EVENT ABOUT IT: Event Marketing, Strategy & Business Growth

The events industry has a curiosity problem. Attendees changed. Buyers changed. Metrics changed. And most of us rebooked the same hotel.

This week on Event About It, New York Times bestselling author and innovation keynote speaker Diana Kander joins host Megan Martin to diagnose five stagnant event strategy problems nobody in the industry is naming out loud, and the curiosity question that breaks each one open.

If you're building an...

Most event teams can't answer the most basic pipeline question. Steph Pennell built the framework. Here's the whole thing.

She googled the domain mid-call. Bought it on the spot. A few months later she quit ZoomInfo, flew first class to the south of France with no plan, and came back ready to build something from scratch.

This is the Aftershow. It goes deeper.

Steph Pennell — The Event Critic — is back for the second half ...

Your event had 2,000 attendees, a standing ovation, and an open bar. Cool. But did it drive pipeline? The Event Critic has thoughts.

Most B2B event recap decks look the same: great attendance, strong NPS, everybody had fun. What they rarely say is whether any of it moved the business forward.

In this episode, Megan sits down with Steph Pennell — The Event Critic — to play Pipeline or Party, unpack what large-format trade ...

Yes. She canceled Christmas. And she went to Waffle House instead of making Swedish pancakes.

But before we get there — this aftershow is one of the most dense, useful, and occasionally unhinged episodes we've done. Christine Martin is back, and we go deep on the things that didn't fit in the main episode: speaker management truth bombs, post-event metrics that actually matter, a tax crash course event pros desperately need, r...

Your events are being graded in real time by attendees who will never fill out your feedback form, never tag you in a post, and never tell you what they actually thought. They'll just decide whether they're coming back.

Today I brought one of them into the studio.

Christine Martin has attended, spoken at, and worked trade shows and conferences for 30+ years — as a tax professional, a solutions consultant, a road warrior, and no...

It was the last day of RISKWORLD 2023. The show had been the best one yet. Danica Patrick was about to take the stage for the closing keynote.

Then Stuart Ruff-Lyon got pulled from the show floor and walked, without explanation, to a room where the Chief of Police of Atlanta was waiting.

Two miles away, there was an active shooter on the loose. Four hotels on lockdown. Two shuttle routes stopped. Nine thousand attendees in the buildi...

Everyone says celebrity keynotes are out. Data says audiences want practitioners, not personalities. So why is RISKWORLD, the world's largest gathering of global risk professionals, doubling down on names like Adam Grant and Michael Strahan?

Because sometimes the data is right and your audience is the exception. And knowing the difference is exactly what separates an event operator from a Chief Commercial Officer.

In this episode of ...

You asked your speaker to show up. They did. You offered them exposure. They smiled and said thank you.

And then nothing happened for either of you.

In this Dynamic Dialogue After Show, Megan Martin and media strategist Beth Nydick pull back the curtain on the unspoken agreement between event organizers and speakers that nobody is formalizing, the myth of exposure as compensation, and what it actually looks like to build a media stra...

What do you do when someone steals your mic, your camera, and your clicker right before you walk out to a standing room only crowd?

You scream. Literally.

In this episode of Event About It, host Megan Martin sits down with Beth Nydick, former TV producer turned media strategist and creator of the Mic to Millions system, to talk about what actually happens when event speakers show up prepared and the event is not.

Beth takes us inside...

The Attribution Conversation Event Teams Need to Have with Their CMO

Most event reports are a PDF nobody reads. What if your post-event data told you exactly which VP-level executives engaged with your sponsor's content — by name, by title, and by intent signal?

In this Event About It Dynamic Dialogue After Show, Megan Martin and Florentin Ngabitsinze go deep on what event attribution actually looks like when it's done right &m...

Why Your B2B Event Content Disappears — and What to Do Instead

You spend months planning the event. You fill the room. You film everything. And then... it all just fades.

In this episode of Event About It, host Megan Martin sits down with Florentin Ngabitsinze, co-founder of Uchop, to unpack one of the biggest missed opportunities in B2B event marketing: what happens to all that content after the lights go off.

Florentin's team ...

Why do CEOs keep asking for content that doesn’t work?

In the Event About It after show, Megan Martin, CMP and Devin Bramhall go deeper into the leadership side of content and event strategy—specifically the questions executives ask that unintentionally lead teams into busywork instead of growth.

This conversation reframes content not as a marketing output, but as a business decision—and challenges leaders to rethin...

Why does event content fail to deliver real business growth—especially in B2B?

In this episode of Event About It, host Megan Martin, CMP sits down with Devin Bramhall, a longtime B2B marketing leader, to unpack why so much event content misses the mark and why the issue isn’t volume, platforms, or distribution.

It’s context.

As brands invest more in events, activations, and content creation, many teams find themselve...

Trade shows aren’t failing.

Trade show strategy is.

In this Event About It After Show, Megan Martin and Martin Fretwell go deeper — specifically into the world of B2B trade shows, booths, budgets, and why so many teams walk away feeling busy… but disappointed.

This is the conversation that usually happens after the event:

• When the leads don’t convert

• When leadership asks hard ROI questions

• When teams realize ...

Most B2B companies are running events like one-night stands.

They show up. They spend the budget. They tear down the booth. And then… they start from scratch all over again.

In this episode of Event About It, Megan Martin sits down with Martin Fretwell, founder of Event Driven Growth, to unpack the single biggest event strategy mistake B2B teams keep repeating: treating events as isolated moments instead of compounding growth ...

Do you have rungs or do you have range? This week on the Dynamic Dialogue After Show, host Megan Martin and the legendary Kati Quigley keep the mics hot after the meeting ends to discuss the "quiet power" required to lead in a very loud industry.

This is the podcast for event led growth & strategy for sales, marketing, and event professionals.

Kati pulls back the curtain on the "Introvert’s Advantage" in the events industry...

Some people climb ladders and some people build rooms. Ultimately, real growth isn't about rungs—it's about range. This week on Event About It, host Megan Martin sits down with the powerhouse who didn't just climb the corporate ladder, she expanded the building: Kati Quigley.

This is the podcast for event led growth & strategy for sales, marketing, and event professionals.

Kati takes us through her legendary career evolutio...

Have you built an identity around work you genuinely love — and still find yourself questioning "what’s next?" This week on the Dynamic Dialogue After Show, host Megan Martin and the ultimate “Trade Show Girly,” Carly Heideger, keep the mics hot after the show floor goes dark to spill the tea on the side of the industry the brochures don’t cover.

This is the podcast for event led growth & strategy f...

Is your event contingency plan a real strategy or just a dusty file? This week on Event About It, host Megan Martin sits down with the ultimate "Trade Show Girly," Carly Heideger, to spill the tea on what happens when the hypothetical becomes a nightmare.

This is the podcast for event led growth & strategy for sales, marketing and event professionals.

Carly takes us inside a high-stakes aviation event in Geneva where active prote...