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Sarah Cook

National Partner Manager

neat.

Sarah Cook walks us through current market trends and how hybrid events are affecting her marketing strategy.

So my name is Sarah Cook and I'm a national partner manager for a Norwegian startup company called Neat. And we actually come up with the best hardware which is what is connecting us all now today. Soit is video conferencing hardware. What brought me into the world of sales and marketing was technology, so I've been in the tech world for seven years. I have worked for various technology companies, most recently landing at thisNorwegian startup which is amazing 'cause I'm able to connect all of us, amazing human beings, whether it's in meetings, events, and able to transform the world together as we move towards this hybrid environment.

How the market is changing and how that affects event strategies

So what we're seeing a lot in the market nowadays is not just building up the partnerships to have everybody connect into one platform, but for instance, let's get a customer, a nonprofit that we work with, they are actually going to utilize our hardware devices that supportZoom and rent out a WeWork space. And they got rid of their offices, they're taking our hardware, they're setting it up in a WeWork conference room, hosting their fundraising event, where they have 10 of their board members in the conference room and 150 plus of their donors and attendees from their comfort of their own couches at their houses, and they're able to connect on a one-platform level using Zoom and our hardware that is able to show them and highlight what their message is. So we're seeing a lot of that where it's really just becoming the new normal.

So a lot of our marketing events are actually moving to hybrid. We are seeing a lot of a closed-loop model marketing strategy where we are utilizing a lot of marketing tools in the sense of after events, such as Zoomtopia that just occurred, which we were a big part of that; it was all virtual. But how do we connect after those events? So we have looked at creating this tool where you will download an e-guide, for instance, a brochure to find out, "What did I learn at that event?" And from that, we are gathering all of your information. We are following up with those customers. So it is a really great new way to look at capturing that close loop.

Quantifying the success of events based on a closed-loop model

So quantifying the success of our events is really based on, just as I mentioned, the closed-loop model, we're also looking at other ways of just marketing off social media platforms. So we have hired a specific social media consultant out of Amsterdam, who does an incredible job and really just highlights how we can hit our message across all platforms, not just staying true to webinars, for instance, or email blasts, but how do we take that messaging, and for instance, take the e-guide and really expand our reach? And that's where a lot of the partnerships come in place too. So we quantify a lot of our success based on utilizing our reseller relationships and their customers, which opens up an entire new landscape for us to really know what the pain points are with customers, how we're solving it, and how we're growing together and make a successful partnership.