marketingprofs b2b forum

Can Your Virtual Event Be Better Than Your In-Person Event?

How do you run a virtual program that has personality, joy, heart, humor, character, spirit, soul, magic? Can a virtual event be better than a physical, in-person event? Last Tuesday, I would have answered… I hope so (to the first question). And no (to the second)—not really, anyway. Maybe I was just exhausted. (Aren’t we all.) Maybe I was just uninspired. (Same.) Maybe it’s just been *A WEEK*. Then last Wednesday and Thursday we at MarketingProfs hosted our annual B2B Forum, for the first time ever online, using the virtual event platform BigMarker. And we realized a few things about how virtual events can be better than in-person. At least… in some ways. Here are some thoughts inspired by last week’s B2B Forum. My colleague Jen Smith is publishing a piece that echoes some of these ideas and introduces others. Even if you don’t run full-blown events, our advice applies

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Slay the Ignosaurus; Change Your Life

The Ignosaurus (Latin: Ignosaurus Status Quo) is a beast that lurks in the shadow of Marketing. Some say it doesn’t exist. That it died out millions of years ago along with the other dinosaurs. Some say it never existed. But insiders know the dirty secret… that the Ignosaurus is very much *ALiVe* in marketing. It lurks in our industry—holding you or your teams back, bringing everyone down. The only way to slay it…? Take away its seat at the table and invite another creature in its place. This is a lightly edited transcription of my keynote at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum, illustrated by a few of the slides. The full deck is here, too: Slay the Ignosaurus; Change Your Life from Ann Handley * * * San Francisco, November 14, 2018 This morning let’s talk about slaying the Ignosaurus—what it is; why we need to slay it. This is Ignosaurus.

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The Secret to Marketing Event Success (Spoiler Alert: Muffin Tops)

“The past is always tense, the future perfect.”―Zadie Smith Want to win a trip and full pass to the MarketingProfs B2B Forum? Enter our essay content here! Registration just opened for the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum. That’s a boring name for a conference, isn’t it? Which is why we affectionately nicknamed the B2B Marketing Forum, which takes place each October in Boston, the “Marketing Muffin Top.” Much like an actual muffin top in an actual muffin tin, it overflows in (mostly) appealing ways. Right now, we are elbow-deep in rolling and setting the program for the 2015 B2B Forum, and the Marketing Muffin Top moniker is on my mind again because there are so many great ideas flying around. (Hat tip to marketing director Jo Roberts for that nickname.) Two Things a Great Event Needs The success of an event hinges on two things: The depth of the experience that

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6 Things You Can Learn from an Unfunny Marketer’s Funny Redemption

Fifteen years ago, my friend Doug Kessler swore off any attempt at “comedy” after an attempt at funny dissolved into flat-out failure. Doug, who runs marketing agency Velocity UK in London, recalls the white-hot shame of it all: “We wrote a script. Sent it to client. We expected some review and back and forth… but when they said ‘Great! Let’s shoot it!’… we did. “It was SO not funny and SO stupid that I’m still blushing 15 years later.” But, more recently, Doug started to rethink things. Because what’s working in B2B marketing is (quite often) the offbeat story and the funny vignette. In October, at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum, speaker Tim Washer talked about the powerful pairing of B2B and improv, and Doug realized that “it was crazy to close off such a fruitful direction just because I’d failed once.” So here’s the Velocity shot at redemption, created for

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