#227: Events | In this episode, Dave hosts a live Exit Five session with Zuddl and panelists Stephanie Christensen (Event Marketing Leader) and Kristina DeBrito (Director of Strategic Events at Iterable) to break down how B2B marketers should be thinking about events in 2025. From small VIP dinners to large customer conferences, events are making a big comeback—but without a solid strategy, they can be a massive waste of budget.
Dave, Stephanie, and Kristina cover:
- The key metrics to track to prove event ROI in 2025
- How to get executive and stakeholder buy-in for your event strategy
- What’s working in B2B events right now (and what’s not)
- How to follow up post-event to drive engagement and pipeline
Timestamps
- (00:00) - – Intro to Stephanie and Kristina
- (03:23) - – Why events are making a big comeback in B2B marketing
- (06:50) - – The biggest mistakes marketers make when planning events
- (09:38) - – How to align your event strategy with business goals
- (12:23) - – The key metrics to track for proving event ROI
- (15:35) - – How to get buy-in from executives and key stakeholders
- (18:48) - – What’s working right now in B2B events (and what’s not)
- (23:04) - – The role of micro-events, VIP dinners, and executive meetups
- (27:30) - – Sponsoring vs. hosting your own event — how to decide
- (31:50) - – The importance of post-event follow-up and engagement
- (35:32) - – Virtual events: lessons learned and how they fit into 2025 strategies
- (39:25) - – Live Q&A: Expert answers to audience event strategy questions
- (44:50) - – Final takeaways on making B2B events worth the investment
Join 50,0000 people who get our Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/
***
Today's episode is brought to you by Knak.
Email (in my humble opinion) is the still the greatest marketing channel of all-time.
It’s the only way you can truly “own” your audience.
But when it comes to building the emails - if you’ve ever tried building an email in an enterprise marketing automation platform, you know how painful it can be. Templates are too rigid, editing code can break things and the whole process just takes forever.
That’s why we love Knak here at Exit Five. Knak a no-code email platform that makes it easy to create on-brand, high-performing emails - without the bottlenecks.
- Frustrated by clunky email builders? You need Knak.
- Tired of ‘hoping’ the email you sent looks good across all devices? Just test in Knak first.
- Big team making it hard to collaborate and get approvals? Definitely Knak.
And the best part? Everything takes a fraction of the time.
See Knak in action at knak.com/exit-five. Or just let them know you heard about Knak on Exit Five.
***
Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
- They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
- Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
- Visit hatch.fm to learn more
