Reinventing Virtual Events

CHAPTER 2Finding Event‐Market Fit (EMF)

The best customer service is if the customer doesn't need to call you, doesn't need to talk to you. It just works.

—Jeff Bezos

According to legendary investor Marc Andreessen of A16Z.com, “Product/market fit [PMF] means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.” So logically, being in the right market, with a rock‐solid event, will be a smash hit, right? Nope, not that simple. It's tough to know what your ideal customer profile (ICP) wants when marketers have become so removed from customer interactions, and even salespeople are spreadsheet jockeys.

It's high time for marketers to expand their skills and talk to customers (fatal flaw?). As insane as it sounds writing it! Instead of sending thousands of emails, think about a new paradigm where the marketing team calls on key accounts to research, assess net promoter scores (NPS) and customer satisfaction (CSAT), and collaborate on roadmap ideas. PMF parallels event‐market fit (EMF), but the kicker you'll learn in this book is that EMF could be an adjacent focus area that dovetails back into your product.

The new way to find an EMF is to call people. It's also the new way to do NPS. If you think about it, it's revolutionary. Surveys do not work generally, and it's a paradox because customers are tight‐lipped about what they think and often don't even understand ...