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Franco Caporale:
Hello, and welcome to a new episode of the Demand Generation Club Podcast. I'm your host, Franco Caporale. Our guest today is Elizabeth Irvine, Vice President of Marketing at MarketMuse. Elizabeth's focus is driving demand generation through a multi-channel approach and a sophisticated content strategy. MarketMuse is a content intelligent platform that sets the standard for content quality. The AI power platform increases traffic and engagement, improves productivity, and drives revenue. Their customers include mandate.com, TentCraft, Cortex, and many more.
Elizabeth's 15-year marketing career has focused on driving growth for organization in B2B SaaS and technology media. She has built three marketing departments from the ground up and thrives in building impactful revenue generating marketing organization for startups. So I'm really happy to welcome today Elizabeth Irvine, Vice President of Marketing at MarketMuse. Elizabeth, I'm really happy to have you on the Demand Generation Club Podcast today. Thanks again for joining us.
Elizabeth Irvine:
Thank you for having me.
Franco Caporale:
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your career trajectory, and how did you become the VP of Marketing at MarketMuse?
Elizabeth Irvine:
Sure. I've been in marketing for about 15 years, primarily in the B2B space. Early on, focused on email marketing and website copy, but have grown into conversion-focused roles and events and overall inbound and demand gen into leadership roles in startup, mid-market, and enterprise companies. So I run the gambit. I joined MarketMuse a few years ago to start and lead their marketing team here. We're a small team of about four just now, working on driving awareness and demand through organic channels, responsible for revenue for our subscription model, as well as driving opportunities for our sales team for our premium products. Lots to do.
Franco Caporale:
That is a very busy role. Can you tell us more about MarketMuse? What do you guys do?
Elizabeth Irvine:
Yeah, sure. MarketMuse aims to set the standard for content quality. We look at the entire digital landscape of a topic that you care about and can inform you, based on your coverage and authority, what you personally need to do in order to move the needle. So we provide personalized metrics versus generic metrics to provide unique opportunities that can help you stand out, as well as gap analysis, competitive analysis, automated audits, link recommendations, and lots more. But we help content teams and marketers excel their content and hopefully get more budget for their content marketing initiatives.
Franco Caporale:
And tell us also a little bit about your team, who you have as a different roles.
Elizabeth Irvine:
Sure. I have a content strategist and a marketing associate and myself. We're actually hiring for a content marketing manager just now. And so everyone really owns a different piece of the pie there in terms of content creation, outreach, and various channels, our email marketing. I work closely with our sales and product teams, driving conversion through our subscription model as well as, as I mentioned, opportunities for our sales team. So we cover a lot of the outreach channels through our marketing associate and content creation for our content strategist, and then the overall customer journey with our content marketing manager.
Franco Caporale:
And so you mentioned that you have a pretty strong organic inbound flow of leads. So tell us a little bit about your top channels today. What are you focusing your efforts?
Elizabeth Irvine:
Yeah, sure. When we joined... I say "we" because my content strategist and I joined the same month. And we looked at the library of content that was available and that, because there wasn't a marketing team in house previously, there was a lot of work that we needed to do in order to show that we really ate our own dog food, so to speak. So we ramped up the content production using our own platform, identifying the right opportunities to go after to help provide more of an impact and search for the organization. And so that's really been a driving force for us, using our own content to drive authority, thought leadership.
That and the promotional aspects that go into the content pieces, but also having a keen focus on conversion throughout the full funnel. So we really focused on driving our conversion rate up in the forms that we did have. So for any visitors that we got to those, we got as many as we could from it. I think we were seeing about a 15% to 20% conversion rate on our landing pages?
Franco Caporale:
Okay.
Elizabeth Irvine:
And then we would try to get ourselves everywhere we could. I think our co-founder right now is on podcasts, at least one a week. He's all over the place. You can find him in many, many places. But really just trying to get in front of our audience in the areas that they're listening or reading, and really trying to educate them on how to mature their content strategy and content marketing initiatives using some of the methodology that we practice.
Franco Caporale:
And you guys are also doing webinars. You mentioned something about a webinar series?
Elizabeth Irvine:
We do. We run webinars every other week right now. When I joined, we started them once a month, and we kind of ran out of dates with speakers that were coming in and the list of guests that we had available, and we increased the frequency. Also, because we found when we did the analysis that we had a healthy number of opportunities that were tied to the webinars that we were running. And the webinars are not product focused, they're all educational, really tied, even tangentially, to what we do.
So we doubled down on that and increased it to twice a month. And we also made sure that we were repurposing that content where we could, creating blog posts from it and clips from it. There's probably more that we could do there. It's a lot of content and a small team, but the caliber of speakers that we get for that series really makes it worthwhile and we build really wonderful relationships with that group.
Franco Caporale:
Yeah, in my experience too, webinars can be extremely powerful. Very time consuming, but extremely powerful at driving opportunities, leads, even in the long-term, even content produced a couple of years ago. But the thing that I want, really, to explore with you is about events, because I know you guys have just run your first virtual event, a virtual conference. So I would like to learn more from you about your experience in doing this virtual event. Can you tell us what event was and what was it focused on?
Elizabeth Irvine:
Sure. So our event was about a month ago. It was called Content Strategy Collective Live. And the reason for the somewhat long name is because we actually launched a Slack community at the start of the pandemic last year as a way to connect our customers and prospects in a space where they could share ideas, share gripes, share opportunities, and just be together. Especially when marketing teams were hit pretty hard last year across the board, and so we wanted to provide a space. And we did a few other things tied to that as well, just to offer more time from our team and content. But that community grew over the last year or so and we actually run AMAs following each webinar so that the community is connected to the speakers from those and vice versa.
And so we decided to carry that name through to the event. And the event was really aimed at driving a strategic focus with industry speakers on deep insights into key concepts related to content strategy paired with the tactical expertise that they could gain from hands on workshops with our MarketMuse team and customers within the MarketMuse suite itself. So we're trying to tie the strategic and the tactical together in one place.
Franco Caporale:
And I'm obviously very interested in understanding how the logistics and the whole experience of driving that event worked out for you. I assume you guys did a virtual also because of the pandemic, that was kind of like a forced decision, but I'm trying to understand more about the differences between running a virtual event versus a live event. Tell us, first of all, what you think worked out well from this virtual event.
Elizabeth Irvine:
Sure. And there are a lot of differences and, if anything, I was secretly thankful that we snuck it in as a virtual event because we learned a lot from it and didn't have to worry as much about all of the physical logistics of in-person events. And one of those things was actually tied to our speakers. So that was really the place that we started was the content and the agenda and what did we really want people to get from this event?
It was really about what we wanted people to learn and take away. We didn't want to create an event where they would shut the browser down and be like, "Okay, well, I'm not sure what I took away from that," or no real strict learnings. We wanted to make sure that the speakers that we got were high quality and driving actionable takeaways. And with our workshops, making sure that they were practices that they could use immediately.
So that was something that took a while in the beginning in terms of crafting that out. We surveyed our audience, asked what they wanted to learn, what they wanted to get out of the event in terms of networking and other aspects that are tied to events in general. And then we went to our pool of people that we knew and have worked with either in our webinars, customers, we had a lot of customer speakers, and just industry folks that we have created relationships with along the way, and that really helped shape the start of the agenda.
And when we launched the site, we ended up having more people come, asking if they could speak, which was a great problem to have, but it was already a three-day event. And so the quality of content was really wonderful. We had some big names in there as well as some first time speakers because we didn't want to just have names that people would recognize, we wanted to get some new and fresh voices in there too.
Franco Caporale:
So how long before did you start promoting and publishing the site? Because in a live event we start even nine months, 12 months before. How long before did you publish it?
Elizabeth Irvine:
I had a window of about... It was eight to 12 weeks, I think, that I was aiming for, and I think we launched it around nine weeks out, if I recall?
Franco Caporale:
Nine weeks.
Elizabeth Irvine:
But it wasn't a ton of time before the event. It may have been closer to eight weeks. We didn't want it too far out because it's an easier thing to kind of put to the side, but we didn't want it too close where calendars were filling up. So we were trying to find that balance. And we were still confirming some people pretty close to the event or, in some cases, it was just getting material from folks, but we knew that they were going to participate. So a lot of the pre-event logistics was pretty key in terms of making sure that everything was kind of confirmed, finding the platform that we were going to use, and getting internal buy-in for the requirements of the team, which was... Almost everybody in our company participated in some way in the event live. So there was a lot to organize, for sure.
Franco Caporale:
What was the platform that you used?
Elizabeth Irvine:
We used Hopin.
Franco Caporale:
Did you like it? What was something that you particularly like and something that maybe didn't work out?
Elizabeth Irvine:
It was very intuitive. It was very easy to get everything set up. And we actually used their subscription model, so it was kind of a lightweight version of it. We were able to stream live as well as have pre-recorded sessions, and it was about 50/50 pre-recorded and all of the hands on stuff was live.
I think one thing that I learned from this event was really having strict specifications ready when looking for a platform, and I think Hopin delivered the majority of it. And we actually needed to switch our platforms the week we were launching the site, but we needed to make sure we had everything ready because otherwise we would've really been scrambling. But we were previously going to use Airmeet, but there were a few things I discovered that were kind of deal breakers, which I know they're working on, but just not in time for the event that we were running.
And so we went with Airmeet and we had great feedback from speakers and attendees in terms of ease of finding where you needed to go, there were networking opportunities in there, and everything was recorded automatically, so we didn't have to worry about recording manually. I would recommend them definitely.
Franco Caporale:
So far you said the content worked out well, you had an abundance of great speakers, which is phenomenal. The networking worked out pretty well, you said, in the platform?
Elizabeth Irvine:
It did. They had a couple of options in terms of networking. One was a roulette kind of networking where we could choose who could see that and participate in that. We ended up making it available to everybody, but you would go into that section and, whoever else was in there at the time, you would be matched up and could speak with them for a few minutes and connect, and then you would be matched up with someone else. The other thing that we did was had a perpetual water cooler meeting room. It was technically a session, so anybody could go in there. And there were definitely great conversations happening in there. I popped in and out when I could.
So there were definitely places to make networking connections and meet people. Even in the chat, I could see a lot of people in the chat. There was chat with our stage and our sessions, it was kind of everywhere, but it still doesn't quite have the same impact as in-person. And even myself, being an introvert and being someone on the side and watching as live events unfold, there's still a buzz and an energy to events that's really hard to replicate with a virtual event. I don't think we've quite cracked that yet.
Franco Caporale:
We're definitely going to talk about some other differences. So you mentioned the platform was good, you found it intuitive, networking worked out pretty well. What about promotion and attendance?
Elizabeth Irvine:
Yeah. Actually, similar to how we've run our marketing in the past, we didn't do any paid for this. We were very, very frugal with this event. Our goal wasn't really to drive revenue with it either. We really wanted to break even, which we more than did, but we wanted to make sure we focused on driving value to our customers and prospects.
So with promotion, one of the things that we ended up doing was really leaning on our speakers and our partners and sponsors. So we provided a lot of customized unique promotional material for them with discount codes and we also created a virtual gift bag with a variety of partners in there so that we added additional value to prospects and customers who attended outside of discounts that we were offering, but they were tangential to us and to content, and just providing as much as we could for those attending.
So really, the impact of having other people promote their excitement for it leading up to it and during the live week, I think, did a lot for us. We have a healthy database, which we reached out to as well, and posted it in a few directories and such, but we didn't put any real meat behind it. I think based off of things that we learned this time around, we have an idea of what that would look like in the future, but we wanted to start small.
And in terms of attendance, we also had a pretty conservative goal there too. We get about 30% share rates for our webinar. So we kind of lowered that a bit for this because it's a big commitment. It was three days. If you register and you have meetings, it's easy to listen to webinar demand when you get that one email, but when you have a whole group of pieces of content to listen to, there's more thought that goes into that, strangely, at least for me. So I was trying to think of my mindset in this when I was putting some of the metrics together. So we were aiming for about 10% to 20% show rate for this event and we ended up seeing 52% show rate, which we just couldn't believe and I kind of didn't believe at first, and then went back to the stats and it stayed true as the event was continuing. So we were really happy with that result.
Franco Caporale:
What is one or two things that could have been better from your point of view in this event?
Elizabeth Irvine:
Yeah, I think that we could have been more proactive in how we leveraged our actual Slack community. We had some ideas for that throughout, but we didn't necessarily execute in the way that I think we could have maybe because of some hesitancy on bringing people out of the event and into Slack. That being said, some of our speakers ended up having after party in Clubhouse, because a few of them were big Clubhouse fiends, and they had a good discussion there. So maybe we missed an opportunity there perhaps, but that was something where maybe extending the networking in some way or investing in some sort of after hours event. Which after hours means different things for location and having an international audience, so that was a big question mark for us.
The other thing platform related was we learned that with the hands on workshop recordings, when someone shared a screen, it almost made it like another person. If you were looking in a Zoom call, it would become another square. And so it was really hard to see the screens, which was one of the key things that we wanted from those workshops was our customers showing their instance and walking through their process. And so it was really hard to see those afterwards, so that was something, when I was speaking to the specs of what you need from an event platform, is getting really, really detailed and asking as many questions as you can of them to make sure that it's the right platform for you.
Franco Caporale:
And did you guys have any sponsor for the event?
Elizabeth Irvine:
We did have a couple sponsors, and that wasn't a big focus for us. They were actually folks that I brought in with help from one of my co-founders. And it was really to bring more value to them, awareness and leads for them, and to help fund some of the event, just so that way we could, as I said, at least break even, which we more than did, but we saw good margins on the event.
But for sponsorships, that's another thing that I think virtual platforms still haven't quite figured out fully. We were able to create really dynamic booths for them, but driving traffic to booths, I think, is something that event platforms need to think through a little bit more in terms of how we can make that really as central for the event as the main stages. And so we were trying to find other ways of bringing more value to the sponsors outside of the booth itself. So that's something that we talked one-on-one with them about.
Franco Caporale:
Yeah, I think it's hard to replicate that booth experience virtually and nobody has figured that out.
Elizabeth Irvine:
Hopefully soon.
Franco Caporale:
And what about the parties? Which is another thing that everyone misses from the live events are all the cool parties. You mentioned something about the Clubhouse. Is there anything else you guys had in mind, or what was that approach?
Elizabeth Irvine:
We did originally. I had in my list and agenda a, quote, unquote, "fun event", but with no real idea of what that would be and what kind of budget would be required for it and when it would be. Because we had a three-day event that went from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM Eastern time every day. So asking even more time of people, especially with the show rate that we were expecting, we weren't sure if it was going to be better for us to run that with potentially fewer people or to just pull it. So we ended up pulling it and focusing on delivering high quality content. And we can try something hopefully next time, but we decided to play it a little safe this time.
Franco Caporale:
That makes sense. And another question I have for you is about the role of the sales team in this event. Typically, in the live events, the whole sales team is there, they bring their prospect, their opportunities, they mingle with everyone. How was their involvement here?
Elizabeth Irvine:
Yeah, our sales team did that. They did all of that, communicated with folks ahead of time and at the event, invited their contacts and opportunities with special discounts and things like that. But one thing we did a little bit differently was actually had them part of our workshops, and they ran some of the workshops. And we really wanted to show their expertise and give them more credibility, making them almost a thought leader as well with our speakers, so that way they had something that they could point to and invite people specifically to something that they were running to help with those relationships and hopefully future relationships.
Franco Caporale:
Perfect. And so my final question for you is, now that the pandemic is hopefully slowing down and live events are coming back, what's your future plan based on this experience? Are you going to do virtual events again, or you want to go back to do in-person events and turn this new conference, new event into a live event?
Elizabeth Irvine:
We're definitely going to continue with this event focus. Our webinars, we're going to continue doing every other week. This event we aim to do at least annually; whether we do it virtually again, as a hybrid, that's still to be determined. Probably at the end of this year we'll have to have some idea of that because if we do it in-person, we'll need to start planning that by the end of the year. But I think we'll likely aim to do some field events as well, getting some local face-to-face time with customers and extending that educational aspect to how we approach our content and events in-person as well.
Franco Caporale:
Awesome. So you think it's going to become more of a hybrid event in the future? Like hybrid events maybe are going to become more popular versus just live or virtual?
Elizabeth Irvine:
I think so. I think that there's real value in in-person, obviously. That's undeniable. The connections that you make in-person and, as I said, the energy is really important. But not everybody is able to go to those events, so how can you take at least part of it and broaden your reach and help more people out, especially international audiences? I think there's a real opportunity there. And if we do an in-person event, for this at least, there's no doubt that we would have some sort of virtual aspect.
Franco Caporale:
That seems to be the trend in general, which I'm more of a fan of as well. Perfect. Very last question for you, Elizabeth, is, what is one thing that is top of mind for you right now in your role?
Elizabeth Irvine:
Yeah, there's many, but one thing that's a big discussion point for us at the moment is being able to impact a high growth goal for the rest of the year. And so, as I mentioned, we've been really focused on organic inbound marketing for so long, with paid really being around events. We love events. And so now we're planning on potentially expanding that in order to really accelerate our growth. And it's a big thing, when you're really focused on scrappy organic tactics. When you have that dollar sign now associated to it, the eyes on the work and the outcomes are there and the questions are going to be coming. And so we're ready with the channels that we want to pursue and the outcomes, but there's more of a focus and analysis on it. And so I think it's really prepping for that and making sure that we're making the right choices. And it's exciting. Our team is looking forward to that kind of growth activity, but at the same time there's expectation.
Franco Caporale:
It's all about ROI at that point.
Elizabeth Irvine:
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Franco Caporale:
Fantastic. Elizabeth, thank you so much again for joining us. I learned a lot from our conversation. So again, thank you for speaking with me today.
Elizabeth Irvine:
Sure, thank you. Thanks for having me.