In this episode of Event Experience by Bizzabo, host Rachel Moore explores how micro events, paired with AI, are transforming the way event professionals drive engagement and ROI. Guests Amanda-Lynn Porta and Dan Bolton dive deep into the strategic benefits of small-format experiences, from higher returns and richer personalization to stronger community connections.
You'll learn how AI tools simplify planning, automate manual tasks, and unlock scalable personalization. The conversation also emphasizes the importance of thoughtful guest selection, cross-functional alignment between sales and marketing, and obsessing over event details for maximum impact.
Key themes include the shift from large conferences to intimate micro events, the power of local, consistent activations, and how to iterate over time for long-term success. Amanda-Lynn and Dan share actionable advice on using platforms like Bizzabo to design repeatable, personalized experiences, and why micro events may be the most powerful tool in your event marketing toolkit.
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Welcome to Event Experience by Bizzabo, the podcast where we bring the best and brightest event experience leaders together to share stories, tips, and lessons learned from creating some of the world's biggest events.
I'm Rachel Moore, your podcast host. It's time for another special episode of the pod, and this one's based on our recent webinar. Winning with micro events in an AI world.
Get ready for a round table featuring expert speakers. Amanda-Lynn Porta, Director of Events Management at Applied Research Institute. And Dan Bolton, head of marketing at Wealth.com as we cover the benefits of micro events.
The role of AI in event planning and strategies for successful micro event execution. If you've been on the hunt for insights into leveraging micro events to achieve significant business returns, this is the event experience you're looking for.
[00:01:13] Rachel Moore: Well, hello everyone. We're so glad you are here with us. I'm Rachel Moore and I'm the host of Bizzabo's Event Experience Podcast.
But as always, I am thrilled, excited, stoked to be your guide through our webinars. And I'd like to be the first to welcome you to winning with micro events in an AI world.
This webinar will be available on demand for your convenience. But we're so glad you're joining us live today.
In this session, we're going to briefly walk away just briefly from the giant trade shows and conferences of the world. We're gonna slip into the doorway of micro events. I don't know why I just went all hushed with that, but it feels like very reverent.
That's right. Our goal today is to equip you with knowledge and practical tips to help you make strategic decisions about your business and how you might shift into micro events successfully. Uh, we also want you to learn from actual playbooks or micro events that executed to expectation and beyond.
We're gonna help you develop the tactics and tools you'll need to deliver micro events without a hitch, but with huge returns.
We're also gonna ask and talk about how AI First is a great ecosystem for your micro event planning, and we're gonna dig into busy dinners. Bizzabo's own Micro Event series, and how Bizzabo can help you make micro events a success.
All right, without further ado, and I just teased their entrant. Let's begin our journey as I introduce today's webinar speakers.
First, we are bringing in Amanda-Lynn Porta. Amanda-Lynn is the Director of Events Management at Applied Research Institute, or ARI, and is an event industry leader with over 10 years of experience, planning, and executing high profile events with expertise in customer service, business operation, and quality of auditing.
Amanda specializes in logistics and creative direction for ARI to build partnerships between academia, industry, and government for advanced national security, innovation and economic growth in Indiana.
So if anyone's joining from Indiana, give a shout out there. On micro days, her feet are wearing echoes.
Amanda-Lynn, welcome to today's discussion.
[00:03:25] Amanda-Lynn Porta: Hello, everyone.
[00:03:26] Rachel Moore: Next we have Dan Bolton. Dan is the head of marketing at Wealth.com, where he leads initiatives that elevate the company's brand, accelerate demand generation, and position Wealth.com as the category leader in estate planning and wealth technology.
Dan has been named a 2024 NextGen Rising Star by City Wire, a 2025 Rising Star by investment news and he's a finalist for 2025 CMO of the year of The Think Advisor, Luminary awards.
Dan, if your track record says anything, I think you've got a good shot at it. His favorite micro event day shoes are on clouds.
Welcome to the webinar, Dan.
[00:04:05] Dan Bolton: Thank you so much. Glad to be here.
[00:04:06] Rachel Moore: I know, I'm so excited too. Let us get started, shall we?
Dan, I'm gonna start with you. What percent would you say you're at in micro events as far as like how much you wanna grow up from where it is today? Where are you?
[00:04:17] Dan Bolton: I would say 75% or even more!
[00:04:19] Rachel Moore: Dang, alright. Okay, that says a lot. I absolutely tease up really nicely that you're gonna be pro micro events in this webinar, So, that's awesome.
Amanda-Lynn, how about you?
[00:04:28] Amanda-Lynn Porta: We have a lot of micro events in micro events series. So, 75% for me as well.
[00:04:34] Rachel Moore: Let's segue with that into the first segment. So the word event in the title of Event Planner, used to automatically elicit images of experiences with giant registration numbers like, crowds at conferences, packed aisles at trade shows and surrounding streets, swimming in band badges and lanyards. I think we've all been there. We're walking through streets and you're like, "Oh, there's conferences going on all around me.
But there is a seismic shift underway and strategy drives it directly towards us in this webinar, micro events are the playbook to make the success of your flagship conferences and larger events skyrocket.
Micro events are the play and your peers are the planners. So let's start the way. All great event plans should and with strategy.
Amanda-Lynn, I'm gonna take this one to you. We are all gears here. Can you share some of the receipts of the ROI community building and personalization benefits of small format experiences that you've planned?
And Dan, I'll take this to you next, but I did wanna start with Amanda-Lynn. What do you, what do you have for us there?
[00:05:32] Amanda-Lynn Porta: Yeah, sure thing. With the smaller format, Event Experiences. Um, the ROI shows up in ways that go beyond just like numbers, obviously for our like niche ideation events.
This small program that we had, it led with a smaller group of people, um, that were very concentrated to a certain industry. It led to a contract add-on opportunity within, uh, like I would say about three months. And that was a huge return for us.
But equally, we saw that the attendees were more open and engaged in the smaller setting, like they were able to, obviously it was an ideation event, but they were more comfortable and more conversations were happening.
They shared challenges that they had between the various companies that were a part of this whole industry as itself. Um, it gave us stronger insights to follow up, but also created a sense of trust where they gave us a lot more feedback to go on from.
And when we talk about personalization, we partner with local businesses for catering. We like to support small businesses in our local area here at Indiana. The choices that we make with the catering per the region, it makes people feel like we're paying attention we know about then. We've had participants mention that in feedback for us, the repeat attendance was, was big, uh, when we came back for the annual events.
[00:06:45] Rachel Moore: And that's what every event planner wants, obviously. So, uh, obviously there's some great receipts right there. And, and a quick note, we're gonna go back to the poll in just a second. But Dan, I wanted to let you answer that question first. I will return us back to those res results in a second. I don't wanna leave y'all hanging.
But Dan, uh, how about some receipts for you from ROI Community building and the personalization benefits from what you've planned?
[00:07:05] Dan Bolton: Absolutely. I think it starts with what are you defining the goal to be for this micro event? Are you looking to make it demand generative?
Are you looking to make it more of a brand activation product launch, more customer attention focused? And knowing that then you can actually see what success looks like.
On our side, micro events have played a massive strategy just this year alone and for the demand general events, we're seeing 4, 5, 6x pipeline coverage on what we're spending.
And customer retention activation. We can go into the product afterwards, behind the scenes and CEO. These attendees, did more things than the product. They took these actions, they sent these emails, they did this activity.
Uh, and for pro launch, you can quickly see, okay, you've got some media mentions, you've got some social media coverage and engagement, you've got signups, things like that on the wait list.
And so again, it just sort of depends on what you're looking for. But, they all, I mean, it works. A hundred percent it works.
[00:08:05] Rachel Moore: Well. And again, you're speaking to something, uh, Amanda-Lynn brought up returns. You know, people coming back for more every time, which we always want. And then you're bringing up the engagement part.
It's just deeper and and more engaged, which we all want. We don't want anyone showing up and just mailing it in, right? We're like, oh, and we've all been there. We're all busy. Where it's like, oh, I've gotta keep working. Maybe while I'm also trying to engage in this event. But a micro event, it does help really kind of focus people in.
Dan, I'm gonna take this question to you.
Uh, we're gonna dig into AI here, man. We're all feeling the pressure of AI first as we tackle our jobs to deliver events. And if you're not feeling that, let us know in the chat. 'cause you might be in, in a little party by yourself. Would you say that micro and field events are thriving in an AI first environment?
And if so, why is that exactly.
[00:08:52] Dan Bolton: That's a great question. I would even say field events, target events, micro events, whatever you wanna call them. They're thriving more now because you look at everything in marketing, it's automated, it's digital, and that human connection becomes even more valuable.
But even taking a step back, you could rent out a nice hotel ballroom and you do a single day event for a hundred people, and you're looking at AV catering, room rentals, service fees, and all the various taxes and line items go along with that, and you're not getting out of that room for less than 25k. And using AI in a generic way is pretty similar to hosting these sort of cookie cutter single day events at a hotel.
On the surface, they are functional. They check the box that you're doing activity and you feel like, oh, we, we did what we're supposed to do. But they lack originality. And it feels, as an attendee, it feels like you've been placed in a template. You can feel it. And if your output, I would say is impersonal or your input is impersonal, then your output is gonna be disengagement.
Instead of creating energy surprise value. That experience is all lost in the generic aspect of that event. But with micro events, instead of spending that 25K, you could spend 5K to 10K on a box at a concert or a sports game for 25 people.
And instead of trying to hit some arbitrary attendance count, that may look good on like a board deck. You get this hyper personalized attendee list, and I saw it in the chat too. It's getting the right people in the room. So you're creating an experience that they post about on social media.
And so in a world that everything generic, you're giving them special access. And so, on a business side too, though, you're also compressing that marketing funnel. You're getting the right audience in the right room with the right message, and I've just found that the unit economics of all of it improve as well. You're getting less people together, but it's much more personal and they're more likely to convert.
[00:11:03] Rachel Moore: I love that, that and that, that's, again, I know we, I keep saying it. It's what we all want, you know? Uh, it might look great. I love that you alluded to the big numbers on a board slide. But I, I think we've all heard the term vanity metrics. Uh, it's like, great, yes, I could get a lot of inflated numbers. People were in the room, but what were they doing once they were there?
And that's where the micro events comes through. And, and like you said, I mean, you know, we were talking about AI. Really kind of helping to tackle that. That's gonna segue into this next question. I'm gonna ask both of you and Amanda, I'll Amanda-Lynn, I'll go to you first. People in this room in this webinar with us right now are wanting to add more micro events to their event portfolio.
Maybe more than their team can handle. I bet. I'm speaking for a lot of folks who are in that bucket. I'd like to ask how are AI tools helping field marketers do more with less? And again, starting with Amanda-Lynn, do you have a favorite AI prompt you like to use? And if y'all, as you in the chat, have a AI prompts you like to use, share with the class.
But Amanda-Lynn, go for it. What are some tools that are helping people do more with less?
[00:11:59] Amanda-Lynn Porta: From my end, my company was smaller. I started two years ago here and it's grown a ton. I think I was the 28th employee and I think we're up to 80 something in, within two years.
So AI for me, it been on the back end just helping me automate everything. Helping me even just edit copy for just general event registrations, organizing my audience list, summarizing attendee feedback whenever I need to put it like in a form or a document quickly. 'Cause it was a one person team for the first year I was here. But that helped me put my energy into pouring out the strategy for my leadership so that we could get that front and process streamlined.
And the messaging it was quick to develop with just myself. And then when I built, brought on my other team members, it was all the automations have helped us trigger and, and keep everybody in line.
So for me, the backend, uh, organization was huge with AI. One of the prompts that I like to use, was like, give me, I'll just talk to like ChatGPT or something and say, give me five creative ways to focused on the research, like this is in relevance to research for the cities is like localize this event for this city, which we have.
We do events all over the country, which is surprising 'cause we're just here in Indiana, but we do work with federal programs. So, and it's amazing how quickly that, that helps me spark more ideas that I might not have thought of.
Whatever I have a huge workload across the various programs that we do.
So, it ends up being more high impact experience too for me to kind of build on those, on off those prompts.
[00:13:29] Rachel Moore: That be great use case to do that. Especially if you are possibly going to locale you're not familiar with, but there's so much to pull that AI can pull from what's out in the internet and you know, this is what trends around this time of year. This is, uh, something the locals are, are really into, or these are favorite spots, and stuff like that. Super, super insightful there.
Uh, Dan, I'm gonna take this over to you then as well. Uh, what are tools that your, your team is using to do more with less and favorite AI prompt you might use?
[00:13:58] Dan Bolton: Yeah, I think AI, uh, I mean it saves us hours in the planning and sort of generating event concepts from, then invite to follow up notes, but also it helps us analyze faster. So, we're able to drop in that feedback into ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude, whatever tool that you like to use, uh, survey responses and even export out those disbel reports and you can get the insights in settings versus having to comb through all those different pages and try to spin up your own insights.
One of my favorite prompts is based on my target audience. And blank city, fill in the blank of where you're hosting the micro event. What kind of event experience would you want them to have? What would get them to register? What would make them wanna bring a peer? And so that really starts sparking some ideas.
Even just last week, we're doing a marketing team retreat here, and so I just plugged in the city and plugged in some info about our team, and asked for some team building exercises, local restaurants that we should go to, even the hotel. And ChatGPT found the hotel for me and I booked it last week too.
So it just speeds up event planning so much.
[00:15:13] Rachel Moore: Everybody can pretty much agree with that too. I think at least a minimum it gets you from blank page, right? And can help spark some of those ideas.
And for those of you who I, I'd love to know too, has anyone named your AI tools, um, you know, or your agent, or whatever you're calling it? Or do you like, you know, cut a certain, like, personality with it and stuff?
Would love to hear about that. But you're both so, right. And Amanda-Lynn, I saw you on mute. What, what are, what's yours?
[00:15:34] Amanda-Lynn Porta: Brand name my tool because, and it gives it more power. So I always use manners though. Thank you.
[00:15:42] Rachel Moore: Thank you, please and thank you. Yes, I, I do the same. I have gotten a little spicy with mine sometimes, where it gives you something where it's like, " Hey, this, that, or the other," and you're like, "Are you making things up right now? Because that's not there."
And you know, it'll be like, "I'm so sorry." It's very polite in return. At least mine is. I don't know if anybody else's trained yours to be different.
[00:15:59] Amanda-Lynn Porta: " You're quite welcome."
[00:16:02] Rachel Moore: That's right. I love that. There may be some folks too. Uh, and it's totally okay if anyone's in the webinar and you're like, I really haven't started using I yet. And you know. It's okay, everybody starts from somewhere. And you know, I think it, it can be something to get used to.
Obviously there's all kinds of things around AI as well.
But, all this driving back to micro events too.
Um, we're all just trying to get more done and get better events done. Uh, and AI obviously can help with that. So I think these are great insights you both have offered.
We're gonna move on. This is gonna relate a little bit to what I'm about to say. 'Cause even if you don't, uh, one has to admire when you're watching a sporting event, I would call it a "swashbuckling play" is executed. We all go, "Whoop! Oh!" Scoreboard, scoreboard goes up, everyone goes to the coaches to ask how in the world they pulled that off.
Um, we've all seen on TV two where they cover their faces you know, they're so, you can't read their lips. well, you can't do lip reading while they're doing their plans, but.
What we're about to do, we're about to tell all, as we ask our panel for the specifics of your success. We don't want you to cover your mouth. We want you to like, "Hey, tell it, tell it to us like it is." There's no secrets here. You're gonna spill the tea.
So I'm gonna ask both of you this question. Dan, I'm gonna go to you first:
How do you know you've scored a win when you're running local activations? And also what do you try to avoid? So give us your tea there. What's a win and what's a, "we don't wanna fail."?
[00:17:24] Dan Bolton: Yeah, totally. Uh, it goes back to what I started with on defining what success looks like. So what we say around here is you gotta begin with the end in mind.
So is it supposed to be demand generating? Is it a brand activation? Uh, you wanna be very clear about that upfront with not only internal stakeholders, but also the attendees. What does that landing page look like? What's the copy say? Do they know what they're signing up for? The worst thing that could happen is an attendee signs up thinking that they're coming to some cocktail appreciation event, and then they just get hit with a hard demo right off the bat.
But for us, based on the overall goal of the event, a win would look like two things coming together. First, uh, you gotta mix in the hard numbers. So, did the event drive qualified pipeline? Did you build new relationships? Did you expand the existing accounts? So we track MQLs, SQLs, and then closed-won tied back directly to every event. And we do that via Salesforce.
Then on sort of the softer side of things, did the attendees email you afterwards thanking you that they got to join. Did you hear them say this was an incredible event? Did they talk about it on social media? That's how we know that we delivered that value beyond just a sort of simple meal or a meeting.
And on, what I try to avoid, anything that feels more like a generic box to check. And if it's something a competitor can do. I sort of just gravitate nationally away from that. If it looks like any sort of hotel ballroom, you've already sort of lost on that, in my opinion.
And I'll just say too, like. It's okay not to win on the first try. Very few things that any of us do win on that first try, and I think we've all been involved in something that didn't win when we first started. So a product launch where internally there's a ton of buzz and you thought, "This is just going to blow up our sales number, we're gonna hit, hit our numbers," and then sort of the feedback was muted.
Or you launch a podcast and first episode gets five listeners and two of them were your parents. That's okay. You just need to try that second, that third time. And the same thing for micro events. Like if you're able to have an incredible success in the first try, kudos to you. I wasn't able to do that.
What helps though is keeping everyone around you, your boss, uh, internal stakeholders, your teammates informed on how things are going. Be open to sharing like, "You know what, this didn't work, but we're gonna improve these five things next time." For every micro event that we do, we have we call a postmortem event.
And I know that sounds morbid, but it's always after the event and it's always with every single stakeholder. And what we do is we just go through every aspect of the event, and every person at that table is free to just share their mind, and share how can we improve for that next iteration? 'cause there will be a next iteration you wanna improve on, uh, what didn't go well.
And we always have that, we want to face what didn't go well. We want to duplicate what did go well. And deal with it now ahead of that next event.
[00:20:33] Rachel Moore: There's a mouthful there. That was really great insights, encouraging, I love the, uh, notion of like, hey, if it's, if it feels like you're just checking a box, move away from that and try something maybe a little harder, a little different.
Uh, Amanda-Lynn, same question to you. How do you know you've scored a win when running a local activation? And then, uh, things to avoid that you like to, like to avoid?
[00:20:53] Amanda-Lynn Porta: For our team, uh, a win with local activations would show up in a few ways, uh, when the right people are in the room and you can actually see the connections being made, like attendees actually engaging with each other.
We do a lot of, across industry events, like I keep mentioning that because it's very customized, curated. And then following up right after, when they're, they follow up right after, when those conversations turn into a real pipeline or partnerships in the weeks that follow, with their feedback or wanting to have contact information or really the networking that we, we incorporate into it.
We track the metrics, of course, but the energy in the room is usually the first indicator that like, we did it.
[00:21:36] Rachel Moore: That's right. I think we've all been in a situation, right, where we've looked around the room and the vibes count. Y'all vibes are an ROI, I think we've established that. Maybe it's harder to quantify, but I mean, you know when you can see it.
And I think you're right. We, we see it in the aftermath too. I think that's an important thing that you brought up too. This may not be like, "Oh my God, we felt the ROI like the day after." You know, this is something that's long term. You're allowing that networking to happen, those relationships to happen long term, and some of that's gonna have a, a life cycle that's, you know, longer. And, and take time, but you're, you're really creating that touchpoint, as far as like trying to make sure that that's, that's feasible and good for everybody.
So thank you both for that. That's really great. Encouraging as well as really good insights. We wanna sneak peek. Can we get a sneak peek into your field marketing strategies? What have you learned from scaling micro events? What's some, um, secret insights you can share with, with us?
Dan, I'll take it over to you. Um, what's, uh, what is like, just maybe like a little, little special snippet of something you can give us that like, that you use in your field marketing?
[00:22:39] Dan Bolton: Yeah, great question. I would say depth, not breadth. So I'd rather host 30 qualified attendees on a rooftop setting where we can have meaningful conversation versus 300 in a conventional hall where everybody feels anonymous and you're just constantly scanning badges, intimacy scales when you have a playbook. And so for us, yeah, we've got a Google playbook where we have the templates for the invite, the run of show, the follow up, and that allows our team to be able to execute those repeatable events without losing that human touch.
And then second, and this is probably the most important. We co-design these events with the sales team from the start. So when sales feels ownership and I know this is always sort of a point of friction between marketers and sales team, uh, when they fill that ownership and you're trying to help them hit their quota, get their commission check, land that deal the outcomes multiply. Everybody, whether they like it or not, they're an event planner.
Like they, they want to help. They have their opinions, they have their feedback, and so just getting that ahead of time and hearing that voice is always, it makes the event better.
[00:23:52] Rachel Moore: Yeah. I think that, oh gosh, you brought up a great point there too. I mean, we're not doing this by ourselves; we're not just doing it from the event marketing or marketing team.
Sales has to be involved too. And I, I think you're right. They probably are gonna like the, uh, depth versus breadth thing being like, "Hey, let's have some more keyed in people who are. Little more qualified and maybe further down the nurture path than, than just a cold lead would be."
Amanda-Lynn, I'll go back over to you.
Yeah. Well, what do you, what do you have to offer here?
[00:24:18] Amanda-Lynn Porta: In agreement with that, yeah, for sure. But also, just kind of for us, we like to tie back into the overall like brand narrative. So we have ARI, which is my company, and then we have all these different programs and we're contracted to kind of execute these events.
A lot of them are micro events, but we like to have a staple of like, here's what this ARI event does, even though it's on behalf of this program. Consistency, making sure that the consistency in the process helps us take on more volume and make it effective and efficient for our team.
And we also, with that touch of the, the, bringing it back to the brand narrative, personalization is a huge, huge thing. 'cause that helps keep everyone engaged. And also listening to all of our registration, comms and like feedback or polls like we do on Bizzabo, uh, when we broadcast to there.
[00:25:11] Rachel Moore: I love that. The consistency I think everybody probably loves hearing about too.
It's a lot easier when you as a team and not that like, you're not getting stuck. You're not like, you know, just on set it and forget it kind of thing.
But you are at least approaching it. And you've brought up research, which I think is so key. And how you're really making sure you do your homework and stuff, but that's part of your approach and that consistency.
So that's, I love the, um, the insights you both have offered there, and really great notes. Thank you for both, for that peek into your playbooks.
I know we don't wanna, we don't want you to give the whole game away. You gave a little bit, and that's, that's enough.
I'm gonna wrap up this particular segment before we move on to the final segment, but, um, we, we did, as I said, slip into the door of micro events earlier.
I wanna get your guys' kinda, uh, your reactions here and, and again for the, for the attendees as well in the chat. What about a micro event series? And I ask that because, uh, you may all of you have been seeing our busy dinner series on our social feeds. I know. I, I am getting major FOMO when I see them, uh, personally, uh, 'cause I'm like, I wanna, I wanna be there. That looks really, really fun and awesome.
But it's a series of micro events where we plan an exclusive dinner with an expert panel and networking, uh, around a major industry conference. So it's not at the conference, but it's in the locale of the conference.
Dan, I'll go to you first. What's your take on executing a successful micro event series?
[00:26:33] Dan Bolton: I would say series, that's the way to go. Like if you're just doing these one-off micro events, it can feel a bit fragmented and a bit of like start, stop, start, stop kind of thing.
And so earlier this year we did Wealth.com or we announced a Wealth.com connect series. And so, we went to New York, L.A, Dallas, Phoenix. A handful of different cities and it just allows you to keep that core formula the same.
So, schedule an intimate video. Have a curated guest list and also build in a very strong networking component. But also you gotta localize the flavor of it and bring in different speakers, have unique entertainment touches in Texas.
We'll have something different than we have in San Francisco, and you just gotta bring in those unique city specific themes, I would say.
And so like keeping that balance between consistency, that you have another one to look forward to. And novelty that you're specific to that city, that location. It keeps your attendees, the potential folks that wanna register engaged. And it also gives us a scalable, recognized brand and sort of going back to like, it's okay to not win on the first time.
A series allows you to do that. So, this series events, they only get better. You learn from the first and you implement on the second, and then the third, and then so on and so forth. Uh, it just allows you to make those tweaks and just take things to another level.
[00:27:58] Rachel Moore: Great insights there. And yeah, Amanda, it goes back to that research locally, right?
I know Dan just kind of pivoted off what you had said earlier about that as well. But, yeah what do you think about, a series of micro events?
[00:28:08] Amanda-Lynn Porta: So, we had a series that we do for the state that is, we have a, um, a little bit of in-person and a little bit of webinars that we mix in.
And again, the consistency, right? Keeping, making sure we have those touches to the, the community, and making sure that we eliminate too much fluff. Like we're really direct with our correspondence because we've engaged them with an, um, micro, like a, a micro event that's in person for more networking and they can put faces, names, and then when they go virtually, they can, they're more able to engage with our, like our lead speak, our program manager that's on there. They get right to the meat, meat and the potatoes, if you will, of what to expect when we tell them like, "Hey, it's this time, here we are, and you guys already met in person. And then we kind of, you know, we just like mix and match the, the webinar versus in person. And it, it works really well for us"
[00:28:55] Rachel Moore: Especially, gosh, from a marketing standpoint, we're all tired of the fluff and, and yeah. You're talking about, look. I'm serving this up to you, this event up to you on a silver platter. Meat and potatoes is still great because it's like, well, it's really good meat and potatoes. The recipe is yummy.
And so, uh, yeah, you don't need to surround that with fluff. It's like, no, this is what you're gonna get. And I think then too, the receipts you, you give them too is that they're getting, that they're, they're actually getting what was promised.
And yeah, that's gonna keep them coming back and stuff, so We'll be right back with more event experience after the break.Event enthusiasts, are you hungry for the latest event trends and insights? Pop open your laptop, pull up your favorite browser, and head to the Bizzabo blog, that's B I Z Z A B O dot com forward slash blog, for fresh perspectives and expert takes on what shaping the world of events. Plus, subscribe to get blog updates sent to your inbox every two weeks, and never miss an article from bizzabo.com/blog. Do more that matters with Bizzabo.
We are back with Amanda-Lynn Porta and Dan Bolton to get super tactical about executing a great micro event. uh,
[00:30:05] Rachel Moore: To take your attendees into your next, or maybe anyone in the, might be your first micro event. You do need the tricks of the trade. Fortunately, we have two experts in the room here who can help us do this.
We are going to deliver this to you. Let's go around. I'm gonna ask each of you to spill a little bit more it if you will, um, about how you've done micro events. More to the point how our attendees in the webinar should do it too.
So first of all. Amanda, I'm gonna go to you first for this one. As our attendees ponder on what type of event an audience they should target next. On a micro event for maximum impact. Can you give us some tips? Like what, how do you, how did you first choose, like, what you were gonna do for a first micro event? Maybe they can kinda learn from that.
What, what do you have, what, what tips do you have for our audience?
[00:30:49] Amanda-Lynn Porta: Again, this goes to like that preliminary research with, uh, the target audience in, uh, developing that strategy really well. If you're given a target audience, like, 'cause I, so I'm on the event side of things, whereas I think Dan's like more on the marketing where he's kind of doing that research and providing it.
We look at who brings the most value to the table, the decision makers, the roles, the industry that they're in, and who's going to bring or like instigate deeper conversations, um, at these micro events.
[00:31:17] Rachel Moore: Excellent. Excellent. I think that's super key too and that's where we need to start, right?
Because you're not gonna be able to develop that event before you know who should be in the room. And like we all said, we've been saying throughout right, we want the right people in the room.
Dan, over to you. As we ponder this, like what are some tips you would, would advise on how we should choose, how our attendees should choose what to kind of the who, what, when, where of that first micro event they're gonna plan or the next, when they're gonna plan?
[00:31:42] Dan Bolton: I align fully with what Amanda said. . My biggest trick is to start with the guest list and not the venue. So I mean, we've all had those conversations with different members of our team where they're like, we should go to this city next. We should go to this city. But when you start looking in Salesforce or HubSpot, whatever you used, and it's like, well, we actually have five customers here, and do you think all five customers are gonna show up to our cocktail hour? I don't know. Or if there's a hundred customers in this area.
There is a good starting point because if you can get the 10 right people in a room, that produces much more than getting the wrong 50 in a fancy ballroom. And then second, I would just say obsess over the details. So, the signage, the swag, even who is greeting the guest as they walk through the door. Those are the details that shape the experience.
And then third, uh. How you follow up matters. The follow up is often just as important as the event itself. They had a great experience and then you just go dark at the end, you've lost all that momentum. A well-timed recap email, or if you had a photographer on site and you have that album, you can include the link there, a personal note from the sales team.
It's where you turn those moments actually into, I would say like measurable ROI.
[00:33:04] Rachel Moore: Love that. Great tips as well.
I tend to think more of the venue like, oh, I can picture the event there. And again, I'm not an event planner, so please use that as a caveat, but, um, but you're so right. It's, it's not gonna matter if you make a micro event in a town or a city where it's like, yes, better. Our customers and leads aren't even there. Who are we doing? What are we, why? Why do we, why do we go cold? And we go well warm.
So, really great advice. Uh, Amanda-Lynn, I'm gonna take this next question to you.
Even if we aren't planning a giant event, we still need our partner teams around us. We've mentioned sales, but they're not even the only ones. We need our partner teams to make it worth everyone's while. How do you align sales and marketing and customer experience teams for your seamless execution of your micro events?
[00:33:48] Amanda-Lynn Porta: I feel like my team says process flow more than any team.
We're always talking about the process, process, process. There's a flow, like we have to develop our flow charts, but with that process flow, it kind of helps us build out AI automations so that everyone stays triggered. In the event proposal stage, we find shared goals and between all the teams, um, and customize our process flow charts to that.
I keep laughing when I say that because I, I think I've been in a meeting being like, can we say process flow one more time? It talked about the most and then from that, we, we build in, um, regular check-ins, collaborative planning, syncs, we call them, syncs, that they're meetings, you know.
Shared workable files. We use SharePoint a lot. It's easier for everyone to stay in the know, or also catch up, like when they get pulled off onto other things and had to come back in. And that's really helped us. With our keeping everything seamless.
[00:34:41] Rachel Moore: I have a feeling everybody here wants, wants the peak of your process, your flow chart.
I posted up when you said that, I was like, what? I want that.
And so I'm not gonna ask you to give it away but me. I'm just saying you might get contacted after be like, can, can you give what, what, what does it kind of look like? You don't have to give the whole, whole game away, but I love that. Thank you. That was a good, good, uh, good teaser to reach out to you after the webinar, um.
Dan, I'm gonna bring this question to you. Field Events certainly do have their own feel, or as you you've already emphasized, they should have their own feel. They're unique from the larger events we're all used to, again, you know, sea full of lanyards and badges across the city.
How do you use Bizzabo specifically to run repeatable, scalable, micro event programs? Tell us how Bizzabo is helping you with that.
[00:35:31] Dan Bolton: This is the, uh, the easiest question of the day because I am wildly biased. I've rolled out Bizzabo twice now at a couple different companies, but at a high level, Bizzabo, I mean it's, it's not only central to what you do, but it takes out the hardest part of these events: the execution and the reporting.
And we can spin up a branded registration page, automate RSVPs and check-ins, and then we push everything into HubSpot and Salesforce. So the ROI story becomes really clear quickly.
For micro events in particular, I just like how I can clone the events really well or duplicate whatever the title or the, how you describe that feature.
It's just like, all right, I've got this event in New York. I'm gonna clone it for LA, for Denver, and then you just take five minutes, tweak the location, the timing, any bit of personalization you want to do. And, it takes all of five minutes per event instead of having to spin up a brand new landing page and come up with copy and branding and all that.
[00:36:32] Amanda-Lynn Porta: That makes us look like magicians.
[00:36:34] Dan Bolton: It does. Yeah. Put that on a billboard.
[00:36:37] Amanda-Lynn Porta: Yes.
[00:36:38] Rachel Moore: I think we will. Um, we, we do have, I think, I'm pretty sure there's at least one or two Bizzabo people in the audience who'd be like, Hmm.
Thank you for that soundbite, Amanda-Lynn. I didn't ask her for that. Y'all, she just did that on her own. So Yeah,
[00:36:49] Amanda-Lynn Porta: I would just, and he's just saying exactly like everything that my leadership has said to me, like, "Wow, this is just so quick and it looks so great, it's so professional."
And then our, our audience says it back to us that I'm like, "it's just nothing but.."
[00:37:02] Rachel Moore: Well, you are the magicians for including Bizzabo, so thank you for that. You heard it here, folks.
So with that though, we, that brings us amazingly, this time has flown, uh, brings us to the end of the segments.
We have a gift for you, and it's not in the lead bit micro.
We want you to grab your own copy of designing in-person events that deliver a strategic guide for 2025 and beyond.
So grab it. Qr code's there. It's available for you and, uh, it's gonna help you in addition to all the great snippets you got and advice you got from today.
Thank you all for joining us. We look forward to seeing you at our future events. Have a great day everyone.
Thanks again to Amanda-Lynn Porta and Dan Bolton for joining us on event experience, and thank you for listening. If you're enjoying the show, we'd love to hear it.
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You can find transcripts of each episode and key takeaways on Bizzabo.com/podcast. You can also catch the original webinar of this episode on demand.
On behalf of the team, thank you. We'll gather again soon for a new episode of Event Experience.
