Ethan Aaron, the young and dynamic CEO of Portable, an ELT platform, had a challenge to overcome. He needed to increase brand awareness for his startup and expand his audience beyond his existing LinkedIn following and informal happy hour events.
"I realized that we needed to do something bigger to get our product out there," Ethan shared.
With a small marketing team and limited resources, Ethan knew that he needed to find an impactful, yet cost-efficient way to achieve his goal.
And then, he had an epiphany. "What if we hosted a virtual event to deliver valuable content to our target audience of data professionals?" It was a novel idea for his team, and he had just three weeks to bring it to life. With no prior experience in hosting events, he knew he had to design the perfect event for his audience, find speakers, attract the right audience, and secure a reliable event management platform to partner with - all in record time.
Ethan knew that for his first virtual event, he needed to focus on the audience's interests and needs instead of pushing the Portable product. He wanted to deliver an immersive and enriching experience that would be valuable to his audience. To achieve this, he decided on a four-hour format with 20 speakers; each was given 10 minutes to speak.
To ensure the event didn't feel like a long, tedious conference call, Ethan aimed for a departure from the typical Zoom meeting. He wanted it to feel like a real event, so he focused on finding the right platform partner to help Portable create an immersive experience that attendees would remember.
Ethan needed a platform that was reliable and easy to use, and that’s when he discovered Accelevents. “Apart from the basic features like video recording and chat capabilities, I needed a platform that could provide reliable support in case anything went wrong. Having a team that could help me fix issues and give me confidence that things would go smoothly was crucial.”
Ethan's first virtual event was a resounding success, achieving his goal of building brand awareness. The event attracted over 800 registrants and 200 product sign-ups within just three weeks, which exceeded Ethan's expectations.
With the Accelevents team on standby, the sessions ran seamlessly. Attendees enjoyed chatting with each other, which created a social bubble for them to engage with the content, making it feel like a proper event experience.
The benefits of the event were not limited to just the day itself. With little effort, Ethan was able to repurpose the valuable video content featuring respected industry leaders, and extend its impact beyond the four-hour event duration.
"The event was one of the best marketing initiatives we've undertaken. The rich video content featuring top leaders in the data world is worth way more than 15 SEO-optimized blog posts."
— Ethan
While Ethan's first virtual event had been a success, he knew that he could always improve and refine future events. That's where Accelevents' analytics tools came in handy. The platform provided Ethan with valuable metrics on attendance, engagement, and session performance.
"We look at which sessions do well on the platform - live or on demand after the conference. We also see how the recordings perform on LinkedIn. This gives us a sense of what people are most interested in," Ethan says.
Accelevents' analytics also help Ethan identify the most popular speakers. "All of them are worth inviting back based on the attendance metrics. The first session had the highest attendance, so it might have been the best speakers. We'll keep that in mind for the next conference," he explains.
To optimize the analysis process, Ethan pipes data from Accelevents into his tech stack, using Retool to store it in Bigquery. This way, his team can easily access and display the data in a dashboard, helping everyone stay accountable and enabling Ethan to make data-driven decisions for future events.
Ethan is already planning his next event, realizing that events are a valuable component of his broader marketing strategy. His ultimate objective is to make Portable a household name in the ETL tools space: "I want every data person to have heard of Portable when they think about ETL."
With the success of his first virtual event, Ethan is confident that he can continue to drive brand awareness through events. The Accelevents team is thrilled to continue supporting Ethan in his efforts!
Our powerful event technology helps event organizers create engaging events in any format. If you prefer the virtual event space we’ll host your next virtual trade show, summit or seminar.
If you’d like to set up a hybrid event we’ll streamline your check-in, help with badge printing and provide everyone with mobile apps. Contact us to discuss your upcoming event needs.
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