Why event marketing is more than party planning

From building meaningful connections to driving pipeline, Brittany Clark of Global Relay shares why successful B2B events require much more than great execution.

From Invite to Impact · Episode 3 · 16 minWatch on YouTube

There's a common and persistent misconception about event marketing: that it's mostly about booking venues, arranging catering, and making sure everyone has a good time.

But behind every successful B2B event is a much bigger strategy. Who needs to be in the room? What will make them show up? What happens after everyone leaves? And, perhaps most importantly, how does the experience drive value for the business?

In this episode of From Invite to Impact, EpochX co-founder and CEO Jade Choy sits down with Brittany Clark, Senior Events Manager at Global Relay, to discuss how event marketers build meaningful connections, why events should never be standalone moments, and how AI is changing the profession.

Having built event programs from scratch at multiple companies, Brittany brings experience across everything from intimate field events to large-scale conferences. Outside of her corporate role, she's also building Une Bonne Vivante, a community initiative dedicated to bringing people together through shared experiences.

Here are three takeaways from their conversation.

1. In the age of AI, human connection matters more than ever

For all the conversations about AI transforming marketing, Brittany is observing that the more time people spend interacting with technology, the more they crave genuine human connection.

After a few challenging years following the pandemic, she's seeing renewed enthusiasm for in-person experiences.

That doesn't mean simply getting people into a room is enough.

Brittany believes the most successful events give attendees meaning in return, whether that's learning a new skill, making a valuable connection, or participating in an interactive experience.

It's a philosophy she's applying both at Global Relay and through her personal community initiative, Une Bonne Vivante.

Brittany says that a compelling workshop, a relevant conversation, or opportunities to meaningfully connect with like-minded peers may be far more effective than another presentation about product features.

People don't show up because your company is great. They show up because you've created something valuable for them.

2. An event is just one touchpoint in a bigger relationship

It's tempting to measure an event's success by registrations, attendance, and immediate pipeline generated. And while these metrics matter, Brittany encourages marketers to look at the bigger picture.

An event might be the first meaningful interaction someone has with your company. Or it could be another step in an existing relationship, helping an opportunity move forward or strengthening a customer connection.

The important thing is to make sure the relationship doesn't end when the event does.

Brittany recommends having a next step ready before the event even begins. That could be another in-person gathering, a webinar, or another relevant experience that gives attendees a reason to stay engaged.

She also emphasizes the importance of personal invitations, particularly from sales and customer success teams.

A generic marketing email can generate awareness, but a thoughtful invitation from someone who knows the attendee and can explain why the experience is relevant carries considerably more weight.

For Brittany, this is where events become particularly powerful as part of an integrated go-to-market strategy. Rather than operating independently, events should connect with product launches, sales initiatives, content campaigns, and broader business objectives.

Don't plan an event without considering what comes next. The strongest event programs build relationships over time, rather than treating every event as a one-off campaign.

3. Event marketers are strategists, not party planners

One misconception Brittany is particularly passionate about challenging is the idea that event marketers are essentially party planners. While she has nothing against party planning, she argues that the comparison overlooks much of what event marketers actually do.

Consider everything that goes into a successful B2B event:

Before selecting a venue, an event marketer needs to understand the business objectives, the audience, the product story, and the opportunities the sales team is trying to advance.

They're making decisions about where to invest, who to invite, what content to feature, and how success will be measured.

Brittany describes setting specific goals around attendance, open opportunities, and sales meetings, then collaborating with executives, product teams, and sales throughout the process.

And the work doesn't stop when the event ends.

There's reporting, relationship management, pipeline analysis, and follow-up to consider.

In many cases, what looks like a single-day event is actually the result of six months or more of strategic planning and execution.

Of course, much of that work still involves manual processes. Brittany describes pulling lists from Salesforce, checking data in spreadsheets, and managing attendee follow-up.

It's one area where she sees AI providing meaningful support, particularly for administrative tasks, content preparation, and organization. Still, there's a clear distinction between using technology to improve efficiency and expecting it to replace the human judgment behind a memorable experience.

The value of an event marketer isn't just in executing an experience. It's in understanding how that experience contributes to the business and knowing how to make it count.

The future of events is both more human and more strategic

The throughline that connects Brittany's perspective on event marketing is that successful events require both intentional human connection and a clear business strategy.

AI may help eliminate repetitive tasks. Better data may help marketers understand performance. And more sophisticated tools may make planning and follow-up easier.

But the central challenge remains the same: creating experiences that people genuinely want to attend and relationships that are worth continuing.

For event marketers, the opportunity is to spend less time on administrative work and more time on the strategic and human elements that make events valuable.

And that goes a lot further than planning a party.

From Invite to Impact is an interview series by EpochX, an AI-native B2B event marketing platform built to help teams streamline event creation, invite management, attendee workflows, and CRM-connected event execution.

Full transcript

Jade Choy and Brittany Clark

JADE:

Hi, I'm Jade, co-founder and CEO of EpochX, and you're joining us for our From Invite to Impact interview series where we spotlight leaders and innovators in the field and event marketing space. And today we are joined by Brittany Clark, and I'll do a quick intro and then we're going to dive right in. So Brittany Clark is a senior events manager at Global Relay where she leads her North America event portfolio and their flagship conference.

Brittany has built event functions from scratch more than once at Theta Lake. She ran 20 plus high impact events a year across North America and EMEA as a one-person team and before that she scaled a global program at Talend covering 15 over 15 events a year across the US, EMEA, and APAC. Brittany thank you for doing this. Brittany also hosts a lot of community building events on the side. So events is your entire life which I love.

BRITTANY:

Thank you. Thanks for having me Jade. Excited to be here.

JADE:

Yes. So, Brittany, can you share a bit about what type of events you're hosting?

BRITTANY:

Currently, I'm sort of building the events program at Global Relay. It's a it's a 27 year-old company that has never had an events program. So, I'm pretty excited about this opportunity. Um, my first big project has been their first sales kickoff coming up in October. We're going to be in Whistler. Um, and then moving beyond that, we're hoping to introduce a road show.

Um we've been doing some field events and um as you mentioned their flagship conference um compliance and conversation so really like a wide variety of events which is what I love.

JADE:

So for you how do you see events playing into the broader go to market sales pipeline growing strategy?

BRITTANY:

Yeah I love I love that question because I really do think events are so key to the go to market strategy. Um I think when done right it's helps tell the product story. Um, and if you're working well with sales, you know, it's driving sales, getting pipeline for sales, like getting those relationships for sales, um, net new logos, but also expansion deals. An integrated marketing approach is my favorite.

So, you know, being able to, it's not just the events are not standalone moments like you have them tie in with a new product release and you do, you know, a press release with it and then a blog post. And um if you can tell this cohesive story with it when the events are part one event the event is part of it it's just I think it's really you know impactful for the business because to your point like it's so crucial to make sure your name is out there growing the brand and then also having that like sales motion paired with it.

JADE:

How do you make sure you're getting the right people? Like how are you getting in front of the right audience and making sure they're showing up?

BRITTANY:

I think like good old fashioned personal invites do the are do the most have the most impact with sales uh and and our our customer success team.

I can do a marketing camp and we can do an email, you know, social post, but I really think like personalized outreach is is has always been the most impactful. Everyone's always looking for shortcuts and ways to like get around that. But I mean, I'm more likely to say yes to coming to something.

When someone's like, "Hey, I'd really like to see you at this event and this is why I think you this would be good for you and I'd love to speak to you here." That makes me feel like, "Oh, yeah. I want to be there."

JADE:

And especially because you mentioned that Global Relay has been around for 20 plus years, like 27 years, and it's one of their first times now doing events and having you take the charge.

How are you thinking about kind of growing the audience from nothing? Because yeah, they don't have like a regular attendee list they can draw from.

BRITTANY:

Doing these hosted events is kind of new, but they have been doing trade shows and conferences for a while. Um, that side of the business is is someone someone else manages that. Um, and this space is kind of small. Um, so it's a lot of the same people. So, a lot of the same people that are at those conferences are the ones that we want in coming to our events. Um, and again, I think that it's just a matter of building relationships with those people.

Um, I think getting them in the door is not about showing them, talking to them about how great we are. Like, they don't care how great Global Relay is. They don't care how great any product is. They want to know what you're going to do for them. Like, what problem are you solving for them?

And I think sometimes it's like introducing the problem to them at the beginning and being like, you didn't know that you needed this, but I'm telling you you do and here's the solution and here's why. But you don't hit them over the head with it. You like, you know, draw them in by being like, come come to this event because this will this is what you'll get out of it. A workshop will learn something. A CE credit perhaps.

Um, a really great keynote speaker. Although I I do think keynotes are not I think they're on the decline. And I think like people want interactive stuff now in my experience. Um and then you kind of like you know throw in there how great you know of the product is like global release had this great update or you know that's that's kind of that's kind of how I approach things.

JADE:

So to your to your earlier point, you think a lot about experiences and how people show up and what they can take a lot from showing up to your event and because you do this personally with your community building event, which would love you to introduce as well with everyone, how has that been interchangeable within your personal community event side to then in your professional side of events?

BRITTANY:

Yeah, so I mean just recently I've started doing community events. Um, Une Bonne Vivante is the name of it. uh bon vivant is someone who lives their best life. It's the French term. Um so the goal here is to bring people together to feel inspired to live their best lives. And um I think community is so important especially right now um we need it more than ever. And I think I'm applying that in this personal venture I'm taking on.

But I also think it's important for my work, you know, for my career as well. I think people want community. They want to make connection. they're not going to come to the event because they're they care about how great the product is. You know, they're they're excited to make connections and meet other people like them and have that space where, you know, they can talk about like-minded things.

So, I think that that is such an important play both again, you know, with my corporate job and then the personal venture I'm taking on.

JADE:

No, I love it because it shows just how much you love events and how much you believe in it.

BRITTANY:

I really do. I think I honestly think I think human connection is so amazing and I'm not going to be humble for a second. I am really good at bringing people together. I'm good at reading people and I'm I'm good at being able to create spaces where people feel safe and um open and I'm just I I know that that's a gift of mine. So I it's kind of my love language to to share it.

And um I think again, you know, like I said earlier, we all need connections so much. So if I can create spaces for people to do that, I feel so fulfilled in my life.

JADE:

Yeah. And that's really important, right? Especially like what happens within the room, making sure that people feel seen and it's thoughtful. But then there's so many steps before that. So maybe talk through like in terms of what has felt and what have you seen to be most manual um like leading up or even like during after an event that you host.

BRITTANY:

No matter how good technology gets, I swear there's always some manual labor behind like, you know, you're always having to check the CRM to make sure it's got the accurate data and, you know, uploading lists. Sometimes, you know, even now like my my outreach lists, we have Salesforce with this company, it should be great to use, but we're still pulling Excel lists and like checking things. Yeah. Checking things off. Um, so I don't know.

I mean, as technology has gotten greater, I guess it's it's getting a little better, but there's just always some manual work and then checking after to, you know, um, monitor who attended versus registered and who gets this followup versus the other. There's always like manual check, no matter how much. We'd love for it to be completely automatic.

JADE:

Yeah. Because I know AI is so like all over us right now. We're bombarded every day. But especially in events because it's so field event marketing, it's so much about the human element. But I guess like from your thoughts and experience so far, what would you be excited for AI to solve for you?

BRITTANY:

Honestly, I'm I'm already using it for this. Um I think some of the tedious admin tasks it's really it's done a great job of solving for me. Um organizing, creating a template for me. um sometimes giving me like at least a starting point for some of the emails or some of the content we put together.

I used to spend hours trying to put together how do I say five different ways for a social post to like join us at X, you know, event and I'm like, I've got to make this next one sound a little different, you know, and now I I don't solely rely on AI, but it does at least give me something to start with and then I go in and give it the human touch, which I think you're always going to need to do. So, I feel like AI is great for those admin tasks.

It's never going to take away the parts of events that um you know the humanity in it. I think they all require human touch and thought. You know, if you're trying to create an experience for humans, it's going to create it's going to you know, it's always going to need a human touch to create it. You can't uh rely on uh AI to do that.

JADE:

Yeah. Especially that is why I think we're seeing such a growth in people investing in hosted events company side because people do crave that human element since we're just so always bombarded by AI messaging.

BRITTANY:

And I think like the one great thing about for us in this industry is that um about AI is that the more people are using it, the more they're exposed to it, I think the more that they want human connection again. I think um we had like a few years after COVID where people weren't going out as much.

Like getting people to go to events was a little difficult and I was like, "Oh my god, we're never going to get back there." Like we're never going to get back to 2019 days. It was so much fun. And I do think we're getting there now. People are excited to come out. They really they crave that human connection because there's so much um you know, just AI and and you're sitting behind a computer screen all day.

They really are like excited to actually speak to a human and have that emotional connection. um more than ever.

JADE:

Yeah. No, absolutely. And then even like after the event, I guess beyond the registration and attendance numbers that you can look at, what else is important for you?

BRITTANY:

Everyone's looking for pipeline. They want to know that that investment was that was worth it. But I think the relationship building is something it's really hard to quantify.

Like I think that an event is just sometimes a touch point in that relationship. they came to one event and then you invited them to something else and they came to that and they keep developing a relationship with you and I you know this is like an old saying but like people want to do business with people um and I think that's remains true you know I'm there's certain things I'm very loyal to because I I like the people that I'm working with and the more that they build a relationship with you the more they're likely to come back and this is another reason I think when you host an event I think it's important to have something to invite them to next like Where do you want to see them next?

This is we're hosting this event. Whether it's a webinar, you know, a small field event, something have something, you know, some call to action for them beyond just that event and beyond being like, let's set up a meeting and let me give you a demo.

JADE:

Yeah. Like continue like essentially the experience.

BRITTANY:

Yeah. It's again like it's just a touch point and then you have another touch point ready to go for them. um that tells them that that relationship is important to you to keep like oh okay they want me to come to the next thing they want me to come to this webinar they you know want to see me at at this next um like you know field event they're doing and I think that means a lot

JADE:

what's one belief you personally hold about event marketing that others in the industry might not agree with

BRITTANY:

um you know I saw I I really thought that I like I thought this was well understood and and felt in the event marketing world, but I've recently seen some uh videos on Instagram and TikTok where like they're just still com they're comparing event marketing to being a party planner. And I hate that take more than anything. I really do. I think it's such an awful way to describe what we're doing.

Like yes, I am coordinating the logistics, but again, like we're thinking beyond that. I know the product. I'm I created this event because I think it helps tell the product story and what we're highlighting right now. I think it I've picked this location and and these in this invite list because this is the where we have a lot of open opportunities for sales both prospects and customers we're trying to expand business with.

And then I've already thought of um you know like for like KPIs for after the event like okay we're hoping we get 100 people in the door. We're hoping 20 of them are open opportunities. We're open. We have 10 meetings from this and you know I'm working closely with the execs with the product team with sales along the way and then after the same it's not just that event.

I'm not just showing up and getting everyone you know drunk and getting snacks and then calling it a day like this event is like a you know probably six month process or maybe even a year depending on how large it is. Um, and it requires so much more skills than just, you know, being able to get some balloons and catering. Like, it goes so much farther beyond that.

But I keep seeing these videos and so I'm like, "Oh my gosh, there's so many other people who don't know this. I'm so annoyed." I know. I was like, But now I feel like there's more attention to it, which is exciting. But it's Have you seen them, too?

JADE:

Yes. Yeah. I'm like, that's so crazy.

BRITTANY:

It's so crazy.

JADE:

I know. cuz we host them too and I'm like it takes a lot of strategy and like bring the right people and then making sure the content itself within the room applies to everyone.

BRITTANY:

100%. And that's not to put party planning down like at all, but it's just not the same as event marketing.

JADE:

Yeah, I know. Someone at our dinner table was saying how like since she does the shop, she's like wedding planning was so easy for her own wedding. I'm like amazing. Good for you.

BRITTANY:

I bet.

JADE:

Okay. And then one of our last questions. What's one unexpected or non-traditional tactic that you've used to make sure that people actually show up to your event after the invite and registration?

BRITTANY:

We Okay, like I have one for what we got to get people to come to our booth, which was a fun um I thought that this one was one of my favorite ones. So, when I was at Talend, I really like this. We um we had a whole campaign with um like a fortune teller who was talking about not leaving your data up to chance.

And so to get people to come to our booth, we gave them we had magic eightballs that we gave them and the answer every answer was like something to do with Talend, right? Like that was the answer. And I just thought that was really cool and people were really drawn to that. They thought that was such it was not my idea. I wish I could take credit for it, but I do remember it being like a really cool strategy for us.

So, one of one of my favorite my one of my favorites we have ever done.

JADE:

That is fun cuz it's creative and then people get to take away something.

BRITTANY:

That's something like again like I think people want free stuff at events,

JADE:

especially if it's not just like a pen or something.

BRITTANY:

If it's not just a pen or a notebook or socks, although people do love socks,

JADE:

yes, they do.

BRITTANY:

But yeah, that was that was one we did to give people the booth. I don't know if that counts. It's fun.

JADE:

That counts. A lot of people are doing like Yeah. a lot of like booths right now and it's really hard to get people going.

BRITTANY:

Like the branded subway card. That's a good one.

JADE:

The branded subway card. Yeah, it's a good one. Okay, cool.

BRITTANY:

Yay.

JADE:

Amazing, Brittany. That was awesome.

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