VP and head of marketing from Certain, James Huddleston, joined podcast host, James Dickson, for this week’s podcast. In the episode, Huddleston discussed how event marketers can revamp their event strategies for the new year. Huddleston has been a senior figure at Certain for three years, first as the senior director of product marketing before becoming VP and head of marketing in September 2019. Certain is a provider of end-to-end event automation software that helps organisers and planners deliver top results. Huddleston stated that marketers have become more “data-driven” in recent years than ever before. He explained that marketers can now utilise an unprecedented amount of analytics, attendee information and event results to design marketing strategies. This hard evidence of data, therefore, helps justify marketing ideas. Though data is essential, we may be at risk of suffering data-overload. Huddleston stated that events offer attendees the advantage of having that one-to-one contact with prospective clients and business partners to help cut through the data noise: “The pendulum is swinging back towards the power of face-to-face interaction. That’s why our customers see a lot of investment in events. “Events are that channel that truly cuts through the noise.” Offering one-to-one meetings at events is a significant player in driving registration. Providing people with one strong prospective business contact compared to hundreds of generic businesses is more reliable in guaranteeing their attendance. “As an attendee myself, I’m always looking to open my network,” Huddleston said. If you think you have a relevant topic of discussion for our podcast and would like to feature, please email [email protected].

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