Goldcast

Once upon a time, Amazon was just an online bookstore, bidding on eBay was a novelty, and parking was impossible to find on Black Friday. E-commerce completely transformed all of that and more, fundamentally changing the way we think about buying and selling.

While there are undeniable perks that come with having practically anything delivered to your doorstep, something was lost in the rush to improve shopper convenience. Bloomreach returns the personal touch to the world of commerce, amplifying personalization across the entire customer journey.

But a hot e-commerce market also means steep competition. Senior Director of Global Demand Generation, Candace Gregg, shares how digital events help the team at Bloomreach cut through the noise and create standout experiences for prospects, partners, and customers.

Like so many others, 2020 was a year that dramatically transformed the way the team at Bloomreach approached their event marketing. Events had been a staple for getting the product in front of new and existing customers. But suddenly, meeting face-to-face was no longer an option.

Zoom was the first tool within reach, but Candace quickly realized it wouldn’t provide the long-term support they needed. “A Zoom webinar is just to host, not to engage with people. You couldn't see a lot of the insights on what attendees are doing inside the event.”

Marketing to marketers isn’t easy; these professionals attend hundreds of digital events per year. Candace knew she needed to take extra steps to set a higher bar for the brand’s new digital event offering.

“I’m big on experiences. You’re not going to get that with an out-of-the-box Zoom webinar. I wanted something that felt less like a meeting and more like an event. We market to marketers. They’ve seen every trick in the book, so it’s really important to connect with them in a unique way.”

Fortunately, that’s when she found Goldcast.

With the help of Goldcast, Candace and her team were ready to roll up their sleeves and get creative about replicating the in-person experience in a digital environment.

Today, Bloomreach has a robust portfolio of events designed to build meaningful connections at every part of the customer journey.

Bloomreach’s one-to-few ABM events typically take the shape of exclusive experiences, like a whiskey tasting or cookie decorating workshop. Success for these events is measured by the number of contacts engaged plus a lagging KPI for the number of sales meetings booked.

In a competitive niche like global commerce, thought leadership is central to long-term prospect nurture. Bloomreach’s quarterly Commerce Pulse event breaks down the latest trends shaping the industry, disclosing valuable proprietary data around customer behavior.

With an average of 1,000 registrants per event, Commerce Pulse is an effective format for both nurturing the pipeline and attracting new business.

Revealing the latest commerce trends and their impact for B2C and B2B commerce, retailers around the world look forward to multiple days of insights at Bloomreach’s annual Commerce Experience Summit.

The Summit was designed to highlight Bloomreach as an industry leader, create excitement around the company, and give customers and prospects a first look at The State of Commerce Experience, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Bloomreach.

With the help of Goldcast, Bloomreach is harnessing the power of its flagship event by bringing it completely online and expanding its global reach.

To support the brand’s focus on product-led growth, Candace and her team also offer live demos three times per quarter, highlighting Bloomreach’s latest features and developments. 

These product deep dives feature real use cases for ways to get more out of Bloomreach, while directly answering prospect questions in real-time. Using Goldcast’s intuitive chat and ‘request demo’ button, it’s easy for attendees to interact. Handraiser data then flows directly to the sales team for immediate follow-up.

But these events aren’t just geared toward new prospects. The live demos also provide an organic forum for helping existing customers discover features that might have been overlooked. Bloomreach’s agency partners also tap into these events, tuning in to learn more about how the platform can add value to their customers.‍

Bloomreach’s customer success team also gets in on the event marketing action via their digital Product Week event. 

The goal for this event is to highlight new updates and lay out a clear roadmap for what customers can expect in the future while offering a window into Bloomreach’s commitment to ongoing innovation.

With robust integrations between Goldcast, Salesforce, and Hubspot, Candace and her team waste no time on post-event follow-up.

“We do all of our lead scoring through Hubspot. We just take our campaigns, sync them to Goldcast and Salesforce, and update all campaign statuses through workflows in Hubspot.”

In a matter of minutes, both the sales and marketing teams can see who’s ‘registered,’ ‘attended live,’ or ‘attended on-demand,’ with a clear engagement score for each. Bloomreach BDRs don’t have to waste any time trying to understand which accounts are most in need of answers and support.

With seamless access to event data insights, it’s easy to see the impact of events on pipeline. “We look at pipeline from a first-touch, last-touch, and an in-between touch—pipeline that’s influenced, created, or converted to demo by our campaigns.”

Goldcast helps make this impact clear and transparent. Still, Candace is careful not to get too caught up in the metrics.

“It’s good to know where revenue is sourced from, but it doesn’t mean that it’s the end all be all for our event marketing goals.” As customer behavior evolves, she and her team are exploring new ways to capture insights on meaningful engagement from untapped sources like the dark funnel.

With Goldcast there to help save time and track event attribution, she and her team have more bandwidth to innovate and experiment with new growth strategies.

From easy integrations and complete customization, a full-funnel branded event experience is now a reality for Bloomreach’s growing audience of global retailers. “I wanted a fully branded, interactive way to engage attendees, and Goldcast answered that need.”

From seamlessly integrated event data to fully-branded features, Goldcast helps make it easy for Candace and her team to fuel follow-ups and measure success. And the support they get is second to none.

“Our team grew exponentially at the same time we were starting with Goldcast. We were constantly asking questions and onboarding new people, and Goldcast helped us immensely to keep us successful during that key transition.”

In less than two years, Bloomreach has transformed its digital event offering to provide an elevated experience at every stage of the customer journey — and it’s just the beginning.

“Goldcast makes so many things possible. Anytime we bring up a question, idea, or use case, they’re on it."