"Dear Marketers, How do you build an IRL events strategy?"

Update: 2025-07-09

Description

How do you build an IRL events strategy?

Summary: In this episode of 'Dear Marketers,' Host Emily Kramer and her friends Devon Watts, Head of Product Marketing & Partner Marketing at Mercury, and Grace Erickson, VP of Revenue at Cocoon, discuss smart event strategy and how to avoid dollars in trash cans. Emily also phones event expert and friend Kacie Jenkins, former SVP Marketing at Sendoso, who shares practical advice on how to determine which events to attend and key considerations for marketers.

Dear Marketers is produced by MKT1 & Caspian Studios in partnership with Typeform. Episode 10 is sponsored by Framer & Customer.io.

About our hosts

Emily Kramer is the creator of MKT1 Newsletter, a marketing advisor, and an investor. She previously led and built marketing teams from the ground up at Asana, Carta, Astro (acquired by Slack), and Ticketfly. She’s helped hundreds of startups with B2B marketing, has over 50,000 subscribers on Substack, and has reached millions through her content. Kramer’s known for her pragmatic advice, first principles approach to marketing, and her “krameworks.” When not marketing “marketing,” you can find her with her dogs in Oakland, CA or eating ice cream on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee.

Devon Watts is a long-time startup marketer currently leading Product and Partner Marketing at Mercury. Previously, she ran marketing for the high-growth fintech Anrok, and spent time building her PMM, content, and brand expertise at companies like Yammer, Asana, and Carta. Devon has led B2B marketing teams with anywhere from 1 to 25+ people, and has experience in PLG and sales-led motions. In addition to marketing, Devon loves her kids, being on/in/near the water, her dog Dolores, and eating cheese.

Grace Erickson is a true marketing generalist with 10 years of experience in B2B startups, spanning functions like growth, brand, product marketing, and most things in between. She's currently the VP of Revenue at Cocoon, a Series A employee leave management platform. Prior to Cocoon, Grace led marketing programs at Asana, Carta, and Cleo in various roles, but always with a focus on an integrated customer journey. Besides being a marketing nerd, Grace spends her time coming up with (but not executing) elaborate schemes and browsing Zillow.

Kacie Jenkins is our “phone-a-friend” guest this episode. Kacie is the former SVP of Marketing at Sendoso. She also helped take Fastly from a 25-person startup to $200M ARR and a successful IPO; led marketing at Sourcegraph, where she helped grow revenue 4x year-over-year, and also has experience at Ace Hotel Group and Roku leading marketing teams.

We also hear from Daphne Hoppenott, CMO at Voyantis, who asks, “ What are innovative ways you've seen marketers leveraging events and how should you think through balancing investing in third-party events versus hosting our own.?”

Quotes

“ You're comparing events not to each other, which I so often see people do, you're comparing them to the other channels you can use. Events are an opportunity. You choose them because you can show off your product at an event.” - Emily Kramer“ There's a huge opportunity cost to doing events.If you're investing in events, you may not investing in a lot of other things in order to prioritize it, and you cannot approach that level of investment without really scrutinizing your goal, your audience, your central creative asset, etc.” - Grace Erickson

*“An event is an experience, it's an extension of your brand. It's a chance to make really strong connections, build relationships, and represent your brand in a way that is much higher recall than any of the digital touchpoints that you might be investing in.” – Kacie Jenkins

Time stamps

[01:05 ] Event fun facts

[04:08 ] Today’s question: “ What are innovative ways you've seen marketers leverage events?”

[07:25 ] Avoiding dollars in trash cans

[14:17 ] Lightning round

[21:51 ] Composition versus coverage

[24:33 ] Events as fuel and engine

[39:37 ] Phone a friend, Kacie Jenkins, SVP Marketing at Sendoso

[49:22 ] The power of channel combinations

[57:57 ] Events and the G.A.C.C.S. brief

[01:04 ] Best, Marketer

Recommended products & agencies