The Virtual CMO Podcast
Season 5, Episode 7
Hosted By: Eric Dickmann
With Guest: Joe Davy
Our Featured Guest
Joe Davy
Founder - Banzai
Joe Davy is a serial entrepreneur who founded Banzai to take make the marketing of professional events easier for Chief Marketing Officers and event coordinators around the world.
When the pandemic hit, Joe was able to successfully pivot Banzai to success by acquiring a virtual event and webinar platform and built the first truly end-to-end SaaS-based professional events company. With clients like Dell, Adobe, Pure Storage, and more, Banzai has become what Grit Daily has called a "marketing automation giant." Davy has created multiple companies during his journey as an entrepreneur. He is at the tip of the spear when it comes to event marketing, attendance, and growth.
What's Hot?
"The Event Solution for Enlightened Marketers
Banzai is the modern marketer's tool for increasing attendance while simplifying virtual, hybid, and in-person event experiences."
Banzai is a leading event marketing automation platform founded by Joe Davy and Andy Linteau. It is a software that helps marketing teams discover, market, and manage professional events. With Banzai's reach you can target the right audience, increase your event awareness, and maintain GDPR compliance. They allow you to exceed your marketing goals by helping your company in creating great hybrid, in-person, and virtual events. Banzai has powered the events of some of the most trusted brands in the world- Nextiva, Dell, VMware, DataRobot, Red Hat, Egnyte, and SalesIntel.
Simplicity, Learning, Serving Others, and Authenticity are Banzai's core values.
Joe Davy
Virtual events are never going to be a substitute for in-person events."
What We Discussed with Joe
On this episode, host Eric Dickmann interviews Joe Davy about virtual event as the new normal in the post-Covid world. Here are some highlights of our conversation:
- [00:02:41] The rising demand for in-person events - Joe Davy shares that there is a pent-up demand for in-person events because people want to participate in events to establish connections and build relationships which can be more challenging in a virtual environment. He also believes that virtual events are here to stay in a post-Covid world and going forward, there will be a combination of both live and virtual events.
- [00:05:20] Attempts to recreate the physical events experience - Joe mentions that many companies have been attempting to bring the physical event experience to virtual events. Despite numerous attempts to perfect the experience, audiences are still adjusting and companies are working to figure out the best ways to promote engagement online.
- [00:12:24] How to bring your virtual event to the next level - When hosting a virtual event, it is essential to have a firm content strategy supported by tools to bring the concepts into life. There are many platforms where companies broadcast content, such as- StreamYard, FB Live, IGTV, LinkedIn Live, and YouTube Live but great content should the engage audience and this is where virtual event platforms take online content to the next level.
- [00:16:11] Engaging your buyers - Davy emphasizes that your platform can significantly impact the quality of the content you're producing and sending out to your customers and prospects. When "Zoom fatigue" has set in for many, businesses need better tools to engage their audiences.
- [00:18:04] Webinar metrics - According to Joe, he and his team have hosted over 4 million attendees on webinars over the past year. Even after Covid, webinars are still a powerful tool to reach potential customers and measure results.
- [00:20:48] Virtual events are cheaper than in-person events - The economics of virtual events mean businesses can host a year's worth of webinars with the budget formerly dedicated for a single in-person event. He adds that virtual events are an excellent opportunity for marketers to level the playing field against bigger competitors, reach more customers, and increase visibility.
- [00:25:26] What is Banzai?- Banzai is a MarTech company that is focused on this emerging idea of engagement marketing. They help businesses drive more of that engagement and convert their leads into actual profit. Banzai continues to invest more in other types of engagement marketing that they think will fit the fast-changing trends.
Resources Mentioned
- Banzai - Company Website
