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A Virtual Event Success: Story: 4,500 Paid Attendees - Alex Shipillo
56 Plays4 years ago
B2B and SaaS companies are scrambling to find ways to connect with prospects and customers at a time when in-person conferences aren't happening.
Some companies are attempting to replicate the in-person experience but many of these efforts are, at best, mediocre.
Clio, which offers software to law firms, however, appears to have discovered the recipe for success.
Its recent virtual conference attracted 4,500 paid (yes, paid!) attendees from 46 countries.
In this Marketing Spark episode, Clio's Alex Shipillo offers a behind-the-scenes look into:
- why and how the event was so successful
- why it charged people to attend, and
- what one sponsor did to make an impact.
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Transcript
Introduction to Marketing Spark
00:00:03
Speaker
You're listening to Marketing Spark, the podcast that delivers insight, tools, and tips for marketers and entrepreneurs in the trenches in 20 minutes or less.
Virtual Events Rise in B2B Marketing
00:00:12
Speaker
It's fair to say that in-person conferences aren't happening anytime soon. In the meantime, B2B companies are trying to connect with prospects and customers using virtual events. It's a challenging proposition to replicate the interactivity, energy, and spontaneity of in-person events, but some companies have discovered the secret to success.
Clio's Virtual Conference Success
00:00:32
Speaker
One of them is Clio, which provides cloud-based software to small and large law firms. Clio recently held its Clio Cloud Conference, which attracted 4,500 paid, yes-paid attendees from 46 countries. So how did that happen?
Interview: Alex Shippolo on Growth Marketing
00:00:48
Speaker
To find out, I reached out to Alex Shippolo, Clio's Director of Growth Marketing. Welcome to MarketingSpark. Hey, Mark. Thanks for having me.
00:00:57
Speaker
Alex, let's step back and talk about Clio's marketing. How would approach conferences before COVID? Yeah, great question, Mark. For us, conferences and personal events were a huge part of Clio's growth over the last decade. And that resulted in lots of different kinds of events. We sponsored lots of events and trade shows. We hosted meetups around North America.
00:01:19
Speaker
And we hosted our large flagship event. Eight years ago, we started the first annual Clio Cloud Conference in Chicago. And over the last eight years, it's grown to being the largest conference of its kind for the legal technology industry. Obviously, conferences were a key part of the marketing mix.
Adapting Strategies During COVID
00:01:39
Speaker
So when COVID emerged in March, how did Clio adjust its marketing?
00:01:45
Speaker
Were you thinking right away that conferences were over and that was not going to happen for a while? Did you guys explore other marketing channels? Maybe walk me through that, that whole process where a lot of B2B companies, well, some of them panicked and some of them had to quickly adjust what they were doing. So what was happening at Clio? Right away at Clio, in the middle of March, we realized pretty quickly how serious this thing was and how the impact was going to be quite substantial in our business.
00:02:12
Speaker
And we knew that because we sent all of our employees home, all 500 employees from around the world, very early on in the process. And we knew that we weren't going to be going back to an office anytime soon. And the same with our marketing, we realized that the plans we had put together for 2020 just didn't make sense anymore.
Clio's Support Initiatives for Law Firms
00:02:28
Speaker
We had to think differently about what our customers needed. Fortunately, our customers felt extremely supported during those initial moments of COVID because
00:02:36
Speaker
our software helps them work in the cloud. And that was something that was really meaningful to them and very valuable when they couldn't go into the office. So right away, we shifted our strategy. We kind of threw out all of our preexisting narratives and the conversations that we wanted to have in 2020. And we said, hey, the focus is on moving law firms to cloud as soon as possible to enable them to keep working throughout the concept of this virus. We knew our customers needed help. Most of our customers are really small businesses.
00:03:04
Speaker
Small law firms are just a few employees, and they were going to struggle financially, especially if they were in a practice area that was going to be very challenged by COVID. So as a result, we quickly launched a $1 million relief fund to help our customers where we could distribute funds as quickly as
Transition to Virtual Formats
00:03:21
Speaker
possible. We took our insights and our ability to do really valuable research using our existing customer base to anonymize our customer data and actually share that data with all the state bar associations across the US.
00:03:35
Speaker
they could actually see the impact of COVID on the amount of matters being created, the amount of bills that are being sent out, and how it was affecting different practice areas. We jumped in very quickly and pivoted all of our in-person events, obviously, into virtual. And we launched a meetup series and all kinds of other content related to working from home. We had a remote working guide that had tens of thousands of downloads within months, because people really understood that that was a big problem that they had. So very quickly for us, it was adapting to our customer needs.
00:04:03
Speaker
adapting to our product needs too, quickly launching integrations with Zoom and Dialpad and other pieces of technology that's gonna make it easier for them to work remotely.
Executing a Virtual Conference
00:04:11
Speaker
And as soon as we got all those things in place, we were able to focus on some of the other big projects, knowing that our big conference was scheduled to be six months away in San Diego. And it was very unlikely that 2,500 people were gonna be able to come by to San Diego and fly to attend a conference this year.
00:04:30
Speaker
So before we get into the conference, let me ask you a little bit about the ability of Clio to be agile, be flexible, do things rather quickly on the fly when it comes to marketing. A lot of organizations, especially companies that have 500 employees, they don't move that fast.
00:04:48
Speaker
you get locked into your 2020 marketing plan, the ability to to change on a like to turn on a dime has to be extremely hard. So what were the keys to success for Clio to basically say we're going down this direction. This is what we were what we had in mind. You know, we had all budgeting and our plans in place and suddenly you're not doing that anymore. Like how did you pull that off? Yeah, great question. I think obviously it was a team effort and we've got a 45 person marketing team and that's a
00:05:16
Speaker
really well-resourced organization, which means we can do a lot very quickly and we're able to pivot. I think for us at Clio, marketing is a huge driver of growth. We're driving somewhere close to 70% of new revenue that comes in the door. I think as a result of that, it was very clear that there was an initial observation that things were changing very quickly and that the landscape was going to shift and all of a sudden our customers were going to need us in a different way, but also our prospects, ones that maybe
00:05:44
Speaker
hadn't considered cloud-based technology or didn't think as highly of needing cloud-based technology, we're going to need it very, very quickly. So it was imperative for us to shift very quickly. And the fact that we were well resourced as a team, the fact that we had all these partnerships in place, the fact that we had sort of these foundational pieces, it certainly made it easier for us to quickly change our narrative and say, okay, what are the projects we want to invest in? Let's launch this relief fund. Let's start shifting our content to be focusing on
00:06:12
Speaker
supporting the work of lawyers being able to work remotely. Let's shift our in-person events to virtual meetups and webinars. It was almost like a commitment across the whole marketing team and really the whole organization to say, we got to make this shift ASAP, because that's what our customers and our industry needs.
00:06:30
Speaker
So it's one thing to shift your meetups to virtual. Instead of having 50 people or 100 people gather together, let's do it online. It's another thing to go virtual when it comes to a 2,500
00:06:45
Speaker
person conference a conference that gives clio the opportunity to engage with prospects as well as customers it's the event of the year what was the initial reaction or the initial feeling when it came to that conference did the company say you know what we have to scrap it this year like a lot of conferences are simply canceled that was it will see you in twenty twenty one
00:07:06
Speaker
or was there a feeling that you could pull it off somehow you could take this massive event and turn it into a successful virtual conference walk me through some of the strategic thinking and let's talk about a can you pull it off and be. Whether you could pull it off and still charge people to attend because that's a very interesting thing that clio did. The process actually very interesting and we have a great team that runs this conference
00:07:32
Speaker
Lauren Sanders is the brainchild behind it. She's been running it for eight years and she owns, obviously, she's the main owner of the conference, but also in charge of the logistics, the actual event experience, the attendee experience, our platform. My role, my team's role is really driving the registrations and revenues. How do we enable that conference to be successful by getting as many people in the local community to actually attend. We met as a team and one of the things that was really clear from our CEO, Jack Newton, was this idea that
00:08:00
Speaker
None of us had ever actually attended a virtual conference that didn't suck. And Jack really set a really clear expectation for us. He said, hey, the only way this is worth doing is if we believe that we can create a virtual conference, it doesn't suck. As soon as we thought, yes, we are able to achieve that bar, whether it's through the experience, through the kinds of speakers we're going to have, through the technology and platform that we're going to use, as soon as we had a clear idea that, yes, we could make a virtual conference, it didn't suck.
00:08:30
Speaker
it was sort of the green light to say, yes, let's do this and let's try something very, very different. Let's try to convince our audience to experience this new way of the Clio Cloud Conference and take advantage of some of the amazing opportunities that being online and being virtual actually created for this event.
00:08:49
Speaker
Let's dig into that because most conferences, as you say, virtual conferences suck. They're terrible. They're not interactive. It sounds like people speaking at you. Most of the sessions aren't terribly interesting. Virtual conferences, by and large, are
Engagement through Interactive Elements
00:09:02
Speaker
not very good. I mean, I got a lot of attention a few weeks ago when I interviewed somebody from Narrative Science and they ran a virtual conference that attracted 3,000 people. And that was one of the few success stories that I've heard about. When we started talking about Clio and your conference, it was like, wow, this is pretty amazing. But I have to ask you, why were
00:09:18
Speaker
you guys so confident that you could have a conference that didn't suck because it's a huge challenge for every company out there? Yeah, we were confident because we had already been doing it for so many years. We've had that experience and expertise and obviously
00:09:30
Speaker
running an in-person conference, not the same as a virtual conference, but we knew that we had continued to deliver year after year amazing experiences for attendees. And that's where our focus really began. We knew if we can deliver this amazing event experience for our attendees, we can convince them to attend and we can convince them to actually take part in this event. To think about it first, I think a lot of virtual conferences feel like webinars or they feel very prerecorded. So one thing that we really focused on was actually
00:09:57
Speaker
filming and playing our whole conference live. That was a big deal for us. And guess what? That created some hiccups. It created some screw-ups. It created some technical difficulties at times, but it felt intimate. It didn't feel like you were just watching a recording that happened elsewhere. Like in previous conferences, we've had amazing keynote speakers. So having people like Seth Godin, Andrew Duckworth, Ben Crump,
00:10:22
Speaker
Folks that are, you know, world-class keynotes being there was actually really meaningful and that helped set the tone for the kind of event we wanted to have. And we also wanted to use this opportunity to do something very different from an experience standpoint. So again, Lauren and her team came up with some amazing ideas. We had various bootcamp sessions every day so that you could do a workout and an exercise break during the conference. We had incredible daily entertainment, including a cooking session hosted by top chef Stephanie Izard.
00:10:48
Speaker
We had musical performances by Ben Harper and Nathaniel Ratliff. We had a DJ set from DJ Questlove. So all these entertainment experiences that we would have obviously done in person in San Diego, we took them online. And the platform is probably the most important part of all this. So actually using a platform that enabled us to
00:11:06
Speaker
create some of that intimacy and connection. The reason people tend conferences is they want to meet other people. So our platform had a ton of capabilities around creating roundtables where people could just jump into discussions with other folks. There was lots of opportunity for virtual networking. There was profiles of every single guest where you can message them and communicate with each other. So we saw a lot happening there. And surprisingly enough, there was a few things from the virtual conference that we thought was really different and interesting.
Paid Model for Commitment
00:11:32
Speaker
For example, from the experience standpoint,
00:11:34
Speaker
I was shocked by how intimate it felt. We're used to sitting in a large hall, maybe with 2,000 or 3,000 people, and maybe you're at the front, but most likely you're pretty far away from the stage. You don't get that same intimacy as when you're watching this live video and the camera is right in the speaker's face. You feel like you're sitting next to Seth Godin, right? It definitely feels much more intimate. The other thing that we thought that ended up being really interesting was actually the live chat that went side by side.
00:12:03
Speaker
with the videos and the streams. Because again, if you're at a conference, maybe you've got your mobile phone open and you've got Twitter open and there's a conversation. But that's very different from a very intimate real time chat with thousands of folks adding their comments, adding their emojis, reacting in real time to the speakers. It actually created a really engaging experience, having that live chat side by side with the speakers.
00:12:31
Speaker
That's some really cool stuff. I mean, the idea of watching a concert, I mean, personally, I like to work out a lot. So the idea of a boot camp sounds really great to me. One of the things I got to ask you about is asking people to pay for the conference. And I'm going to ask you, how much did they pay? And what was the thinking when it came to continue to sell registrations?
00:12:51
Speaker
A lot of people say, well, I pay for the experience. I pay to attend a conference in another city. I pay for that in-person interactivity and the engagement. And now you're asking me to pay for an online conference. Why did Clio decide to go down that path? And did you get any pushback at all? Yeah, I think making it a paid event was actually one of the most important decisions we made early on. And I'm really happy that we did it. One thing that we know as marketers when we run webinars or virtual events, um, and they're free.
00:13:19
Speaker
A few negative things happen. First of all, anytime we get invited to a free event, I think the first thing that we assume is, this must be a sales pitch. There's no way to avoid it, right? If a marketer is inviting you to a free event, they're probably trying to sell you something. And that's not the case with our conference. We're really trying to educate the community. Yes, Clio's hosting it, but it's not about Clio, the product. It's about the community and the impact on legal technology that we're creating. Second of all, when we host a webinar of virtual events, guess what?
00:13:47
Speaker
60% of people don't show up to the event. They'll register, but they won't actually show up in person. And we know that when we have a four-day conference that's split up, and yes, even if they're half days across four days, people are going to be tempted to book over that event. They're going to be tempted to say, you know what, I'll skip the session, or
00:14:05
Speaker
I'll book a meeting over this. And when you pay for an event, I think it really changes your attitude or relationship to it. And it makes you commit to it. It makes you believe, yeah, I'm actually going to attend this thing. So the last thing we wanted to do was host this amazing event with all these great speakers and sessions and this great platform, only to have a fraction of the registrants actually show up. So it was really, really important for us to make it a paid event. At the same time, we thought it was really important to make it accessible too. So most attendees paid about $99 to attend.
00:14:34
Speaker
which is not a huge amount considering the value we were creating and the quality of speakers and sessions that we had in place. And in addition, we had ways for those folks that were less, less advantaged to be able to get free passes the conference. So if they were law school students,
00:14:49
Speaker
or working for legal nonprofits or other areas, we were able to give away a few hundred free tickets to those groups as well. So $99 doesn't seem like a huge price tag, but I think it is a big difference in terms of getting that commitment and that buy-in from the attendee to say, yeah, I want to attend this thing.
Conferences as Brand Investment
00:15:07
Speaker
So you had 4,500 people, most of them paid $999. I mean, in terms of economics, did you break even? Did you rack it up as a marketing expense? Yeah. So the Clio Cloud conference for all its eight years has never ever come close to breaking even. And the intention of this conference is not to break even. We want to create an amazing experience for the legal industry.
00:15:28
Speaker
we know that we put a lot of work into creating that. And when we have these big name speakers and big name attendees, and we have this experience for the legal industry, it's not cheap to put on. But we see it as an expense that contributes to overall brand and helps drive customer advocacy for us. Having done this conference now for eight years, Lauren and her team have created something so special and so amazing, where
00:15:51
Speaker
it is such a huge part of our customers' experience. For them, it's the how it of their year. It used to be the time when they would mark down to travel and take a week off and be somewhere with us in Chicago or New Orleans or San Diego. We don't break even on the event, even after revenue from attendees and from sponsors, but we do believe it's an important investment in our brand, an important differentiator for us in the market. It becomes the single week in the year where the whole industry is talking about Clio, which is really, really meaningful.
Innovative Sponsorships
00:16:21
Speaker
One of the things I wanted to ask you about is sponsorship. It's one thing to put on a conference, you can charge for it, but how do you get sponsors involved? How do you deliver value to sponsors when they can't directly talk to your prospects and customers? Being at an event and having a booth and having that interactivity is super important from a sponsorship perspective. So can you tell me about one of your sponsors and maybe how they did something differently to get value from the conference?
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I want to call it LaPay, who has been one of our key sponsors for many years, the Clio Cloud Conference. And I was so impressed with what they did because we offer all of our sponsors a virtual booth and a way to chat with attendees and share content, all kinds of the basics that you would expect to have as part of your platform. But the LaPay team, they went above and beyond, and they created a virtual booth that I think set the bar for how to create an engaging experience for attendees
00:17:14
Speaker
So first of all, they actually created a conference themed video game that you could play inside of their virtual booth with prizes for some of the highest scores. I don't know how they pulled that off, but it was really, really cool. Second of all, they know that swag is an important part of the conference experience. So they had an attendee offer where they would ship you custom swag, just fill out your address.
00:17:35
Speaker
and they'll ship it straight to your door. Lape has great swag. And again, they really connected that. And I think sending something physical to these attendees is really helping create something engaging. And lastly, they had a lot of fun. So at their booth, they featured printable conference, Do Not Disturb signs that were themed with some of the conference themes to put up around your home office and if your kids or your other people living with you wouldn't distract you during the conference. So they really went above and beyond to say, okay, from an attendee experience, how do I create something that is super engaging?
00:18:06
Speaker
And I think that's at the bar for me in terms of how do you use a virtual conference as a sponsor successfully so that you can actually engage your attendees instead of delivering the same old virtual booth experience.
00:18:18
Speaker
That sounds super cool and I think there's a lot of best practices to be had from the approach that law pro took. Here's the big question.
Future Event Strategies
00:18:26
Speaker
When the vaccine emerges and we can go to conferences again in person, in person conferences again, what's Google gonna do? So you've had this successful virtual event to deliver value in different ways. You maybe have made it accessible to a lot more people to
00:18:41
Speaker
gain the insight to drive your brand what's the approach for next year are you are you thinking about maybe we should do this virtual conference again are you going to go back to the in person conference any thoughts about future strategy we have made the session next year yet but i do believe that. What we discovered is creating a virtual experience that doesn't suck is possible and that was a really important thing that we figured out and second thing realize is we were able to create an event that was just so much more accessible we've ever had before.
00:19:09
Speaker
And the reality was for someone to take a week off of their schedule and fly to San Diego and stay at a hotel and not work during that week and all their meals and expenses. That's a pretty privileged position to be in for you to be able to attend. And here all of a sudden we were able to create an event that had that same quality of speakers
00:19:29
Speaker
Different but very intimate experience, really amazing entertainment, great networking. But guess what? We had way more attendees than ever before, 4,500. And we were able to reach people all over the world, 46 countries attended from places as far away as Panama and Peru and Trinidad and Tobago and Turkey and Slovenia and Venezuela. That is incredible.
00:19:50
Speaker
for us to reach so many people that I know would have been able to come to San Diego. I'm not sure what the future holds for us, but I do think that we are surprised and excited by how accessible it can be. And I wouldn't be surprised if, not sure about next year, but future years, if we're able to see different kinds of events that might be hybrids, that might blend the best of both worlds and the best of both in-person and virtual events at the same time.
Conclusion and Feedback Request
00:20:13
Speaker
Well, thanks for that terrific insight into the world of virtual conferences. I'm sure that people are going to approach you to find out best practices and how they can make their own virtual events more successful. Alex, where can people find you and Clio online? You can find us at clio.com, clio.com. My name is Alex Schapilla. You can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter and follow me there. Just one final plug. We're actually hiring someone to help lead our marketing strategies for next year's Clio cloud conference. So if,
00:20:40
Speaker
running and supporting and driving registrations for massive online conferences is something you're excited about. Definitely reach out to me so that we can see if you're interested in this role. Thanks for listening to another episode of Marketing Spark. If you enjoyed the conversation, leave a review and subscribe via iTunes or your favorite podcast app. If you like what you heard, please rate it.
00:21:00
Speaker
For show notes of today's conversation and information about Alex, visit marketingspark.co. If you have questions, feedback, we'd like to suggest a guest or want to learn more about how I help B2B companies as a fractional CMO consultant and advisor, send an email to mark at marketingspark.co. I'll talk to you next time.