Welcome to the new School of Marketing podcast. I'm Bianca McKenzie, and this is the place where we break down marketing strategies that actually work without the overwhelm.
Before we dive in, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land I live and work on, the Palawa people of Lutruwita. I pay my respects to elders past and present and acknowledge the deep connection they have to this land, culture and community.
Let's dive in and make marketing work for you.
So today's episode is a bit of a different one. It's part personal story and part genuine excitement that I cannot contain and part something that I think is genuinely useful for you to hear about marketing,
even if it's not the kind of marketing advice that you were expecting.
I want to talk about events.
Specifically, I want to talk about the Tasmanian Women in Business Conference,
something I created, something. Something that we wrapped up a few months ago,
and something that honestly has me on such a high that I've been floating around for a while now since wrapping it up.
And I also want to talk about something I've realized in the process that even though I never created this conference for marketing reasons, not even a little bit,
it has turned out to be one of the most powerful things I've ever done in my business.
And I think there's a really important lesson in that for you.
So let's get into it.
Okay, I have to start here because if I don't give this its proper moment,
I'll be doing it a disservice.
The Tasmanian Women in Business Conference happened not that long ago,
and I. I'm still, like, you know, weeks later. I'm still completely lit up by it, like, genuinely buzzing in a way that is hard to describe to someone who wasn't there.
The speakers were phenomenal,
not just in terms of what they shared, although, you know, the content was really, really, really good. It was brilliant.
But in terms of the courage and the generosity they brought to the room,
there is something about women standing up and sharing their real story,
their actual journey, not, you know, just a polished version that does something to a room, like, you could feel it.
That particular energy of,
oh, my God, I'm not The only one. Oh my God, this is real.
Oh, I can actually do this. Like, it was so good. And the conversations,
the conversations between lunch,
between sessions,
at the end of the day when no one like really didn't want to leave.
I kept watching people exchange numbers,
leaning close, you know, over cups of coffee light up as they realized that they had just met someone who understood exactly what they were dealing with.
There's something that happens when you put the right people in a room together that simply cannot be replicated online.
And I genuinely believe that the connections made in that room, you know, business partnerships, friendships, collaborations, referrals,
some of those will play out for years.
Isn't that amazing? Some of those women will look back on that conference as the day something changed for them.
And that thought just fills me up completely.
I'm already planning the 2027 conference.
That's how good it was.
But let me go back to the beginning because the why matters.
I didn't create the Tasmanian Women in Business Conference because I thought it would be good for my business.
I want to be really clear about that because I think it's really important to the story.
I created it because I looked around at the business landscape here in Tasmania.
And for anyone who doesn't know, I'm on the northwest coast of Tasmania. So I looked around at the business landscape here in Tasmania, specifically for women in business.
And I felt a gap.
Like not a gap in information or resources necessarily, but a gap in connection,
a gap in, in the experience of being in a room with other women who are building something,
who are navigating the particular challenges of running a business,
who understand the juggle and the ambition and the doubt and the drive that all live together inside the same person.
Tasmania is a small place.
It's also a deeply community minded place.
And I kept thinking about how powerful it would be to bring these women together.
Not like in a networking event sense,
where, you know, you arrive with your stack of business cards and you work the room.
No, really in a genuinely connective,
nourishing and inspiring way.
Like, we're not here for the transaction,
we're here for the belonging.
Because we. One of the things I've noticed in my years working with business owners here is that isolation is one of the hardest parts. And that's not just in Tassie, but I'm just speaking about Tassie right now.
But isolation is one of the hardest parts. Not like the practical isolation of working alone, even though that is a real thing, but the emotional isolation of not having people around you who truly understand what it's like.
You know, the people who get why you're lying awake at 2am doing revenue calculations,
People who don't look at you blankly when you talk about a launch or a membership or a content strategy.
People who understand why you care so much about something that other people in your life might not fully see.
And I really wanted to talk about this in a Tasmanian sense because we moved from Melbourne. Even in Melbourne, it's different.
Tasmania is its own unique place.
It's hard to describe, but I know the fellow Tasmanians here will understand it.
I also wanted to go to a conference.
I wanted to go to that kind of conference,
but there wasn't one here.
So that's what I wanted. To create space for a room where that isolation lifted, even just for a day or two,
and where the women left for feeling seen, feeling connected and genuinely energized about what they're building.
That was the whole idea.
That was all it was. I wanted to go to a conference, and I knew what kind of conference I wanted to go to. You know, one where you connect, where you get together with people who understand.
That's what I wanted to go to,
and that's why I created it.
What I didn't expect was what it would do for my business.
And I want to be honest about this, because I think there's something really important here about the relationship between doing things for the right reasons and the business outcomes that follow.
I didn't create this conference to build my profile.
If anything, I actually didn't even want to speak in the first conference,
but I did it because all the other people said you should because it's your conference. So I did it. But I didn't. I didn't create this conference to build my profile.
I didn't do it to generate leads, to grow my list or position myself as a thought leader in, you know, in the Tasmanian business community. I absolutely didn't. Even when I'm saying this makes me cringe,
those things genuinely were not on my mind when I was planning it.
I was thinking about the speakers, the experience, the room, the women who would be in it.
But what happened,
naturally, organically, without me engineering it,
was that creating and hosting this conference said something about me and my business that years of content creation couldn't quite achieve. In the same way,
it demonstrated leadership.
Not claimed leadership, but actually demonstrated leadership.
Anyone can write in their bio that they're a leader in their community organizing a conference that brings people together and delivers a genuinely valuable experience that shows it it's actually really hard to talk about this, by the way.
I'm doing it because it's important,
but it's actually quite uncomfortable.
But, yes, it demonstrated leadership,
and it created visibility in a way that felt completely authentic.
Not, you know, the.
Here's another post about me, but actually what happened was, you know, here's something I made for you, for our community,
for this island.
People notice that. They talk about it, they associate it with you.
I'm just going to pretend I'm talking about someone else now.
Feels so uncomfortable.
It also, it. And this warms my heart probably the most.
It deepened existing relationships in a way that I can't replicate if I try to.
People who already knew my work,
they experienced me in a completely different context,
you know, as a host, as a. As a curator, as someone who invested in this community at a level,
I guess, beyond my own business interests.
And that has changed the nature of those relationships.
And it created new relationships with speakers, with attendees, with sponsors and partners.
And they are now part of my professional world in ways that will compound for years. And it literally, it makes me so happy.
If I think back to the vibe in that room and the connections and the relationships,
I don't see it as business. I feel like I just got a whole big room full of friends,
amazing friends,
and none of that was planned.
All of it happened because I did something,
like,
for the right reasons. I guess I was in it with my whole heart.
It was just from a place where I wanted to go to something like this.
And I think that's the actual lesson.
So here's where I want to pivot, because, you know, I promised you some marketing insight. I want to deliver on that. So events, whether they are big or small, whether they're in person or online, whether they're conferences or workshops or intimate dinners,
events are one of the most underutilized marketing tools available to business owners.
And I think the reason that they're actually underutilized is that most people approach them backwards.
So they think about events as marketing opportunities, like a marketing vehicle. You know, you know, how many leads can I generate or how many email addresses can I collect, or, you know, what's my roi?
And when events are approached that way,
they feel transactional to the people who attend them,
especially like, you know,
paid opportunities. And you don't want them to feel transactional.
People can feel when they are being marketed at and the events that feel like that,
you know, where that underlying energy is, you know, I'm doing this to grow my business.
They rarely Achieve even the marketing goals that they were designed for.
Because people don't connect at those events. They show up, they sit through the pitch and they leave.
But events that are approached the other way, you know, know whether the primary goal is to create connection,
value and, you know, an experience for the people in the room. Those events,
they do something remarkable. They create the kind of goodwill, the kind of trust and relationship that takes years to build through content marketing alone.
And because the experience is genuinely valuable,
people talk about it, they share it, they bring their friends. Next time they sell out before you know, in like two seconds flat. Because people have talked about it and they associate you with something that made them feel good.
And the marketing outcome is real, it's significant.
It's just a byproduct of doing something genuinely excellent for the right reasons, for good reasons. And I think that order matters more than most people realize.
So let me get a bit more specific about why events work so well as a marketing activity,
because I want you to be able to take something practical from this.
The first thing is the depth of connection that they create.
So online marketing, you know, social media, email, even podcasts like this one,
it creates one to many connection. It's valuable,
but it's also somewhat one directional.
So one to many,
one direction events create many to many connection.
So people don't just connect with you,
they connect with each other as well. And that web of connection creates a community around your brand that is infinitely more powerful than a following.
Think about the brands and businesses that you feel most loyal to.
I'll be willing to bet that many of them are ones where you've had an in person experience. Like an event, a workshop, a conference.
Because something happens when you are physically in the same space as other humans that changes the nature of the relationship.
Like, it becomes real in a way that social media isn't.
Like someone clicking follow isn't quite the same as you being in the same room and having that connection.
The second thing is memorability.
We are living in an era of content overload. Like, so much like your audience is consuming hundreds of pieces of content every single week. Like probably thousands really.
Most of it just blurs together.
But experiences like real physical,
emotional experiences,
they are remembered.
You know the conference I attended three years ago,
the workshop that changed how I think about something. The dinner where I met someone who became a genuine friend and a collaborator. These things stick in a way that even the best email newsletter doesn't.
When someone attends an event that you've created and has a really really meaningful experience.
You become part of their story and that is marketing gold that you cannot manufacture any other way.
The third thing is the opportunity for real conversation.
One of the most valuable things I did at the conference, though I didn't really plan it this way,
was it was just talk to people. I really thought I was just going to like be run off my feet and la da da. But no, I had an amazing assistant who took care of everything.
So I had the time to talk. Not like the first conference where I was actually doing all the things, but like it was literally just simply talk to people. Like not present at them,
not pitch to them, just talk. Like, find out what they're working on, what they're struggling with, with what they need, what just conversations. And in those conversations, I learned more about my audience, like their real concerns,
their real language, their real aspirations than any market research could have told me. Like,
surveys won't do that kind of thing. And that understanding, it feeds back into everything, like, you know, into my content, my offers, my messaging, my membership.
Events are one of the richest sources of audience insight available.
Like, I learned so much about my people.
All right, I want to say something here because I know some of you are listening to this thinking, well, that's great, Bianca, but I can't really create a whole conference.
You're right,
you don't need to. You don't. You know,
events, they kind of live on a spectrum. At the smaller end you've got things like, you know, hosting a breakfast or a lunch, you know, just for a couple of people,
some ideal clients, some peers, like just get together or maybe like running a free in person workshop in your local community,
organizing, you know, a casual meetup for people in your niche,
or creating a small, like intimate mastermind for existing clients and members. Like just one day, like I'm not saying do this for months, just, you know, a day. Then in the middle you've got things like, you know, a paid workshop or an intensive, like a day retreat or a panel event in your local area,
or maybe partnering with someone else to co host something.
And then at the bigger end,
you've got something like a conference or like a multi speaker event.
All of these work on the same principle.
They bring people together in a way that creates real, real connection and real experience.
They demonstrate leadership and they also demonstrate generosity.
They generate the kind of goodwill and trust and relationship that is really hard to create in any other way.
And they do it in a way that feels authentic because you're creating something of value. You're not running a marketing campaign,
you're simply getting together with some people.
Like the scale of how big the event is.
It doesn't matter.
It's the intention that matters.
If you've never run an event before and you're feeling inspired to try,
here's what I want to say.
Start with who.
Before you think about logistics or format or venue, all that kind of stuff,
think about who you want to bring together and why.
You know, what is the gap that you're filling, what is the experience that you want to create for them and for yourself.
Don't forget yourself. What would make them leave feeling much better than when they arrived?
And start there and then the rest can follow from that. That's where you want to start. Now keep it small first.
You know, there is a really big value in an intimate small event.
Eight to 12 people in a room,
when they are properly connected, you know, having real conversations.
That is not a lesser version of a conference. To me that like would mean everything.
It's a different and it's actually often a more powerful experience.
So don't wait until you can do it big, do it small and do it well.
It's so powerful.
Also, don't make it about you.
This is the most important thing. The event is not a vehicle for you to present your content to a captive audience.
It's a space that you're creating for other people.
Your job is to curate, to facilitate and to hold the space.
And the less it is about you,
even though it's, you know, kind of counterintuitive,
the more it's going to do for you.
And then follow up afterwards.
The event itself is where the connection begins,
not where it ends. So the follow up, the ongoing relationship, the way you stay in touch with the people who are in the room,
that's where the long term value lives.
Don't put all your energy into the event and then go quiet.
The event is the beginning of a relationship. It's not a standalone activity. Like just, you have to be really mindful of that. It's a relationship. Don't just do the one thing and then disappear.
So I mentioned at the start of this episode that I'm already planning the 2027 conference and I am so excited about it. I'm so excited, so, so, so excited.
I'm not quite ready to share all the details yet, but mostly because, you know, we're still in the early stages of planning and I want to give it the space to develop before I start, you know, talking about it publicly.
If you're on the list. If you're on our list, you'll hear about it. If you want to be on the list,
send me a DM biancamackenzie and I'll send you the details of how to get on the list. Because I know it's.
It's not much,
so much of a public kind of thing for me to share this,
most mostly because it's in Tasmania. But what I can say is that this year's conference showed me what's possible.
When you bring the right women into a room with the right intention and 2027, it's going to build on that in ways that I'm really proud of.
So if you're a Tasmanian woman in business or if you know someone who is, I want you to know that this conference exists for you, it was created for you and I would love to have you in the room.
So do keep your eyes on my socials because I do post on that about the conference and keep it on my email list as well.
And if you want to make sure that you're one of the first to know when registration opens,
just make sure that you're on my list because that's where I will tell you about it.
Now, before I wrap up, I want to come back to the bigger lesson that I think sits underneath all of this. Because I think it's more important than any tactical advice about running events.
The things that have had the greatest impact on my business over the past 12 years.
The relationships that matter most,
the opportunities that change things,
the moments where something actually shifted.
Almost none of them came from something I did primarily for marketing reasons. It's funny, isn't it? Like, all this time put into marketing,
they actually came from doing things that I genuinely care about,
like, you know,
serving people.
I really want to help. Creating things that I genuinely believe the world needs.
And me having conversations because I'm just interested in the person I am meeting and the marketing outcomes, you know, the visibility, the trust, the reputation, the business growth that just followed on from that.
Not because I engineered them,
because when you do something really well for the right reasons,
people notice,
they talk about it, they want to be part of it, they trust you. And it might start small.
Like my first conference was smaller, the second one was bigger because more people talk about it and it's not a marketing strategy, it's just doing good work in the world.
And it turns out that that's the best marketing there is.
So that's a little bit about why I created Tasmanian Women in Business Conference.
And I just wanted to share about this.
And whether it's big or small,
events can be super powerful for your business.
But I want you to remember, though, what I've said. So here's your action step.
I want you to think about one event,
you know, any kind of scale that you could create or that you could contribute to in the next six months.
Not as a marketing vehicle,
but really as a genuine gathering of people that you care about around something that matters.
Start with the intention and let the marketing take care of itself.
And if you're a Tasmanian woman in business who wants to be part of the 2027 conference, make sure that you're on my email list so that you're actually the first one to know when registration's open and it'll be really, really soon.
I would love to see you there.
And thank you so much for tuning into the new School of Marketing podcast. Now remember,
Connection is the most powerful marketing tool there is, and sometimes the best way to create it is is to simply open a door and invite people in.
I'm Bianca McKenzie and I'll catch you next week. Until then, keep making marketing work for you.
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