Your Brand in Real Life: Event Strategies for Lasting Brand and Revenue Impact

“Experience equals perception. Your event is your brand in action, and every detail tells a story. If your event isn’t memorable, connected, and aligned to your goals, it’s a missed opportunity to deepen loyalty and accelerate the pipeline.” - Emily OlsonHi there, I’m Kerry Curran, B2B Revenue Growth Executive Advisor, Industry Analyst, and host of Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast.In every episode, I sit down with top experts to bring you actionable strategies that drive real results. If you’re serious about growth, hit subscribe and stay ahead of your competition.In Your Brand in Real Life: Event Strategies for Lasting Brand and Revenue Impact, I sit down with Emily Olson, President and Executive Producer at Arrow Event Management. With over two decades of experience producing brand launches, executive summits, and global conferences, Emily breaks down exactly what it takes to turn a live event into a high-ROI marketing channel.Be sure to stay tuned until the end, where Emily shares how homegrown talent shows became one of the most surprising—and most effective—community-building tools in her event playbook.Let’s go!Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:01.774)So welcome, Emily. Please share your background and expertise.Emily Olson (00:06.952)Thanks, Kerry. I'm Emily Olson, President and Executive Producer at Arrow Event Management. I’ve been producing events for almost 25 years, and I think I’ve done just about everything at this point—conferences, galas, brand launches, roadshows. I’ve worked all over the U.S. and internationally, and I’m really excited to be here today to talk about events and brand strategy.Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:38.2)Well, thank you, Emily. I'm very excited to have you on today. We first met when you were producing some events for my agency many years ago, and you definitely raised the bar when it came to delivering a polished and valuable experience for guests. I’m excited to dive in and hear your recommendations.When you typically start speaking with someone who wants to do an event for their company, how do you begin ideating what it will look like or how they should approach it?Emily Olson (01:19.016)That’s a great question. We start by understanding the goal of the event. Why are they hosting it? Who are they trying to reach? How are they measuring success? What do they want their attendees to think, feel, and do? That’s always how we start the conversation. From there, my team puts together a strategy to help achieve those goals.Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:51.406)Mm-hmm. So talk about the typical audience for you and your events. How does that play into the event plan and strategy?Emily Olson (02:27.794)Many of our audiences are different—it almost feels like a unique audience for every single event. Sometimes it’s internal, sometimes B2B, sometimes B2C. I did a sports-related event this week targeting fans of women’s sports. The fan base changes for every event, so there really isn’t a template. For each one, we look at the goals and determine how to best reach that specific audience.Kerry Curran, RBMA (02:58.594)Mm-hmm. Excellent. So what research do you and your team do to understand the audience and come up with ideas?Emily Olson (03:13.084)We look at who they are and what’s been done before. Maybe the organization has hosted this event before—what worked, what didn’t, what was a mess. In many cases, we put together different personas and walk through each one. Persona A might have one experience, Persona B another. We use that approach to figure out how best to reach each audience member or category.Kerry Curran, RBMA (03:49.216)That’s great. You’ve talked before about making events feel special for each attendee. Can you give examples of how your team creates unique, memorable experiences?Emily Olson (04:13.948)Yes—walking away with memories is key. What do you want them to think, feel, and do? Post-COVID, virtual events pushed us to engage people through every step. While we've moved away from most virtual experiences, attendees still expect engagement across all touchpoints. They want unique experiences. They want something they can post on Instagram—something they haven’t seen before. Everyone wants to be first. So, if we create an experience that drives attendees to think, feel, and act in alignment with the event goals, that’s a win. That’s how we create the magic.Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:45.440)I love that. Especially in the era of Instagram, social proof becomes part of the experience. One thing I loved was your example of taking over a department store and turning it into an interactive experience. Talk about how that idea came to life.Emily Olson (06:20.540)That store was in the client’s industry, so it aligned with their audience and created a strong foundation. The event’s goal was to reinforce a sense of community, so we brought in local vendors and restaurants to provide food stations. We tapped into the ...