some of this around user events and customer events, but this is entirely from sponsoring events and even attending events as well, because I think if you get a little creative, you can still do the same thing without having to pony up a lot of dollars for a formal sponsorship.

Alyssa Peltier [00:06:42]:

I love that. I love that because that's very applicable to what you said, more startup environment. But then we have more mature organizations where all of these skills and strategies are transferable as well. I know I can speak on behalf of our Cvent CONNECT conference. What Mark describes is exactly what we do for our own hosted user conference. But sometimes, we miss the mark on those events that we attend as well. So we kind of can take a play from this book and run it for our trade show strategy as well. So I love that.

Alyssa Peltier [00:07:11]:

I had one other question, and I'm trying to pull it back here. Well, let's go into the case study. Right. Let's bring it into Austin. So let's talk specifically about what that event is and what your. Oh, I know what I was going to say. Your strategy going into this is this how much prep, pre-planning strategy goes into the event versus how much are you kind of organically crafting on site, or is it completely pre-produced?

Mark Huber [00:07:36]:

It's never completely pre-produced, because I feel like I'm gonna get on my little content hill here. Whenever it's completely pre-produced, people can just sense that, and I don't think it turns out to be particularly good content. So I think for me, I probably planned out maybe like, 80% of what we were gonna do with the video agency that we used. Event shark, shout out to eventshark. I love working with them. And then you kind of have to give yourself some space and wiggle room to adjust once you're there, because, I mean, you know, probably much better than me. Things can change on the event floor and at events, and they always will change. So you have to be a little flexible.

Mark Huber [00:08:10]:

But what I tried to do leading up to this was figure out who's going to be there at the event that I knew. It was the spring event in Austin in April. It was hosted by winter. So I looked at the speaker list, and then also we were a formal sponsor, one of, I think, three sponsors there. We got access to the attendee list ahead of time. And what I did was I reached out to b, two b marketers that I look up to that I know that I trust, as well as target contacts at some of our target accounts, and reached out to them ahead of time, making it as simple on them and easy on them as possible. So they really did not have to do any prep work. And I think because of the amount of prep that I did and how I framed the ask to them is part of the reason why every single person that we reached out to and we reached out to twelve people ahead of time, every single person said yes.

Alyssa Peltier [00:09:02]:

Where did you come up with this? Where did this become a necessity? Right. Like, where is this fitting in your business requirements?

Mark Huber [00:09:08]:

Yeah. So where I came up with it was, this is the first time that I've been in a VP role, and it's something that I had always wanted to do, but previous bosses that I had worked for never really understood why I. I wanted to treat this as an opportunity to create content and extend the shelf life. Part of that was probably on how I was positioning it, but also part of it was probably them just not wanting to invest in it. So for me, I was trying to convince the two co-founders and my CEO, my boss, of, hey, the event's going to cost us this much. This is the second year that they've done this event. In order for us to stretch our budget and event dollars as far as possible, why don't we spend a little bit more money to get a video agency to then create eight months worth of content so that when we're packing up all the boxes and dropping everything off at FedEx and shipping everything back, that's not the end of the event, and we have something to show for the event long after the event actually ends.

Alyssa Peltier [00:10:06]:

Are you measuring that in some way? Are you quantifying that impact? Or is it more just pure asset creation, which is also valuable? Right.

Mark Huber [00:10:13]:

Pure asset creation in conjunction with some of the meetings that we had set from the events, from that particular event itself, and then some of the conversations that we had were with customers. So we learned some things about how those customers were feeling about using our own product and where we were in our relationship with them. So, it's kind of a couple different ways to show event ROI, because it's so challenging to show event Roi these days.

Alyssa Peltier [00:10:39]:

Oh, we know. It's a topic we talk about a lot. Yeah.

Mark Huber [00:10:43]:

So the more that you can show Roi in a few different ways, kind of gives a more solid, like, I guess, business case to stand on.

Alyssa Peltier [00:10:51]:

Sure. And resource consolidation and hours saved. You're not, you know, sending crews of videographers and marketers to. To the clients themselves. You're consolidating all of that into one centralized location, which makes a heck of a lot of business sense. I have another follow-up here on the planning side of the house. So, how have you been able to negotiate this in terms of sponsorship? Or, you know, you're showing up with a video crew. Right.

Alyssa Peltier [00:11:16]:

Like, that's not something you can just do on a whim. So how do you go about communicating with the planning team, those that are hosting the event itself, in order to get what you need from it?

Mark Huber [00:11:25]:

So it's a funny question, because I think. I don't want to say that I came up with this because I did not. I think I found the original idea from the early days of drift and what Dave Gerhardt was doing so I wanted to put my own spin on it, like I do with most things in my marketing world. But for me, I've done this now three times. Once I've executed it, now I'm planning for the second and third time. And it's a bit of an unusual request for events right now that they're not always ready to field. So in a lot of ways it's a good thing because then you can kind of shape what you need, how to bake that into whatever the sponsorship is and kind of negotiate a little bit more. I don't know if I'll give you the same answer like six months from now or maybe a year from now as more companies start to do this, but it's kind of the early days where they're like, hey, if this is what you want to do, like, we'll meet you halfway and we'll give you what you need.

Alyssa Peltier [00:12:15]:

Yes. It begs the question, like, should this be part of the sponsorship perspective or should this be something that's custom and that, you know, and I don't know if we have the answer here, but it is an evolution. And I do believe that, you know, we started this conversation around events aren't just about pure lead Gen. There is more to be done. And I think so oftentimes the trade show or the show flow is so heavily baked in quantifying the exhibitor or sponsor value in lead Gen. Right? And so all of this asset creation, this content creation, all of these other pluses are missed opportunities for planners to provide additional value to the sponsors. So I say that I don't necessarily have a direction here, but I don't know if you have anything to add to that.

Mark Huber [00:13:00]:

I think it should be custom. I think if you start to bake it into all these event sponsorships, you'll see. I'll just say what comes to mind right away. Like, not everyone's good on video, and that's totally okay, and that is fine. And you shouldn't necessarily force this. Go find the mediums that you are, you know, most confident in and perform the best in. And if it is video, great. If not, you know, maybe it's a podcast.

Mark Huber [00:13:22]:

And if it's not a podcast, maybe you can do interviews and turn them into like, written content. So I think it really just depends on what your strengths are as a content creator and being honest about them.

Alyssa Peltier [00:13:33]:

Yeah. And I think my next question was going to be like, why isn't this done by everyone? Like, what are the downsides of this? And I think that that does come down to your team, your customer, knowing that intersection of, are you going to get actual quality content out of things, knowing where your target market really is? Right?

Mark Huber [00:13:48]:

Yeah. And like, having now done two of my own shows that I've hosted over the last couple years and then been on, I don't know, probably a zillion other podcasts, like, I'm pretty confident and comfortable interviewing people, whether it's scripted or unscripted, and that comes with practice. So if I tried to do this, you know, four years ago, I probably wouldn't be nearly as good at it, but it's something that you work towards and put in a lot of hours around.

Alyssa Peltier [00:14:10]:

Very nice. Okay, so we've got our final minutes here. Any just final advice, tips, tricks, just kind of your final parting words before we part for the day?

Mark Huber [00:14:19]:

Yeah, I would say a couple things come to mind. I think frame the ask in a way that makes it really easy on the person that you want to interview. So easy that they can just show up and not have to worry about anything. And then once they're done, you can then give them a whole lot of good looking content that they can then reuse and repurpose in their own way. And then I think the other thing really just pulling from the spring event is when you come up with, let's just say, the list of questions that you want to ask, come up with a slightly structured question set. That one makes it a little bit more conversational upfront, so you can kind of warm people up and especially if you don't know them, and just kind of lighten the mood a little bit and then figure out the really, the use of how you're going to take these video interview clips and what you're going to do with them. Because the second half of the questions that I asked all talked about things that are related to user evidence in like, indirect and kind of adjacent way without actually mentioning user evidence at all. So I think by doing that, we got better content out of it.

Mark Huber [00:15:24]:

It didn't feel like a sales pitch and it's just more raw, honest and authentic. And that's what people like. So don't use it as a way to just pitch your product and pitch slap people.

Alyssa Peltier [00:15:33]:

Yeah. And I think that's especially true in b two B marketing. Oftentimes we get so wrapped up in business. Right. But really it's just people to people marketing. And so treat your, your subjects, your interview, your content all around the people and business will follow suit. Right?

Mark Huber [00:15:45]:

Yeah. And then one last thing I did twelve interviews in two days. I actually didn't get to see a single session at the event outside of the session that I helped present with Devin Reed. It is exhausting. So do not do this for every single event. Pick like a couple max events that are very strategic over the course of the year and use this for those events only. Do not do this at every single event because you will get very tired of doing this and probably not want to ever do it again.

Alyssa Peltier [00:16:13]:

I think that's perfect. Parting advice Mark, thank you so much for joining us this week. I really love this fresh take on event content and extending the life of your events for our listeners. We hope you got something out of this conversation and we'll see you next week.

Mark Huber [00:16:25]:

Thanks for having me.

Alyssa Peltier [00:16:28]:

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 [00:16:38]:

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 [00:16:48]:

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

Rachel Andrews [00:16:55]:

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@greateventssevent.com.

Felicia Asiedu [00:17:04]:

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

Alyssa Peltier [00:17:14]:

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