#70 Patrick Kalie: Leveraging Events for Customer Adoption and ROI
This call with Patrick Kalie is one of my favorite calls so far in 2024.
Patrick works at an Events company, but has focused on using events as a big part of his Customer Marketing strategy for years.
In this call he shares several helpful points about customer adoption, working with sales and customer success teams, and recruiting customers into advocacy.
You can watch the full call on Youtube, but the following are the top tips I found in the call. Be sure to share some of this with your colleagues.
Finally, the slides from his call are at the bottom of this post.
On the Power of Events for Customer Marketing:
"I’ve been taking an events-based approach to customer marketing for the past 5 or so years, and it’s worked out really well for me...I got a job at an events company, which is very cool." — [00:05:10]
Leveraging Social Proof to Drive Adoption:
"We’ve seen a lot of success in getting adoption by having an industry leader come on and talk about your product...That really spurs adoption and gets people to buy into what your company does." — [00:09:21]
Engaging Product Users with How-To Webinars:
"How-to webinars are exclusive to customers, but we found they’re great for prospects too. It’s like pulling the toy car back—they see what they can do with the product, and by the time they sign, they’re ready to go." — [00:12:43]
Creating Content for Adoption and Retention:
"When planning content for how-to webinars, we go one step beyond the basics and highlight underused features to get that second-order adoption...giving customers new reasons to love the product." — [00:15:18]
Segmenting Events for Better Upsell Opportunities:
"We started making our webinars very product-specific, saying, 'This only works with X product.' This brought in hot leads who were clearly interested in cross-selling into another product." — [00:15:54]
Building Relationships Post-Event for Customer Success:
"After every event, I spend about 2 hours looking through who attended, send thank-yous, and engage in post-event chat follow-ups. This helps build strong customer relationships for future engagement." — [00:16:42]
Managing Relationships with AMs After Event Engagement:
"Account Managers can be precious about their clients. I cc the AM on every follow-up email and always hype them up. This keeps them in the loop and makes them feel valued." — [00:18:24]
Using Sales and CSMs as Promotional Channels:
"Account Managers and CSMs are your top promotional channel. We started tracking who was driving the most registrants, and suddenly people got really excited about inviting their customers and prospects." — [00:20:17]
Encouraging Sales Engagement with Webinar Registrations:
"We made it a competition for sales and post-sales teams to drive registrations. Top performers got a $25 gift card, and that simple incentive made a big difference in engagement." — [00:20:17]
Targeted Event Invitations Based on Product Usage:
"For webinars, we pulled lists of target accounts and contacts based on product usage, so sales knew exactly who to invite based on where they needed more engagement." — [00:21:29]
Building Customer Stories Through Event Participation:
"At events, we asked customers if they’d record a quick testimonial in the backroom. 9 out of 10 said yes...Once one person said yes, everyone else followed." — [00:23:40]
Repurposing Event Content for Maximum ROI:
"If you’re spending all this money to get people to your event, make sure you’re using that content. We cut it into bytes for sales outreach, blog posts, and testimonials. It’s free content." — [00:25:41]
Reusing Webinar Content for Broader Engagement:
"When we first started, we’d get maybe 3 or 4 views on a recorded webinar. But the more you do it—sending recordings, posting on social—people learn to expect it, and engagement grows." — [00:27:33]
Tapping into Customer Sentiment for Content Creation:
"During webinars, I look at who’s active in the chat because they’re the ones eager to share their voice. Afterward, I reach out, thank them, and ask if they’re interested in doing a webinar or speaking event." — [00:32:12]
Getting CSMs to Nominate Speakers:
"I did a big competition. I called it ‘Call for Sneakers’...We said, ‘If you’re an account manager or a CSM, nominate your customers to be a speaker on our future webinars.’ The person who nominates the most that we deem successful wins a pair of custom Air Force Ones." — [00:33:32]
Leveraging LinkedIn to Build Event Interest:"We look for speakers with a high LinkedIn follower count because we want them to share the event on social media. If they have a large following, it means they’re tapped into the conversation." — [00:37:25]
Tracking Event Metrics for Success and Impact:
"I track red accounts in attendance—customers who are at risk but attend your events. That shows we’re activating the right people and having a real impact on the bottom line." — [00:41:06]
On Engaging Red Accounts for Retention:
"At a previous job, I started tracking red accounts—customers who are at risk but attend your events. That really shows we're making an impact, not just getting happy customers, but actually working with those at risk." — [00:41:06]
Tracking Customer Interest During Events:
"Tracking session attendance at a user conference helps identify who is interested in products they don’t yet have. This is a clear upsell signal that we can follow up on with sales." — [00:43:50]
