Behind the scene of the Content Summit

PlayPlay News

11-02-2022

(Updated 06-10-2024)

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7 min

Behind the scene of the Content Summit

The Video Advantage: Trends & Strategies for Content Marketers 2024

Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or just starting out, staying ahead of the curve is crucial. This ebook is designed to help you take advantage of the biggest content and video trends this year.

Discover now

January 2022. 

Domitille, PlayPlay’s VP of Marketing drops a bombshell.Domitille: 

Melissa, I need you to organize the 2022 Content Summit.

Melissa: Mmm… Sure?Domitille: By the way… we’re also launching the US edition this year!

Melissa: *Breathe, breathe, breathe* 😮‍💨

October 2022.

Ten months later, we’re finally able to take a deep breath and look back on what it meant to organize THE event of the content galaxy. And what an event it was.

Launching this unforgettable gathering for content marketers was a hell of a journey, full of challenges, panics, laughs, and achievements. We’ve learned a lot along the way. At PlayPlay, we firmly believe that knowledge is better when shared, so without further adieu, here’s all that happened behind the scenes at the Content Summit 2022. 

Are you ready?3, 2, 1… Take off!

Step 1: Hunting the best stars in the content galaxy

How we picked our expedition crew

"I've never scored a goal without getting a pass from someone else."

Who'd have thought soccer player, Abby Wambach, would give us the motivational quote we needed to launch the content event of the year?

Wise words, Abby. Every great adventure begins with a great crew, so we got our best marketing talent on board to organize the Content Summit.

  • Domitille and Mélissa, our mission captains
  • Arnold, the artist
  • Florent, the techy in the shadows
  • Antoine, the automation (and now Goldcast) king
  • Baptiste, the ads guy
  • Olivier, the lead magnet
  • Antinéa, our Content queen (big fan of Mamma Mia)
  • Léa, our very own Steven Spielberg
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How we set up our planning process

2022 was actually the second edition of the Content Summit. Luckily we could lean on some of the critical successes from our first event. From communication plans, content assets, and technical issues to attendees' comments, budgets, and speakers… we created a whole Content Summit playbook on Notion.

So for the 2022 edition, we "just" had to duplicate it… right?

Well, sort of.  

This year's big difference was launching the summit in a new country with different expectations and needs. Like reaching a brand new galaxy.

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How we chose the speakers

Domitille told Melissa “sky’s the limit” when looking for the Content Summit’s guest speakers… No pressure, then!

In fact, when you launch a rocket, you want to have on board the best experts on Earth… And the success of your mission clearly depends on their awareness, the content they share and the way they share it.

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With this in mind, here’s how Melissa set out to go above and beyond to find eight industry experts for both France and the US:

  • Looking up the best-in-class marketing experts, she was already following on social media (Anthony Kennada, Caroline Mignaux, Nina Ramen…)
  • Searching for leaders at companies already acing their marketing game (Notion, ClickUp…)
  • Reaching out to creative leaders in the team’s networks (Antoine Filliaudeau, Alison from Zoom..)
  • Asking her social media community for a Content Summit speaker wishlist and reaching out to the marketers at the top of the list (Ashley Faus, Alli Tunnell…)👇
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While looking for speakers, diversity was one of our top priorities: gender parity — 50% of our speakers were women — and job level for both inspirational and practical recommendations.

How we got them on board

A finalized guest wishlist is good. Actually booking the speakers is better.

First, we had to try and get in touch with them, which took a lot of prep from the fantastic Content Team.

To reach experts outside our network, we simply sent a message on LinkedIn with a rundown of the event and why we specifically wanted them to speak.

We highlighted some themes, presentation ideas specific to their expertise, and questions to get the ball rolling while casually name-dropping the big hitters who had already said yes!

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What we asked from them

We aimed to harness each speaker’s expertise for an entertaining, insightful event talk. We shared a couple of formats to consider for their session (presentation, roundtable, fireside chat…) and a timeline.

Once they agreed, PlayPlay’s Content Team came up with questions and prompts to prepare an engaging discussion while helping the speakers find an angle for their presentations.

How we came up with our CEO’s keynote

Video is what we live and breathe here at PlayPlay. It’s also one of the hottest topics in marketing. So we obviously wanted to share some of our insights with attendees.We presented a shortlist of talk ideas to Thibaut and he jumped on the first one. Inspired, he created an outline of his talk within 24 hours. From there, the content and design teams worked together to craft an insightful, eye-catching presentation.

Find Thibaut’s presentation right here.

Step 2: Skyrocket the content event of the year

How we created the event’s unique branding

In 2021, we designed unique branding for the first edition of the Content Summit. Concept, colors, fonts, backgrounds… all brought to life by Pelo Studio — the design agency we worked with for our video idea machine.

A year later, the paint was still fresh, so we decided to keep it.

Here is why.

After PlayPlay closed Series B funding, the company refreshed its identity to  align better with our enterprise offering. We’ve come a long way since our early startup days! We created a new logo, visuals, and brand guidelines — a complete makeover.

Rebranding is a huge challenge, and we moved fast. However, we decided to keep the Content Summit as a separate entity, without using PlayPlay’s new branding. We reused the style from the 2021 edition — the blue brick wall and the neon light, inspired by stand-up comedy shows.

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How we ensured brand consistency

The 2022 design challenge was to improve execution, consistency and impact.

First, we set up some guidelines to coordinate the production of assets:

  • Visual content: we listed all the assets we needed to create, such as websites, social posts, ads, videos, etc.
  • Process: we defined briefing, creation and feedback processes with templates.
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Once we completed the guidelines, we had to produce visual assets on the go. Extra requests popped up here and there, but the team was prepared for the workload and delivered at pace.

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How we created our website

A website is what visitors see first, so it had to be top quality to maximize conversions.

This time we didn’t start from scratch. We revamped the 2021 Content Summit website with better UX and branding upgrades.

We partnered with Pelo Studio again this year: they created the first version of our sign-up website. We still had some missing info a week before the event, but Florent and Arnold stepped up to adapt and finalize the site.

Here are some improvements we made:

  • We bought the domain content-summit.com.
  • We implemented a multi-step form to improve UX.
  • We created a referral form at the end of the subscription.
  • We added a video recap of the 2021 edition, featuring comments and feedback on the event.
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Which channels we used to get new sign-ups

For security matters, NASA experts would advise not to put all the eggs in one basket. So we varied our acquisition channels.

First, social media.Did you see the Content Summit Big Bang on LinkedIn? Probably, if you’re reading this post.We managed to make some noise on social media, helped by our fellow PlayPlayers (employee advocacy boosts reach on a huge scale) and by the speakers themselves. Here are some examples of our promo posts on social media:

Some posts we did:

Second, emailing.We launched 3 batches of invitation emails, each with a different angle:

  • the line-up
  • the variety of content topics on offer
  • social proof from last year (number of attendees, quotes)

Third, paid acquisition such as Linkedin Ads and Facebook Ads. Our leads were more qualified on Linkedin because we could target a precise audience. This meant a better price per marketing-qualified lead.

The best-performing ads featured our high-profile speakers — showing their faces and company logos.

Finally, we launched a referral program. When attendees signed up for the event, they were offered a recap of last year’s event in exchange for the email addresses of friends or colleagues.

Step 3: Create an out-of-this-world experience

Why we decided to change our hosting platform

Unfortunately, last year's spaceship didn’t have the firepower we needed. Our previous hosting platform was more geared up for single webinars than events with multiple sessions.

The goal this year was for both attendees and speakers to have a seamless experience!

How we chose the right one?

Antoine was deep in discovery mode to find the best platform for this year’s event:

  • Preparing a huge list of specific questions to ask during demos
  • Benchmarking all the virtual event platforms on the market
  • Demoing and testing each platform
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After countless hours: we decided to go with Goldcast:

  • Better value for money compared to alternatives
  • The platform is ultra-customizable in terms of look and feel
  • Top marks for user experience
  • Native integration with Hubspot

On top of that, Goldcast doesn’t require external tools for streaming — you can connect to the platform as easily as a Zoom meeting. It really simplified our behind-the-scenes management of the live sessions.

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How we ensured a smooth operation on event day

Best practice number 1: rehearsals. Every rocket needs test launches before firing into orbit.

We planned rehearsal meetings with each speaker in a test environment, to make sure everything would run smoothly.

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To avoid live technical hiccups, some virtual event organizers pre-record their talks. Not PlayPlay! We’d been bold throughout the journey, so why stop there?

Interactivity is a key element of any event, so we needed to record the Content Summit live:

  • Attendees can ask questions live and get immediate responses.
  • Attendees are more engaged and feel a sense of community.

We also optimized the office internet connection speed:

  • Notifying other PlayPlay employees to work at home, if possible.
  • Using ethernet cables to connect our 2 presenters’ computers.
  • Using different browsers.

Practice makes perfect — and the Content Summit went off without a hitch!

How we used automations to save time

We couldn’t be everywhere at once, so we enlisted some autopilot assistance.

Goldcast integration was a big part of it. We could register people automatically when they filled out the form and send automated reminder emails about the event. We could also track attendance rates and follow interactions during each session.

In addition, we leveraged Hubspot email automations to promote the event.

How we nailed it in the chat

The crew members had some seriously sore fingers when speed typing in the Goldcast chat:

  • Redirecting attendees to the questions tab to ask questions (other attendees could then upvote).
  • Reminding them that replays would be available.
  • Cheering up the speakers.
  • Reacting to attendees’ messages.
  • Interacting with speakers and moderators.

Team ✅
Speakers ✅ 
Communication ✅
Tool ✅

After hours of intense activity, we finally landed on the Moon. And took a nap.

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Step 4: In orbit, the Content Summit lives on

Although we celebrated the end of the Content Summit, it wasn’t over just yet… We had a whole follow-up strategy planned, based on repurposing content from the talks.

  • Recap email for every talk, featuring replays and FAQs.
  • ‘Thank-you’ emails to attendees, including registrants that didn’t attend
  • Invite to fill out a review of the event .

In case registrants couldn’t attend every talk, we decided to produce:

  • An event recap, in PDF format and on the blog.
  • Blog post recaps for each talk.
  • A newsletter sent in October.
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A final word from our Captain, Thibaut: “Amazing team work from our marketing team. I’m so impressed… and so proud to see how, once again, you embodied our values every step of the way…”

  • Committed: dedicated to producing THE content event we’d dreamed of.
  • User First: always looking to offer the best experience for attendees.
  • Ambitious: targeting best-in-class speakers and a huge number of sign-ups.
  • Creative: brainstorming awesome ideas to promote the event and follow-up.
  • United: staying at the office together until 1am on a weekday!
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The end?

Absolutely not!

See you in the Content outer space in 2023!

PlayPlay

PlayPlay

The video creation platform made for the Enterprise.

The Video Advantage: Trends & Strategies for Content Marketers 2024

Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or just starting out, staying ahead of the curve is crucial. This ebook is designed to help you take advantage of the biggest content and video trends this year.

Discover now

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