Welcome to today’s episode where we’re going to talk about event data and personalized marketing with Brian Gates, SVP of Industry Strategy at RainFocus. We’ll explore how great data can drive marketing strategies, the balance between personalization and privacy, and strategies for overcoming data silos within organizations.
About Brian Gates
Brian Gates is the SVP of industry strategy at RainFocus, leading industry change through key partnerships, alignment with our client’s sales and marketing goals, and overall market evolution. During his tenure at RainFocus, Brian has architected the organization’s go-to-market strategy, created an award-winning account-based marketing program, and advanced the usage of data within event marketing.
Prior to joining RainFocus in 2016, Brian built his own tech companies before leading innovations at other high-growth B2B SaaS CRM, MAP, and LMS providers. With over 20 years of marketing, product, and design leadership, Brian has gained expertise in elevating teams to do the seemingly impossible by aligning business outcomes to unimaginable client value.
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Transcript
Note: This was AI-generated and only lightly edited.
Greg Kihlstrom:
Today we’re going to talk about event data and personalized marketing with Brian Gates, SVP of Industry Strategy at Rainfocus. We’re going to explore how great data can drive marketing strategies, the balance between personalization and privacy, and strategies for overcoming data silos within organizations. Brian, welcome to the show. Thank you, Greg. Appreciate being here. Yeah, looking forward to talking about all this with you. Why don’t we get started with you giving a little background on yourself and your role at Rainfocus?
Brian Gates: Yeah, so I’ve been with Rainfocus since 2016. I’m currently the Senior Vice President of Industry Strategy, which I think is a relatively unique title in the industry. But I sit at the intersection of our go-to-market business strategy and customer experience and help work with our various departments there to help execute our strategy and both in terms of where we source customers, how we service those customers, and ultimately how we lead the market.
Greg Kihlstrom: Great. And to give a little context, why don’t you explain a little bit about what Rainfocus does?
Brian Gates: Yeah, so Rainfocus is a next generation event marketing platform. We were purpose built to really eliminate the data silos within organizations, especially around events, and most importantly, help unify what we call the event channel. I’d say organizations run events of all scales and sizes, from webinars all the way up to massive user conferences. And these are incredibly important in marketing and sales activities that unfortunately tend to sit on an island. And our whole platform does a great job of managing everything from registration all the way through the event management details of speakers and content and exhibitors, and ultimately bringing that together and tying it back into your omnichannel strategies.
Greg Kihlstrom: Great, great. So yeah, let’s dive in here. And first thing I want to talk about is personalized marketing for events and just the importance of this. With a significant number of consumers expecting personalized marketing interactions, not just hoping for it, but actually expecting it, how should marketers leverage event data to meet these expectations and get the best results?
Brian Gates: Events are such a powerful tool in building relationships. And I think that’s when we think about how events fit in the customer journey. There is a wealth of information gathered and developed within an event that helps you understand that relationship and how it’s advancing and how it’s developing. So when you look at the spread of events that are run within an organization, Those events are going to be delivered throughout that life cycle. So whether that’s a webinar or a field marketing event or a trade show or a user conference, these various touch points generate a wealth of information around what your consumer, your prospects are interested in. That can help accelerate your marketing campaigns, that can help bring the sales team faster into the as a customer journey, which helps establish those relationships and help accelerate those to as a positive result for the business. Yeah.
Greg Kihlstrom: And so, you know, a lot of traditional marketing, you could say, relied on a lot of third party data. And, you know, certainly over the last few years, we’ve been hearing a lot more about first party data strategies and the value of that just in general. Google’s recent announcement, notwithstanding first party data is still very important. I continue to say that. So how do zero and first party data play roles in developing what you were just describing, the personalized marketing strategies for events?
Brian Gates: Yeah, I didn’t say events are fantastic sources of that first and zero priority data. I’m just looking at kind of our studies in the market there. Events can generate up to 80% of the customer data profile. I say all of that zero and first party data. So they’re incredibly important to helping to understand your prospect. Part of I think the new answer is helping to understand first, maybe what zero and first party data is. I always use this analogy and I think it dates me as well, but if you were to think about a mall, right? So they’re now I’ve been dated. What’s a mall? I’ll define that next. But if you think about a mall, you know, third-party data is being able to see what happens across that entire mall, right? You have a shop within that mall, you’re able to see everything. First-party data is being able to see what they do within your store. And zero-party data is what they’ve done at your cash register, where they’ve willingly given you that information. So I think that helps kind of level set what information is gathered. And relating that back to events, in the registration process, there’s a ton of zero party data provided. Most organizations will ask a variety of questions around your preferences, what your interests are, what things are important to you, even your dietary restrictions. And so a lot of information helps understand and develop really kind of who that person is, right? And it can be very valuable for marketers and very valuable for the sales team. During the course of the event, there’s a variety of data gathered around first party information where They’re navigating which sessions they’re interested in. Are those your usual line of products or topics or degrees within the sales journey? Is this a prospect endeavor? Is this a customer endeavor? That helps set context for what I say the user is following through with based on the preferences they give you in registration, how they’re actually acting. And then even within the event, you get to see what things they viewed, what things they attended. What did they like from that, from surveys, right? Was that a good speaker? Was that relevant content to them? Do they want to learn more? What partners did they go visit? All this information is gathered within the context of just a single event. And again, organizations, especially enterprises will run thousands of these across the year. So you can just see the scale and the impact of what is gathered just across the event channel.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. And how should marketers then look at measuring success? I mean, you know, there’s, there’s very simple personalization, I call it like the mail merge personalization, where, okay, you know, hello, Greg, you know, what, yay, they got my name, they got my name from somewhere or whatever. But, you know, to do what you’re talking about, you know, using much more, you know, whether it’s behavioral or other type of data, you know, how should marketers know, you know, not only how much they should be personalized, but personalizing, but also, you know, measure success of, of personalization in general.
Brian Gates: Yeah. There’s obviously degrees here, right? There’s a crawl, walk, run, let’s say process on this. Right. I think for those that are in the kind of the beginning stages of this. Very simple thing is knowing people have registered so that you can stop sending them announcements to come register. Right. Now that’s very basic. which surprisingly a lot of time gets overlooked, right? So there is a simple opportunity when folks say looking at kind of a walk mentality there is understanding what segments of the users have registered and then where are those segments engaging. And then I think kind of the run element there is looking at how that engagement is now connected into your marketing campaigns and connected into your, uh, sales handout and qualification process. And I’d say those things there, you’re now getting that data out of the event silos and helping to ensure that when I’ve told you that I’m interested in these things by actually going to your event and doing these things at your event, don’t ask me that again through a marketing campaign and don’t let a sales rep ask something they already know. Right. So it’s, there’s degrees I think in moving up. I’d say from kind of the starting stages all the way to more advanced stages there.
Greg Kihlstrom: You know, I think there’s been plenty of studies and research that I’ve read that, you know, while consumers are very concerned about their data privacy, they’re also open to sharing information with brands that give them more relevant stuff in exchange for exchanging at least some of their data. how do you look at this or, you know, how would you recommend that brands look at this balance between we want as much personalization as will be beneficial to, you know, the customer as well as the business. But we also want to strike that right privacy balance. Like how do you, how would you recommend that brands strike that balance there?
Brian Gates: The obvious thing there is transparency, right? Yeah. I think being very clear on how, what information you’re asking for, how it’s going to be used to better the relationship with that individual. The more you can help explain, hey, by providing these details about yourself and your interest, we can provide this type of impact to your experience with us. And that, I think, helps let the consumer understand why there’s benefit to providing that information and make the decision whether or not they would like that level of personalization. I think that’s part of striking the balance there being respectful about what you gather, but also helping your audience be better advocates and more willing to engage in that. They’ve already expressed, I think, the interest in becoming, let’s say, more of a brave advocate by devoting time and travel and say, effort to be a part of that experience. So you have a willing audience, I think, in the first place, but helping to illustrate where you’re going to add value to that journey for them, I think just takes that to the next step further.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, I think it kind of it’s also knowing that they’re using it. Well, as well, right? I mean, just as an example, I’m a vegetarian. So, you know, I go to a lot of conferences, and they always ask, you know, dietary restrictions or whatever. And, you know, so like, you know, I go to a show, and sometimes there’s just terrible vegetarian options, for instance. And I’m like, Wow, well, you asked me, but you didn’t Listen, you know, um, so is it, you know, how does a, how does a marketer kind of understand that part as well? Like, okay, they’re telling me why, but are they really doing anything useful with the information? You know, what, what’s the role of the brand there, I guess.
Brian Gates: Well, I, to your point, I think it’s being judicious around what you, what you ask for. And if you’re asking for that information, put it to use, you know, there’s organizations we work with, they say that will ask those dietary restrictions. And they will not only use it for, I say that particular event, but that’s also information that’s incredibly important to when they move in the process and they’re talking to the sales rep and they want to take them to dinner. Always steakhouse, not a good choice. Right. So, you know, that, that helps, I see further along, I see that journey there where they get to know you and again, develop that relationship.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. And so certainly when we’re talking about personalization, first of all, I think we have to talk about AI in every show. I think that’s a rule now, regardless, but like AI certainly belongs in a conversation about personalization. Where do you see that role in the near term? Certainly there’s a lot of future promise about a lot of things, but where do you see AI really working now?
Brian Gates: Yeah, to your point, I think there’s a lot of promise around AI, and I think there are plenty of folks out there touting that those promises are already here today. Don’t know if I’ve seen that. That being said, AI does a fantastic job of helping to break down big chunks of information so you can take action on it, right? And it can help streamline some of those actions that you need to take. I think the role of AI is, especially in terms of events, It’s going to offer value in helping you get it to the right information faster. Um, and also help you find and have the experience that best aligns with your goals and your, as the outcomes that you’re looking for for the event. That being said, I think AI isn’t a replacement for. You know, the term I keep using throughout the, this conversation here, which are relationships, you know, and that’s, that’s why people go to events, right? They’re there to meet other individuals, peers, partners, colleagues, And they want to be able to have the connection there with them. AI is a way to help ensure that those opportunities or serendipitous things happen at the event. And I think it also helps a lot of those that are running events to be more efficient with their time so they can design better experiences and help, again, accelerate those relationships.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, part of this conversation then comes down to, you know, we need We need good data to do great personalization and really create a great customer experience. you know, we collect all this data and different teams, different platforms, collecting all this stuff all over the place. So it’s not, generally speaking, and, you know, I work with a lot of large companies, the problem is usually not that they don’t have the data, it’s that they can’t access it, or it’s all over the place, right? So, you know, just like there’s organizational silos, there’s data silos, and sometimes they’re one and the same, but, you know, sometimes they’re, There’s all kinds of silos all over the place. So what do you see as some of the common challenges? And even just the example that we gave of like, okay, I’m a vegetarian, I go to an event, but to your point, a sales team six months later may want to go out to dinner and chooses the wrong kind of restaurant or something like that. So it’s like, it’s beneficial at an event, but it could also be beneficial down, down the silo. How are, you know, what, what are some of the challenges that brands are facing with, you know, whether it’s event specific data or just, you know, data and these, these silos.
Brian Gates: Events that tell a little story here. Yeah. I got involved with this industry set about eight years ago. And prior to that, I’d worked in marketing tech for a number of years, CRMs, market automation. And when I first discovered Rainfocus, One of the things that just literally blew my mind was the fact that events and the technologies that run events aren’t connected into the CRM or marketing automation. Like that just boggles my mind. Like what do you mean it’s not connected? Why? No, no, I’m with you. Yeah, agreed. So that’s what got me involved with Rainfocus. And I think the challenge there, right, is there is such a unique talent, I think, for those that do event marketing. Because it really is such a beautiful skill where they can connect a customer experience that they have to whip up sometimes as short as a couple, like a week. Sometimes it takes a year. Leverage all sorts of technologies, manage all sorts of stakeholders, different flavors of attendees across like the complexity involved in running an event from an insider’s perspective is immense. Yeah. Because of that, the event tech industry has developed use case specific technologies. And so they’ll have a webinar tool set. They’ll have a conference tool set. They’ll have a speaker management tool set. And so what happens there is organizations buy 20 plus different technology vendors to solve for events. And so you have this wonderfully executed event, but behind the scenes or look underneath the covers there, just getting the event to operate in itself and connect all those technologies together alone is incredibly complicated. Now, when you start to say, hey, how do I get this information from all these disparate systems out of them and into your CRM or into your CDP or into your market automation platform? It just is a nonstarter because it’s a rat’s nest over there anyways. So where do you even begin? And that I think has led a lot of the event space to be very siloed. I think that paradigm is now shifting. I think COVID helped drive a lot of that where, you know, since everything had to be virtual, everything had to be in a digital space, it really drove a lot of digital transformation and really, I think, awakened the larger organization. You know, those are running marketing operations, run the CRMs, run the CDPs, run the marketing automation platform, saw the wealth of activity and data there, like, wait a minute, we want that, we want to get that information. And now in-person events are back in the mix. We don’t want to lose that. How do we keep getting that information? So I think that’s driving a lot of the change in the industry there.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. And so given that, that change, you know, there’s probably a lot of orgs that are not, they haven’t a hundred percent solved for that, but you know, what, what does it start to look like when even, even if you’re, even if 50% is done, whatever that means, you know, even if it’s partially done, you know, what, what starts to happen when, when organizations start to overcome these, these data silos?
Brian Gates: Yeah. Just on our experience, I say with, with our clients, You know, there’s a tremendous amount of cost savings, right? When you, you move towards having centralization there, and there’s a tremendous uplift, I think, in terms of your overall customer experience. And say again, when you have your events that are a critical part of that customer journey now tied into it, at the very least your marketing campaigns, where you’re not asking them the same thing over and over again, that in itself just streamlines that whole customer journey. And that, I think, is even just a first step there in helping organizations realize the value of having events as part of your marketing strategy and your MarTech stack.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, in addition to I mean, again, I, I hate asking, being asked the same question twice myself. So that, that alone is, is worth it for, for me as a customer, but you know, what, what are maybe some other benefits for those end customers as well?
Brian Gates: Yeah. I mean, from a attendee standpoint or your customer standpoint, right. They feel known.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah.
Brian Gates: Again, going back to relationship, I have to keep asking your, your name every time we get together or every time I. They’ll send you information. It’s not a relationship. You don’t know who I am, right? And I think organizations invest an awful lot to help drive personalization across their digital channels. And you see the benefit of that, right? Where organizations can generate offers that are relevant to that given user. They can provide better experiences for that. And then when you incorporate now as a virtual and in-person experiences or even hybrid experiences that are run from the event team, that just, that is, takes it to a completely different level, right? I say your users or your, let’s say customers feel like they’re a part of the brand.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. Well, Brian, thanks so much for joining today. One last question before we wrap up here, taking a look a few months, even a few years out, what are you seeing? What trends are you seeing that are shaping the kind of events that we’re going to have a few years from now? What’s shaping that? And even in particular with data,
Brian Gates: Yeah, I think the big thing there, looking ahead and thinking through what is the next couple of years or even beyond for us, as organizations incorporate the event channel as part of their omni-channel strategies, I think you’re going to see an explosion there of more targeted, localized events that help bring like-minded individuals together around topics they’re passionate about. And I think when brands start to do that and do that at scale, you’re, you’re really uplift. They say the amount of advocacy that can happen in those brands and it just rising tide lifts all ships. So I think there’s a move towards that as an industry to really help bring that together. The other element, I think it’s, you know, looking ahead there is how virtual events play in that mix. And especially as. Those that are making purchase decisions are getting younger and moving up the corporate ladder there and being able to hold the budgets. I say across organizations, that audience is more digital forward. So how do virtual events start to play in that mix and start to bring together hybrid experiences, AR, VR, some of these other elements there to bring that in-person touch, personalization, again, at scale regardless of where your audience is at.
