VII Events Archives - B2B Marketing Blog

Every Founder Interview on the B2B Marketing Blog (So Far)

January 4, 2022 by Tom Pick

An “entrepreneur” (a.k.a, startup founder) has been defined as someone who will work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40. There’s no question they are a special breed.

What inspires them to solve certain problems? How do they generate business when they first launch their products? What did they learn from the experience that they can share with other aspiring entrepreneurs?

Those are among the questions I’ve had the opportunity to ask of 44 successful startup founders so far (plus one whose enterprise ultimately didn’t make it).

Their tech founder insights and stories are inspiring, thought-provoking, and enlightening.

Here’s the full list to date. More to come.

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Five Impacts of CMO Budget Cuts – Gartner 2021 CMO Spend Survey

July 27, 2021 by Tom Pick

CMOs are reporting that marketing budgets are being slashed. Here’s what that means, and practical ideas that go beyond the bad news to how B2B marketers to adapt.

According to Gartner’s annual CMO Spend Survey, as reported by Laurie Sullivan in MediaPost, “Marketing budgets as a percentage of revenue fell to their lowest level in recent history…Marketing budgets as a proportion of company revenue fell from 11% in 2020 to 6.4% in 2021, their lowest point in the history of Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey.”

As bad as that news is, the situation isn’t entirely gloom and doom. Most CMOs expect budgets to increase modestly this year after the deep cuts during the pandemic. And as the article points out, “It’s not a secret that marketing budgets have always been the first of the enterprise budgets to be cut, and the last to be restored.”

Here are five likely impacts of those budget cuts. But first…
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How to Maximize ROI from Your Event Marketing Content

March 2, 2021 by Tom Pick

Event marketing and content marketing are typically the two biggest line items in B2B marketing budgets. Too often, companies don’t capitalize on the synergies between these two practices. Those who can see a significant boost to ROI. Here’s how.

Most B2B enterprises allocate 30% or more of their total marketing budgets to events; more than a quarter (26%) spend 50% or more in that area. Meanwhile, the average B2B company spends 29% of its overall marketing budget on content marketing, with the best-performing firms spending upwards of 40%.

Netting that out, most companies are spending between 60% and 70% of all marketing dollars on these two tactics. There is tremendous leverage to be gained by optimizing the use of both channels together.

Virtual event platform provider VII Events recently hosted a global virtual event dedicated to event marketing, A2Z Virtual 2021. Visit the event site and click on Roundtable 9 to see my full presentation on how to maximize ROI from your event marketing content.
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The Founder Interview Series #30: Stas Zaslavsky, VII Events

September 29, 2020 by Tom Pick

Activity in the virtual events space has exploded this year, as businesses across industries have reallocated 67% of budget dollars originally intended for live events this year to online conferences, meetings, and expos.

Not surprisingly, virtual event technology vendors have responded. New platforms have been introduced, and mature products updated and enhanced.

Even now, many months into the pandemic, video conferencing and team collaboration software are still among “surging” categories for spending by business technology buyers. This is driven partly by disappointment in tools purchased early in the lockdown, and partly by the demand from attendees for richer, more engaging online event experiences.

One of the newest and most interesting entrants in the virtual event software market is VII Events, founded in January 2020. Developed prior to the coronavirus outbreak, the original purpose Stas Zaslavsky intended for the platform was to enhance the hybrid event experience: to enable organizers staging in-person events to extend that 3D, 360-degree experience to online attendees as well, rather than just a video stream.