In this episode, we’ll zero in on the role of events within integrated marketing with Kelly Carlsted to understand the critical aspects of managing event revenue and demand generation.
Kelly Carlsted is the Senior Manager of Global Field Marketing and Events for Dreamio.
Kelly shares her journey and insights on why revenue-oriented thinking is essential for event planners. From blending awareness campaigns with field marketing initiatives to striking a balance between virtual and in-person events, Kelly discusses how understanding data and market positioning can help design better experiences that generate quality leads.
Here’s what you’ll hear about in this conversation:
[00:00:00] Rachel Moore: 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. In our industry, where we strive for attendee attention, today's guest reminds us that the events we design are intended to generate demand.
[00:00:43] Kelly Carlsted, Senior Manager of Global Field Marketing and Events for Dreamio, shares why revenue and demand gen should absolutely be on our radar for every event, how to position our brands within the market and why mentorship and community are fundamental for event profs. Let's get started on this episode of Event Experience.
[00:01:10] We're back with another episode and a new guest. I'm very excited to be sitting across someone. I love veterans. Everybody who I speak to across from these microphones has a whole wealth of experience in the events industry. And our today's guest is no stranger to that. Our guest is an event marketing professional with over 14 years of experience with owning events, ranging from 15 people to 4, 500 attendees, and even working on events up to 60, 000 attendees.
[00:01:40] That's a lot. That's a wide range. And I know we've talked about on this podcast, like how different those kinds of sizes of events can be, but she's got a lot. The experience among them all. And she is currently serving as the Senior Manager for Global Field Marketing and Events for Dreamio. I'm really pleased to welcome Kelly Carlsted to the podcast.
[00:02:01] Kelly, thank you for joining us today.
[00:02:03] Kelly Carlsted: Hi, welcome everybody.
[00:02:05] Rachel Moore: Thank you. And as I always say, I do the super superficial, like little intro to people about, Oh, here's what to Kelly is and what she does. There's so much more. We're totally going to get into that today, but I want to toss it over to you. Can you tell us a bit more about what is your world?
[00:02:19] As Kelly Carlstad as the Senior Manager of Global Field Marketing and Events at Dreamio. What is your world all about there?
[00:02:27] Kelly Carlsted: Yeah. So. Like you said, I lead events and field marketing and now campaigns at Dremio. I feel every year my title kind of expands a little bit. One thing I love about our company is our mascot.
[00:02:38] I was going to talk about that a little bit. I am a Gnarly. We are the Gnarlies. We have a mascot that is a narwhal and his name is Gnarly. So I think when I was applying to this job, I knew I had to work here just because it has the unicorn of the sea. That's so cool. Yeah, but yeah, so essentially really work on awareness and helping the company source opportunities through different marketing channels.
[00:03:01] And, you know, we're really trying to help empower companies to provide high performance self service analytics to their data anytime, anywhere. So the, Yeah, that's what I do at Dremio.
[00:03:11] Rachel Moore: That's a lot. And I think now everybody's probably I want to be a Gnarly. That sounds amazing. Yes. And also it's a cool definition of the word gnarly that I have not heard before.
[00:03:20] So now I'm going to be thinking of that in two aspects. So thank you for that. What are your go to on the ground event-day shoes?
[00:03:29] Kelly Carlsted: Yeah. So it depends. It's always my answer. So for trade shows, I'm super relaxed. And if I'm going to be walking around, like on the show floor, I'm going to be in tennis shoes and Lululemon pants.
[00:03:41] Like I am super comfortable. If it's our event that we're putting on a conference or an executive, like our customer advisory board, or any executive round tables situation like that, I'm definitely going to be in a dress and you know, I'll have like small heels and flats and I always switch out my shoes in the day, that day, two to three times.
[00:04:01] And then I always say, make sure you put your feet up at the end of the day. Cause no matter what, you're going to be swollen.
[00:04:07] Rachel Moore: Great advice. I don't think we take care of enough of our feet enough at the end of the day. We're just Oh, I'm off them. And that's enough. It's maybe not.
[00:04:15] Is there anything that you're listening to, watching or reading these days that you can't put down?
[00:04:21] Kelly Carlsted: Yeah. So I am a huge murder mystery and crime enthusiast.
[00:04:26] Rachel Moore: Who isn't, right?
[00:04:29] Kelly Carlsted: I know my, so my friends that I work with, we have our own Slack channel and our work Slack just about true crime.
[00:04:39] Rachel Moore: I think that fits.
[00:04:40] I bet you're not the only one.
[00:04:42] Kelly Carlsted: Yeah, I know there's other companies had we love our dogs and here's photos of our dogs, but me and my colleagues have a true crime.
[00:04:48] Rachel Moore: I love it.
[00:04:50] Kelly Carlsted: So I listened to like crime junkie anatomy and murder anything from that group of podcasters. Also, when I travel for work, I always have Dateline or Forensic Files on.
[00:05:01] It's just noise at this point, and I love it. And every hotel seems to have Forensic Files or Dateline as a channel. So it's like perfect for me. And I have two kids, so I just love to put up my feet, put on a mask, drink some champagne or something and just enjoy some alone time. And then I just heard a Court of Thorns and Roses.
[00:05:23] I've heard lots of great stuff for that. So I just bought it. It's gonna be my next like on the plane book. But yeah, I read a ton of murder mysteries as well.
[00:05:32] Rachel Moore: Lovely. Nice. I see. And people, you're helping people build people's lists for what they're going to do for catharsis on the side. And I have a feeling it's just a random feeling, but I have a feeling many listeners on this podcast are also into true crime.
[00:05:44] So maybe they can compare notes and be like, Ooh, let's talk. Is there a particular social post or a piece of media or even a hot take about events that you found interesting lately?
[00:05:55] Kelly Carlsted: So I follow Julius Solaris, which I know he's brought up a lot here. I don't, and Liz Lathan, I don't know if she's been brought up here, but she's amazing.
[00:06:03] What I really like about her posts is she always says, what if and challenges event designers to think about how we typically do events into a new way. So how do we do networking better or trade shows better activations better? And so I love how she leads her posts and she always gets so many responses and yeah, it really makes me think about how we can start to think out of the box more and not just rely on what we've always done. So
[00:06:31] Rachel Moore: Love that. Oh, great. That's awesome. I know we're going to talk about a few topics today, but first and foremost, you know, this is an events professional podcast for event professionals. We would be remiss if we didn't touch on the community event that you're responsible for in your role at Dreamio, which is Subsurface.
[00:06:48] I'd love it if you could share with us and our audience a bit more about that event and the ways that it's unique.
[00:06:54] Kelly Carlsted: Yeah, it's actually the first event of its kind of organized. You know, I came more from doing user conferences and, you know, a lot more of those type of shows. It is a very unique show, especially with the data industry.
[00:07:08] You know, it's a hybrid format. I say that in multiple formats, not just how we do virtual and in person, but we really try to educate the market about the lake house. There's been a lot of shifts in the industry from what you typically think of as like your data warehouse. That would be like a snowflake or something like that.
[00:07:24] And so just what the kind of move that we're doing in our industry. But we also try to maintain neutrality. And so it's very interesting. We give a platform to other vendors, even our competitors will come and present and sometimes sponsor, because we really want to give, make this like inclusive to everybody.
[00:07:43] I always say people in this data engineers or data architects. They really want the no BS, no fluff, no marketing type of stuff. They want to be able to assess and have all the right information in front of you. So we love to put on like that thought leadership, just let them know what's going on and kind of have some technical sessions.
[00:08:02] Also, we do have quite a few sessions that are specific to Dremio. And so we are educating our own customers and prospects about what we're doing as well. And so we're really trying to do that balance of, Hey, here's what's going on in the industry. But also if you're interested in learning more about what we do, we can provide you a set of sessions as well.
[00:08:22] So it is very interesting. It is a hard balance to strike, but you know, we get great results. We just got our NPS score from the event and it's over 70, which is insane. Exactly. And so I think we're doing something good here, you know?
[00:08:37] Rachel Moore: Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's an enviable NPS score to have. And you're so right too, because I think, gosh, aren't we all, I mean, we're, we all know that events are a part of the marking funnel.
[00:08:48] Demand generation, lead generation, they're part of revenue. Of course, you know, anytime you're doing an event, you're designing it for the attendees, but you also have your own company in mind. Of course you do, because you're like, especially if you're selling your wares, you know, you're indirectly marketing your products or services.
[00:09:04] You are going to have that space in your events where it's like, Hey, and by the way, you know, if you're interested over here, we, here's what we can do for you. But. striking that balance, like you said, where you don't feel like you're being over pitched to and still enjoying the experience, but yet still getting that value.
[00:09:21] And then in the end, you know, finding that, yes, we are generating leads from that. It's pretty admirable that, you know, and like you said, the proof's in the pudding and the data is showing that you're, you are striking that great balance. So mega props to you for that. That's great. So I wanted to I think this is a community event, correct?
[00:09:39] And, you know, we talk about like the satisfaction, those, you know, attendees are getting out of that community. I do want to ask you a bit too, because I know you have some thoughts on the idea and the notion of community and we're just in a brand new world today. I know everybody, we say it a lot. It's just true.
[00:09:56] We're not in the same world we were pre COVID or even during COVID. I'd love to hear from you. How are you finding that communities, how they interact with each other has shifted since the era of COVID or, you know, even kind of quasi post COVID.
[00:10:13] Kelly Carlsted: I know. And, I miss pre COVID, but this is the new normal and I hate that buzzword, but I'm going to use it.
[00:10:20] But yeah, so it's actually been very interesting observing not only for my own role at Dremio, but also seeing my past colleagues or peers. And, you know, I do have friends and peers that work at the larger companies and, you know, are doing more of those like mega events. And I've seen, it's actually different even for them versus those mid size events that I typically work on. And so from the community aspect, I see that the large conferences like AWS re event or Dreamforce, they do still have the most extensive offerings as far as like programs and networking. Those have kind of gone back to almost those pre COVID registration numbers and attendance.
[00:11:01] So they're thriving and doing great. They've been able to get their community back together. And I think in a really great way, it's been fun attending those events as well from the other side. And then I think what's been a little bit different, especially as we were, I think we were starting to get out of the pandemic and then there was all this excitement in 2021 and 2022 about going back in person and then budgets we're still being clinched and traveling was still hard to do. So I think we've also noticed that there's so many offers out there and options for attendees to learn and educate and network and the midsize events, I think are competing with the larger ones, you know, a manager's only gonna allow their employee to go to one event a year or something.
[00:11:46] So I think we've been seeing while the mega events have gone back, the smaller events are still struggling, I think to get back to where those pre COVID numbers. Just again because of budget and travel restrictions still But I do still see like hybrid formats working and it was interesting I actually was talking to someone from Bizzabo yesterday And you know, they see again like during the summer and the lulls like virtual events are still pretty big.
[00:12:10] It's easy to put those on and you're not going to be concerned so much about can I get the audience in person because it's a virtual event. And so I still think we're going to see for the smaller and midsize companies that are putting on those events, you're very much hybrid is still going to be number one.
[00:12:27] I think again, we just did our survey and 9 percent of the responses expressed a preference for attending in person versus a majority still wanted a virtual format, which I know, which is so interesting to me again, And every audience is going to be so different. One vent does not fit all, one size doesn't fit all.
[00:12:44] And so I think for us, that's still very much a lesson learned in that we're going to still have to deliver this hybrid format, especially we have a lot of attendees coming in from, or participating from India and the UK and Germany and Canada that won't necessarily fly out for a conference anyway. So, Yeah, I think that and that's just been the biggest shift I've seen post COVID with community and getting people back together.
[00:13:10] Mega events, great. smaller events, midsize events, you know, those 5, 000 and under are still trying to figure out this height are still having to do a hybrid.
[00:13:20] Rachel Moore: I feel like we have to revisit that stat you just shared. I mean, goodness, we can all look at our LinkedIn feeds and be like, everybody's like in person's back.
[00:13:27] It's all in person. And okay, sure. But I mean, just to look at a survey was like nine, actually, nine out of 100 people were like, No. Or nine out of a hundred people are like, okay, sure. I'll go in person. But that's, that leaves 91 percent are like, ah, I don't think so. And then over half of them are like virtual, please.
[00:13:44] That's wild. It is wild. I know. Yeah. We obviously want to still expand like our in person offering and we'll do that. But I, you know, I think our thought process is we would eventually just stream our keynotes and that would be the virtual offering. And we would do that within a few years. But I think what the results are showing is that's not, A few year thing that might be like five or 10 year thing.
[00:14:07] Yeah.
[00:14:07] Rachel Moore: We'll be right back with more Event Experience after the break.
[00:14:12] Rachel Moore: Attention, all event professionals. The event experience podcast by Bizzabo is your go to source for insightful conversations with the industry's leading minds. Want to elevate your events without sweating the small stuff? Curious what the industry's top influencers have to say about their latest events, successes, and teachable moments?
[00:14:30] Visit bizzabo. com slash podcasts. That's B I Z A B O dot com slash podcast, or search for event experience by Bizzabo wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
[00:14:44] Rachel Moore: We're back with Event Experience to learn about Kelly's focus on demand gen in event design.
[00:14:50] I also want to hover on the fact that you mentioned, and this is a real thing.
[00:14:55] I mean, I know I'm thinking about it too, and I'm sure everyone can relate to what you just said about people really are limiting themselves or they're being limited by their company, even their budget to attend one event per year, whether that's in person, I'm going to travel to it or paying for a virtual ticket, I'd love to hear from you I mean, We're thinking about event designers and okay that's the thing you want them.
[00:15:16] I want them to pick my event. You know, how would you recommend our event designers out there? How do we stand out from the pack and say, my event's going to be the one that you pick? I mean, what can we be thinking about to do that?
[00:15:26] Kelly Carlsted: There's definitely a few things that you should do. Think about your event as almost a product of itself and what is its unique positioning within the market?
[00:15:36] So do an analysis of your competitor events also asking what other events to your attendees go to so that's something we incorporate into surveys as well. So we can understand where are they going so we can understand the offering of those events too and see what makes them excited about what we're doing, what the other events are going to, and then just like our competitor events.
[00:15:57] And then just doing an analysis of, again, what's the content they're doing? What is their unique positioning? And then that can really help dictate for you what you can offer and then what audience you want to go after as well. And so just Kind of bringing that all together and then incorporating that into your messaging on your website and then in all of your audience acquisition and demand gen plan.
[00:16:18] So yeah, that's my great advice.
[00:16:21] Rachel Moore: Great advice. I mean, I don't know, I'm sure event designers know this, but what is it like usually toward the end of the year as people are starting to link a budget through even the beginning of the year, they're like, okay, what am I, what should I attend this year?
[00:16:31] And they're asking you for advice. Yeah, great way to be like, Hey let's look at what people are answering, how they're answering that question.
[00:16:37] Kelly Carlsted: Yeah. Oh, I was also going to say, obviously education is huge for events. So if you can offer certifications or anything like that as well, that can kind of help you stand apart from them going to another event versus yours.
[00:16:49] Rachel Moore: Very smart. Yeah. I was actually sharing with a friend earlier today cause they were talking about continuing education credits and yep. I used to work in the healthcare industry administratively and I have no, no means or method of to save people's lives.
[00:17:01] But yeah, that was definitely a big draw. If you offer them the chance, like you can up game, get the credits you need or that you want for your professional career. degrees and stuff, then that was really helpful. So super great points. We mentioned already to you know, we're talking about budgets.
[00:17:16] We're talking about Mark, you know, events being part of that marketing funnel and revenue for companies with events being such a key channel in the marketing funnel, event planners might. sometimes forget about the demand generation aspects of experience at the design. Could you share with us your focus on demand gen with you having that larger eye toward revenue?
[00:17:36] How do you kind of balance that?
[00:17:37] Kelly Carlsted: Yes, I do want to say first and foremost, I do love event design operations. It's where I started my career. I always felt, though, I wanted to understand like what I was doing rolled up to the larger revenue and brand awareness goals of the company. And so I've naturally just kind of grown in my career towards that path.
[00:17:59] And so now I'm doing more demand generation, which I do love. I will always have one foot in events no matter what I do. But so right now what I do and then kind of how I incorporate into just thinking about our whole event landscape. So I am in charge of making sure meeting our quarterly MQL goal.
[00:18:20] What are the channels that can get us there and how can we do it efficiently? Also making sure that we can accurately forecast. So our sales team has enough staffing to take on our MQLs and all of that. And so I'm, I work closely with our data analyst team or SOPS team. And so we're constantly weekly meeting to go over our benchmarks and how are things moving down the funnel and stuff.
[00:18:46] We do this analysis, like I said, weekly, monthly, quarterly, we're always going into it. And so basically, when you think about what is the ROI that you need to get from the event, you think about how much revenue does the event marketing to contribute. And then what is the breakdown of the channels that will contribute to that goal?
[00:19:06] And so I love like thinking through, okay, so this event needs to do this much revenue in this event needs to do this much revenue. And then that kind of backs down into how many MQL is required. And then how many attendees do we need? Or booth scans do we need? And then that dictates your audience acquisitions strategy.
[00:19:24] And then all of that kind of informs like how we're really going to plan and attack this event or attack this channel. And so that is how I work with back with my team. Usually I'm saying, let's look at the data. This event is not working as efficient as we thought. We need to either scale back, cut back, or is there another strategy, a way how we can surround this event?
[00:19:45] If there's not, then we need to think of another way. To get our MQL goal. So it has its pluses and minuses. Like we've had to remove some events from our calendar this year, but we've also added events and we could use it to justify some incremental budget as well. So like I was saying, for example, like our Germany team is amazing.
[00:20:06] There. Our MQL to SQL conversion is double of that what it is in the U. S. Yeah, they crush it. And so we were able to show the data and how the prospects were moving down the funnel. And again, like how our team was able to win more with events in Germany. So then we actually got added on for more events.
[00:20:27] So yeah, so it's great. And honestly, having this number and this deeper understanding of the numbers will help you be able to put together a better plan for your executive team as well. And so that's, I'm always putting together proposals with lots of data points for my executive team, but yeah, it's helped us honestly win.
[00:20:48] Cause I think. Yeah. Events are the best way to get that one on one in person. Quality leads. I think that is the biggest thing. Quality leads, but they are expensive. And so we're always having to justify the why and being really close to the data makes it a lot easier to get things moving with MindSec team and get those budget approvals.
[00:21:09] Rachel Moore: You're singing my song too. When we talk about data, we emphasize how important it is, but this is why, I mean, this is the crux of it. And of course, you're using data to understand your attendees, but at the end of the day, data is important. At the end of the day, in the beginning of the day, in the middle of the day, your company that you're working for is trying to generate revenue.
[00:21:26] And it is going to use that data to justify if we should spend to get these leads, to get these quality leads. I love that you point out to using the data analysis, even geographically to say, okay, maybe not here. Definitely over there because being able to determine those differences rather than just aggregating the whole thing and saying, Oh overall, our events are all down.
[00:21:46] So let's just reduce all of it, but not pay attention to different sectors where you could be like, no, let's double down on what's working and back dial back on what's not. So. Really appreciate it. You gave some great insights just now too. And I think too, event professionals out there, you probably should have an eye toward the revenue, even if it's that's really not my jam and not something I want to be worried about.
[00:22:07] But at the end of the year, that's going to decide if you have jobs. Yeah. A little nerve wracking, but it's true. There's a thread going on here. You're providing a lot of really, I love this really practical, actionable insights and advice which just leads beautifully into some topic about you being a mentor.
[00:22:28] I know that you have really focused on mentorship and that you really are trying to, you know, help level up people with that. I kind of want to, I wanted to ask you something, you know, we're talking about also continuing education credits and things like that. Anyone who looks you up online will notice that you have the CMP credential on your name.
[00:22:44] What is it worth it? I'd like to just hear your thoughts. Is it worth it for event profs today to pursue and obtain their CMP? This, I have a feeling this might be a question that gets pulled out, replayed on repeat because I'm sure event professionals are asking that. So let me lay up that question beautifully again.
[00:23:00] Is it worth it for event profs today to pursue and obtain their CMP?
[00:23:05] Kelly Carlsted: And my answer is it depends. So it's actually something I've had discussions with my peers for many years because I was debating about getting it and then finally decided, you know, I really want to do this. So today, if I didn't have it, I probably wouldn't because I'm moving more into this revenue type of role.
[00:23:25] I think at the early stages of your career, definitely once you get that experience, I think you need five years in the industry before you can apply to take this CMP, if I remember correctly. But yeah, it's it can be incredibly beneficial, especially those earlier years, it demonstrates your commitment to the field.
[00:23:41] A lot of times when people recruiters are looking for event professionals that can help you be seen also can help. With negotiating your salary and stuff like that. Eventually though you have enough experience in the industry that having the certification isn't necessary. And obviously your experience will speak for itself with if you're looking for the job or whatever.
[00:24:04] So it also depends like if you want to be, I think for me, like being on the corporate event side on a marketing team, it might not be as necessary, especially as more like the mid market size companies. If you want to focus. really on operations and you're thinking agency side or being like a large corporation like oracle sometimes that cnp is very is good to have so that is my answer it depends that's okay but definitely look into it i love it i have my books I still reference them.
[00:24:37] So, okay. Yeah.
[00:24:39] Rachel Moore: No that's good. But you did give some caveats there too. Like what stage of your career you're thinking about it and where it might be applicable and things like that. So super helpful. Where can our listeners find and follow you online?
[00:24:50] Kelly Carlsted: Yeah, so LinkedIn, Kelly Carlsted, and last name is C A R L S T E D.
[00:24:57] Also, if you want to follow me about some other good mystery books or whatever, I'm on Goodreads, which is an app, and you can find me there, and you can see what I've read, and what I want to read, and I would love to know about some other great true crime books to read, so.
[00:25:10] Rachel Moore: I want to say, I think you're the first guest who's offered up their Goodreads profile, so I love that.
[00:25:16] And particularly since I'm sure a lot of our event professionals are probably reading books on planes, maybe those will start a thing. I love that. So, yeah, everybody should go follow Kelly on Goodreads.
[00:25:35] Our Skill Up segment for this episode is Skill Up Inception as Kelly's advice is about where or who to seek advice from.
[00:25:43] Kelly Carlsted: Really having a mentor in this industry to help navigate the different parts of it, not just corporate life. Just work life. You don't always get, you know, that great manager.
[00:25:56] Sometimes you're in toxic work environments and you need to learn how to manage up. How do you present yourself to executives? You know, there's just like all of that kind of stuff too, besides just the career path you're going on with events that I think having a mentor is so important. And they can also really, someone like me, who's done, The venue side, sports, I've done sports events.
[00:26:20] I've done the agency side. I've done in corporate side. We have experienced and have found out what works best for our personalities and our aspirations and really talking to someone and. Learning more, who can learn more about you and say, Oh, if you want to, if you really like operations, maybe check out this career path, or if you really like this and check out this career path.
[00:26:44] So they can really kind of help you and you don't have to spend like unnecessary years at a job you wish you had never taken or something like that to be real. But anyway, so, and then of course, like there's so many great Slack groups. The industry has really come together. and surrounded and helped each other since COVID more so again, I had my mentors before COVID, but now I can reach out to anybody on LinkedIn and everyone's so welcoming and helpful.
[00:27:09] So there's so many groups you can be part of. And then there's still some really great associations. Like I, I follow SEMA and PCMA, and there's also like some trade show associations as well. Like you can become members. Or just sign up for their newsletters. Cause they're always sending out some great information as well.
[00:27:27] So
[00:27:29] Rachel Moore: Thanks again to Kelly Carlsted for joining us on Event Experience. And thank you for listening. If you're enjoying the show, we'd love to hear it. Connect with us on social and subscribe rate and review us wherever you're listening. Also, don't forget to share the show with your colleagues and friends.[00:27:45] You can find transcripts of each episode and key takeaways on bizzabo.com/podcast. On behalf of the team, thank you. We'll gather again soon for a new episode of Event Experience.
