At ITA Group, we’ve found our solutions often converge, presenting opportunities for our teams and clients to level up by borrowing strategies from a mix of solution experts. That’s why we’ve rounded up our best insights to guide goal planning—and cross share growth opportunities. Leaders that increase their expertise can find greater depth in the strategies they create. It’s a mindset not far off from the saying, “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one”.
In the spirit of new year planning, I've spent the past few months digging into how the market is changing and what that means for our client’s programs and ITA Group’s channel solutions. A few trends I’ve earmarked to focus on are:
1. Doing More With Less: Many channel leaders expect to increase channel sales by over 10% in 2023, but most are not reporting an increase in headcount or budgets. 2023 will be a year of proving investments and shifting dollars around inside channel programs to the things bringing the highest return.
2. Partner Experience & Engagement: Partner experience has become a competitive differentiator across partner ecosystems and often leads to higher engagement inside programs. Technology will be a crucial area of investment to achieve this.
3. Service-Related Revenue & Non-Sales Participants: As more and more industries focus on service-related revenue, improving the customer experience is more important than ever. This has led organizations to focus on the hallmarks of outstanding customer experiences: retaining clients, creating growth in existing accounts and providing exceptional service levels.
Here are the trends our solution line experts are keeping an eye on.
Today, events’ crucial “human element” risks taking a backseat, as macroeconomic issues (e.g. supply chain, uncontrollable costs/inflation, labor shortages) caution executives to more critically analyze event budgets and decisions. And it only makes sense in a bottom-line driven business environment. But the attendee experience doesn’t have to suffer, and in 2023, we’re here to ensure the "attendee" can reclaim the spotlight within the overarching event experience.
How? By reimagining event design with a renewed focus on human-centered design. The strategy is two-fold. Beyond positioning brands and event professionals to create experiences that meet today’s attendees’ evolving values, human-centered design helps bridge the gap between two key (and no doubt here-to-stay) event trends.
1. Trend #1: Highly Personalized Experiences
2. Trend #2: Highly Connected Experiences
Connecting with attendees on hyperpersonal and connected levels isn’t mutually exclusive. Brands can incorporate both while navigating macroeconomic issues and prioritizing the return on their investment. Bottom line, there’s new magic on the horizon when it comes to putting humans at the heart of event design.
As you think about your employees and how you provide their experiences, programs and benefits, here are some insights you may find valuable.
Employee experience is imperative and retention of talent is critical. With salary increases projected at 4.6% (ADP National Employment Report) to offset inflation and the demands of new talent salaries in 2022 … employees have a lot of power in the employment relationship. Compensation alone is not enough to address that challenge.
Flexibility on where and when employees work continues to be an important topic. The appropriate amount of flexibility provides a strong work-life balance that employees need to thrive. Cultures that live beyond the physical walls of an office space are key considerations.
Employees are looking for a career, not just a job. They want to build a career at a company they trust and believe in. After caring for culture and work-life balance, another priority is identifying career paths and opportunities for employee development and growth. Upskilling and reskilling your workforce are critical to remaining competitive, yet getting your employees engaged in career paths and learning opportunities is a challenge for most.
We’re seeing a need and a desire by organizations to readjust their marketing mix to go beyond only digital. Brands have a big opportunity to grab customers’ attention with unexpected, personalized experiences that center on connecting with their customers.
In most cases, this connection is built through excellent customer service and high-quality products. Brands that do it well have turned their interactions, or their product, into part of the holistic customer experience.
Even among competitive brands that produce comparable goods or services, customers have varied expectations and relationships with each one.
Organizations that pair unexpected value with their brand promise create a unique opportunity to win over customers, new and old. According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2020, around 80% of customers are willing to leave a brand after a lackluster performance.
That means organizations must play the long game—where each new interaction with customers is the most important yet.
As we look to the future of distributor incentive programs, we should factor in not only what we know to be best practices, but also adjust and adapt to the ever-changing landscape in which they operate.
We want to be sure we’re focused on modifying those desired behaviors that yield positive bottom-line outcomes in a manner that is easily understood and executed by the audience we’re engaging. I like to think about these programs as being designed in layers. All the layers are needed to achieve sales goals, close deals and provide an optimal customer experience. Those layers include:
> People
> Behaviors
> Operations (Communications, Program Design, Awards and Analytics)
Distributors are one of the most challenging relationships to maintain. It’s difficult to have the same amount of control or engagement with distributors as you might with your own internal teams, and they’re also the voice that reaches the reseller and end customers. Communicating with distributors to drive downstream actions poses its own challenges. But it’s absolutely something worth figuring out and, we’ve got some ideas to help.
Find a way to get participant attention early—and keep it. Use a combination of strategies to engage the audience, help them achieve their goals and reward them accordingly.
> Use motivating, straightforward messaging to engage participants and promote earning potential.
> Use congratulatory communications to highlight program achievements and encourage participants to keep moving through the program.
> Engage participants throughout the year with ongoing and consistent communications to keep program top of mind.
Understand that you need to communicate to everyone. Not just the executives and store owners but also the staff at the counter and the customers, themselves.
Each audience also has a preferred method of receiving the information. So be sure to offer communications in personalized ways.
> The executives want high-level information— not too much detail; be succinct.
> The counter staff needs to be knowledgeable about the product and motivated/incented to sell to the customer, which comes from training and guides.
> The customer needs to understand the benefits of the product along with the loyalty program they might be in as part of your distributor program.
One of our wholesale distributor clients needed to increase the amount of products dealer principals and reps were selling. They invested in a full communication strategy to promote their training and incentive opportunities to those in the field, while also showing what’s in it for the principal owner.
These communications created fantastic lift for the company, but also achieved a 46% average email open rate—22% above the industry average—because of the motivating and action-focused communication campaign ITA Group put together.
Program design is key to helping the award recipient feel good about their efforts and want to repeat them.
> Keep it simple, design an earning structure that makes it clear what people need to do to earn.
> Communicate the behaviors to demonstrate and repeat yourself clearly and often.
> Consider including a multiplier once you achieve the baseline goal.
> Actively drive desired behaviors (such as training) that impact long-term behavior modification that increase sales.
> Segment your audience as you gain more data (more layers).
Sometimes described as a push-pull strategy, a best practice is motivating both the owner/ manager and the counter sales reps in the store. This means having a full suite of incentives from top to bottom. For example, a sales rep would receive incentives and communications that push them to act, while you’d pull them into that action by incenting their leadership to support the goals—usually through a participation goal, or a bonus payout for an X goal being met by their company. If you incent the dealer principal on the participation or goal achievement of the reps, they’re more likely to encourage reps to meet the goals.
Your awards should be scalable to different levels of performance and what you’re asking them to do. While your top dealer principals and part-time dealer counter reps both deserve meaningful recognition for the work they do, it’s important to remember they likely have different perceived value and impact to your programs’ results. Ensure the awards are commiserate with the behavior you’re asking to be performed. This might differ from one activity to the next or one role to another.
Bottom line: You want to offer a flexible, relevant award experience.
> Remember every participant is an individual and wants to be rewarded with something meaningful to them.
> Ensure you understand each audience you’re rewarding—and ask them for feedback!
> Offer choice in your award selection, and communicate these choices early and often. (A wish list within an online catalog is a great tool to support this as it allows each person to connect their goals to awards that they find desirable.)
One of our clients, a leading automotive aftermarket parts distributor, needed to increase sales, drive engagement and gain mindshare with local sellers and customers. A combination of incentive and event drives a push-pull strategy through a buy-back opportunity where purchases help pay for a trip. Communication kits are sent to store managers, owners, reps as well as customers to explain how they can buy into a trip and on-site sales event through the purchases they make. See how it came to life: info.itagroup.com/distributor-expo
Debit-card based SPIFFs and rebates are more suitable for short-term promotions, whereas merchandise awards or incentive travel would make sense for long-term, loyalty-based promotions. Having a mix of merchandise, travel and experiences will ensure you’re appealing to all audiences.
> Travel continues to be one of the most sought-after award options. You might also consider pairing a weekend getaway with new luggage or sunglasses.
> A combination of merchandise and experiences can create a memorable award. For example, a chef comes to your home to prepare a meal; or perhaps a monthly meal delivery service arrives with a new set of cookware.
Measure, monitor and optimize data in each of your audience layers inside a distributor program. This is the best way to measure ROI and determine future program enhancements.
First, ensure you have a complete picture of your audience by asking them questions regarding demographics, firmographics, contact information and any additional information you need. Collect this from both your dealer principals, store-level partner employees and, if you’re able, the end customers.
When getting started, test a few things with a small group or pilot program and measure the results. This data can drive decisions for the larger program. And don’t get discouraged trying different ideas. It often takes deep data mining in surprising places and innovative statistical techniques to deliver insights that improve the bottom line.
Now is a great time to freshen things up and give your incentive a new look. Caring for each layer lets you optimize results from top to bottom.
A lagging housing market and sluggish home construction market had our client looking for innovative growth opportunities. A premier wholesaler of plumbing, electric, HVAC, industrial and waterworks products turned to ITA Group to help address their business challenges head on and look ahead to growing their bottom line.
The incentive strategy included promotion of specific brands and items among program participants which boosted brand loyalty for sponsoring manufacturers, increased sales for wholesale locations and product manufacturers, and built rapport between manufacturers and our client.
It all came to life through two unique award avenues:
1. Redeemable Award Points: Online Awards Catalog – Points accumulate with each purchase and display via the program website and printed statements, demonstrating progress to goal and award potential.
2. Group Travel Award: DestinationBased Trip Experience – Group travel for high-volume contractors cultivates an unmatched business networking opportunity and motivating award to achieve set goals.
A new year brings changes to the channel ecosystem. Despite economic uncertainty, there are opportunities to improve channel partner programs in six key areas. See where you should focus.
Measuring return on investment (ROI) for events has become a primary concern for most planning teams. Research from Demand Gen Report shows that in-person events are crucial to many B2B companies’ business: More than half of U.S.
B2B marketers said that in-person events and tradeshows were an effective channel for driving conversions.
Events were seen as more effective than digital channels like email (48%), product demos (39%) and the company website (34%).
Successful (and resilient) businesses will focus on critical workplace learning, whether the effort is reskilling at the business-unit level or a companywide aspirational transformation. The stronger learning capabilities that emerge could stand as a positive long-term outcome.
If you’re an event marketer with an eye to the future, calculating (and proving) ROI must be in your toolkit.
Measuring event impact is more complicated than a straightforward equation. And it’s more specific. There’s a halo effect of an immediate impact of increased knowledge, brand perception lift and emotional engagement after attending an event. But there’s also sustained engagement that comes 3, 6, 12 or even 18 months down the road.
Event ROI could also be intangible. What if success for your brand is social engagement? Or sentiment change? Or prospect value growth? All values and inputs should factor into your event ROI story.
First things first: Determine the ultimate event goal. Is it to generate qualified leads? Attract new employees? Train or educate audiences? Build brand awareness? Launch a new product?
Before anything else is decided, make a list of every goal you can think of, then whittle down the answers to one primary goal—the most important. (The remaining goals are good to keep in mind, but won’t be what you measure success against.)
Aligning your entire content and planning team to what success looks like for your event paves a path for collecting data, asking the right questions and, ultimately, proving the value of the event.
To get your team started with objective alignment discussion, start with a list of areas that classic event metrics or objectives fall in.
Here are typical event focus areas:
> Education: Do you want attendees to understand a certain product line in a new way? Do you want to train them on a specific skill? Is the return you’re hoping for tied to knowledge gains that would translate to higher sales? You need to track both sales and knowledge.
> Brand Perception/Loyalty: Are you measuring what percent of the audience returns? Is someone’s perception of your brand improving? Do people who rate your company higher in the post-event survey than they did in the pre-event baseline end up with higher referrals? Or higher sales? Does their intent to act or take next step in conversion funnel pan out?
> Emotional Engagement: Is your ultimate goal to get people excited? Or feel certain feelings tied to attendance? What data points mean that someone was engaged with your company?
> Advocacy/Amplification: What do social media impressions do for your bottom line? How will they impact referrals? NPS score?
> Momentum/Business Impact: Did we achieve our goals? (These are the ultimate quantifiable outcomes—quality of sales, leads, opportunity value, etc.)
ROI CALCULATION
But… what’s different about measuring event ROI?
Revenue - Total Cost of the Event) ÷ Total Cost of Event] x 100 = ROI
Remember to use the data you have. It could be in another part of your organization, ready for you to leverage. If the data isn’t immediately available, paint a picture for your team of what data points tie to the targeted goals and objectives. If your team or executives need a hard output of ROI, make sure each attendee profile is tied directly to the metrics that matter. An ideal state would be:
1. Tagging attendee profiles within your CRM platform so you can track the lift YOY for attendees versus non-attendees; and,
2. Storing event data within your sales platform.
Are you training salespeople on a certain type of prospecting at the event? If done well, do you expect or hope for higher sales? What’s the length of your typical sales cycle? Would you expect change immediately or would change be seen a year from now? Is there a data point or several data points in your CRM that are tied to the outcome you’re looking for? Have a plan in place to track outcomes to events that happened months before.
Let’s say the main objective at your Sales Kick Off is training the sales team on how to close business faster. At minimum, a few metrics you’d need from the previous year to act as baseline data would be aggregate average time to close and total volume of sales, as well as both metrics by salesperson. To see if other indicators of business closing are happening prior to the sale, consider looking at a few “steps to the sale.”
Measure the return or change that results from the event, then track those same metrics at a few intervals after the event, depending on the length of your typical sales cycle. If you’ve identified the data needed to track and planned for it by creating a custom report in Salesforce or another CRM platform, pulling a report on the post-event metrics is simple. Once you have the data, compare it to your baseline to capture growth in the targeted areas.
Ultimately, any sale or change in outcome and/or ROI is tied to multiple components of engagement on site that tie together. For some teams, lift in one area is the ROI they’re looking for. Or an overall lift in sales measured YOY is enough. Start somewhere even if it’s small. Pick one metric that aligns with your focus areas. Capture the data so you can show return or growth due to the event. Expand the metrics to paint a fuller picture of event ROI and continue building buy-in for the value of the event.
The most ideal ROI uses a combination of on-site interaction metrics you’ve targeted before the meeting started and tying those to the expected outcomes. Measure the change that happens YOY as the highest ROI. Then drill into specific event components and their relationship to the outcomes to a more granular event component or activation ROI. If you’re overwhelmed with where to start, we can help.
Demonstrating event ROI to leaders and stakeholders is vital to the future of your event. Are you sharing all the metrics that matter? Download our white paper: Prove Your Event ROI With These 8 Overlooked Metrics.
info.itagroup.com/prove-event-roi
What do employees want, expect and value most from employers? That’s the question every employee experience expert is determining in 2023.
What employees look for in their daily experiences has evolved quickly in the past few years. Savvy organizations are re-evaluating talent offerings beyond functional benefits (e.g., salary, bonuses, etc.) to create more engaging experiences. We asked six ITA Group experts to predict the top 2023 trends in employee experience strategy. They analyzed industry data and considered what they’re hearing from clients to compile a list of predictions for the new year.
If you’re like many of our clients, you’ve sent out three times as many surveys this year than the previous two years combined. Why is that?
We believe it’s because of shifts in what employees want from their employers and the velocity of that change. Organizations tried to keep up with changing desires, but couldn’t fully know what employees wanted until they asked—so more surveys were sent out. But that was last year.
This year, the simple act of “asking” might not be enough. Organizations that prove they listened to employee feedback through provable action, changes and investments in the employee experience will foster stronger purpose and alignment to the organization’s mission. At ITA Group, we often say we can be the PR for HR. Here’s a potentially sobering question to consider as you create communications and plans for 2023: Have you thought about and formalized the PR of your listening efforts?
Mitchell Stearns Analytics AdvisorRight now in the employee experience space, conversations are buzzing on many topics— on everything from evolving benefit offerings to formalizing ESG policies to navigating how employees are increasingly seeking organizations whose values connect to their personal senses of purpose. At first glance, these initiatives might feel separate, but they have common ties.
The most successful employee experience programs connect the dots for team members so they can see how the whole strategy comes together.
Employees want to understand their organization’s mission, be engaged with their daily work and advocate for their organization to others. Streamlined communications that simplify these complex topics and are readily available no matter where employees work enable employees to do all that and more.
Brian Tallman Employee Experience Creative Services Advisor
After the pandemic shifted how we work and with Gen Z emerging in the workforce, hybrid work is here to stay. According to ADP Research Institute, 64% of the workforce would consider looking for a new job if they were required to work in the office full time.
It’s more important than ever for organizations to use technology to keep employees connected with each other and the organizational culture. Research from McKinsey & Company supports the idea that personal relationships still matter for employees, and organizations were able to achieve a 55% improvement in employee engagement by recognizing employees through nonfinancial means.
Dedicated technology and employee experience platforms can remove proximity bias and help drive engagement in the hybrid workforce through personalized nudges and recognitions where they’re needed most.
Jarod Trecker Product Manager
Employees currently have the upper hand in the employment contract, and it’s creating a competitive talent marketplace. Many employees want work/life freedom (including flexible work hours and remote work), which some organizations see as harmful to productivity and results.
How do you engage employees while allowing flexibility? Start by clearly identifying and educating employees on the cultural and business behaviors needed to succeed. Wherever possible, use data to track key business behaviors and align those behaviors to goals and incentives. If there are behaviors that need to be engrained in how employees do their work, reinforce those behaviors through recognition.
The magic happens when leaders and employees all know what matters. Align incentives and recognition to reinforce key behaviors, and drive the success and organizational culture both employees and employers crave.
Tanya Fish Employee Experience Solution Leader
Looking for ways to bolster your employer brand throughout 2023? Read our blog to implement key elements that support ongoing branding efforts, and you’ll be off to a good start.
info.itagroup.com/employer-branding-efforts
In 2023, we're predicting more interest for in-region employee experience programs in Europe and Asia-Pacific. Traditionally, programs are pushed from North America outward, sometimes even being forced upon the global workforce for international organizations. Now, we're seeing organic growth in employee engagement initiatives in Europe, the Middle East and APAC.
Based on what we're hearing from partners and prospects, the growth is being driven by the fact that employees from these regions— especially younger employees—have the same engagement concerns as those in North America (turnover, remote work, need for advancement opportunity, work/life balance, etc.). There isn’t one simple global answer to what will attract and retain talent.
With workforces more diverse than ever, the key to retention is knowing employees, listening to them and personalizing touchpoints to ensure they feel valued.
As an organization, it’s critical to have a clear employer brand and employee value proposition. They should articulate to potential talent and existing employees alike why they should choose and stay with your organization.
Mirroring how consumers are increasingly accustomed to highly personalized experiences, team members now expect personalized employee experiences. Homepage layouts, communication cadences, awards that meet their personal preferences, engagement messaging and dashboard data are all being segmented by employee role, down to the individual employee.
Taking a hyper-personalized approach to employee experience strengthens program outcomes and keeps employees engaged because they perceive the information provided to them as relevant and tailored only to them.
Sarah Kidawa Employee Experience Strategy Advisor
The Key to Success in 2023 & Beyond: Understand the Needs of Employees
One key feature ties together all the trends— listening to employees and acting on their feedback. Employees across the globe want employers to support them as they restructure their relationship with work. In today’s market, you must be employee centric to be an employer of choice and create the strongest employer value proposition possible for your organization.
Kurt Hosna Director of Global Strategy
In part one of this two-part series, hear employee experience expert Tanya Fish and Principled Transformation Co-Founder Chad Carr discuss how organizations can strengthen culture and employee engagement with a geographically dispersed workforce.
info.itagroup.com/ex-hybrid-work
As a 100% employee-owned organization, we all have a personal stake in our clients’ success. Because when client goals are met, everyone wins. That’s a difference you can feel. Our team members are client-centric, adaptable and inherently motivated to provide innovative ideas that deliver impact. Partner With
By: Sarah Borchers, Customer Solutions Insights & Strategy Leader
Marketers need to deliver relevant, personalized customer experiences to compete with the many products and brands on the market. But personalizing the experience in the correct way can be tricky.
Done right, personalization contextualizes the customer experience in a way that boosts value to customers. It often involves combining first-party data, marketing expertise and your insider knowledge about your unique audiences. To personalize the experience, marketers need to take what data they have and use it to make informed decisions about how to increase customer value across all touchpoints in the customer life cycle.
And yet, increasing concerns about privacy have disrupted the use of first-party data and launched new opportunities for marketers to use zero-party data (data that is voluntarily given) to not only boost value but make the customer experience more tailored, relevant and better overall.
Zero-party data is the gold standard of data because it’s straight from the source (so it’s extra reliable) and can be used to make the personalized experiences customers crave.
Because zero-party is shared directly, its trustworthy and unambiguous information that can be used for segmentation, personalization engines and product recommendation tools.
ZERO-PARTY
Direct data voluntarily given by customer to brand in exchange for something valuable
FIRST-PARTY
Direct data gathered by brand based on customer’s past interactions with them
Until recently, the primary form of data that marketers used to personalize the customer journey was third-party data. Third-party data is data acquired from a data aggregator. Data aggregators don’t collect data directly, but rather obtain it from other companies and compile it into a single dataset.
The problem with third-party data is it comes from unrelated and unreliable sources, such as cookies and click trails.
THIRD-PARTY
Indirect data collected by data aggregator and compiled into a single data set
As a result, it quickly becomes outdated and has no direct relationship with the individual customer. Using this sort of data to power campaigns has been the key driver is growing customer mistrust.
While third-party data is still used (and many marketers aren’t ready to pivot away from that model), its days are numbered. Google is set to phase out third-party cookies beginning in 2024. Many other popular internet browsers, like Safari, have been blocking them for years. Major publishers, including The New York Times, are transitioning away from third-party advertising data. And Privacy Sandbox, a series of initiatives that began in 2019, is creating new standards for privacy online with safer alternatives to existing datagathering technology. More and more customers are concerned about protecting their data and their privacy from digital trackers, installing ad blockers and changing privacy settings to deny them access.
In fact, a recent survey found 66% of consumers find targeted advertisements generated from cookie tracking to be creepy instead of cool.
We call this the “era of privacy,” and it’s made it increasingly difficult for marketers to build and maintain trusted relationships with customers, who feel like marketers are tracking and taking advantage of them without permission.
However, within this challenge is an opportunity for marketers to switch to zero-party data, which lacks the negative connotations and provides more accurate insights into customers’ behaviors. Because zero-party data requires consent, it’s automatically compliant with privacy regulations as well. It’s a win-win.
Forrester defines zero-party data as data a customer intentionally and proactively shares with a brand, often in exchange for something they view as valuable. The exchanged item could be something like a personalized recommendation, a price reduction, a prize drawing entry, etc.
Because the item is perceived as valuable, customers will voluntarily give up a bit of information about themselves.
In a survey by Accenture, 91% of customers said they will shop with brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations.
Zero-party data can help you discover what’s relevant to your customer and use that relevant offer to procure additional zero-party data. Each offer is an opportunity to learn more about your customers and their needs. There are many benefits for the brand in this exchange, too. It helps the customer build trust in the brand. Because it’s directly from the customer, you don’t have to guess what the data means.
For example, is this customer buying baby clothes because she’s pregnant or because she’s going to a baby shower? Algorithms might not be able to tell. Zero-party data can give you the full picture. Everyone gets what they want.
For zero-party data to be useful, it needs to be connected to a first-party customer profile. This means brands need to collect the data digitally after customers identify themselves through registering or logging in to a customer-experience platform.
The first step to winning over skeptical customers who are hesitant to hand over data is to keep them entertained and engaged through interactive digital experiences.
They need to feel they are receiving something worthwhile for their attention and, eventually, their personal data.
Marketers can even speed up the process of collecting zero-party data by incorporating incentives (such as instant wins, gamification and giveaways).
When asking customers for zero-party data, keep these three key principles in mind:
1. Be transparent. Explain why you are collecting the data and how you intend to use it.
2. Don’t force things. Ask just for what data you need, and let them share as they are ready.
3. Deliver a fair value exchange. Offer a meaningful exchange, and make sure what you’re offering feels equal to what they’ll get in return.
When done well, interactive experiences create an engaging process for collecting zero-party data, inviting customers to build trust in the brand and continue engaging throughout the customer life cycle.
ITA Group can help you be creative with how to gather zero-party data and use it to build lasting customer engagement.
For example, we helped one of our manufacturing clients learn about their customers' preferences by developing a sweepstake with a grand prize all-expensespaid trip to attend the Indy 500.
We crafted the sweepstake entry to include a few tailored questions that allowed our client to segment customers and target industry professionals who entered the sweepstakes. Within that professional audience, our client was able to further segment customers who were planning on attending an upcoming product expo.
Our solution allowed the client to organize a targeted marketing outreach to potential attendees found through the sweepstakes promotion—all while adhering to customer privacy laws. The buzzworthy nature of the grand prize garnered incredible media attention, prompting even more people to volunteer zero-party data in the hopes of winning the trip. In the end, there were 4,600 entries, 636 of which were industry professionals planning on going to the expo—they were immediately added to the communications cadence to help customize their experience. This allowed the client to cultivate warmer leads ahead of the expo.
