MARCH 6, 2024
Every year at Evanta, a Gartner Company, our C-level communities meet on hundreds of occasions to support 14,300 CIOs, CISOs, CHROs, CDAOs and CFOs from the world’s leading organizations. In 2023 alone, Evanta hosted 420 gatherings across 11 countries, where community members came together to form peer connections and address their mission critical priorities.
Evanta communities have a “by, for” model, where each community is led by C-level practitioners on a Governing Body. This ensures the content and discussion topics are relevant to their needs, making for a highly engaging and collaborative environment.
Peer exchange is the driving force for member participation, but executives also express how vital vendors are to their success journeys and how sponsors can seamlessly integrate into the community experience. One CISO shared, "Evanta events provide a valuable forum to learn about and share tried and tested insights with my peer community as we all address the same cybersecurity challenges… with sponsors acting more like peers and participating in the sessions to help address our challenges."
Recently, we asked a sample of our C-level members if they had advice for sponsors, and three themes arose from their responses. Here is what C-level executives say they want from sponsors at Evanta programs:
1. Human connection, personal interactions
Nearly every executive said they want to see the “human side” of sponsors, and they do not want to talk about products and offerings – information they can get from a website. One CIO said, “It’s critically important that I am not 'sold to' at any event – I like that vendors are present, but they are learning just like the rest of us in the room.”
Evanta community members want you to learn about their challenges, motivations, reservations and unique needs. These face-to-face connections are becoming evermore rare, and, hence, critically important. A recent Gartner report on the future of B2B buying expects only 17% of the total purchase journey to be spent interacting with sales reps, and most of that time, 80%, will be spent over digital channels.
Forming emotional connections builds trust and can help prospects and customers validate your partnership. Gartner says, “This is known as ‘value affirmation’ and is a key factor in driving more expansive, high-margin deals… When buyers have value affirmation interactions, they are 30% more likely to complete a high-quality deal.”
I’ve made so many connections here. I’ve talked to so many folks that I haven’t seen in months and months. And so from a return-on-investment perspective, I think it’s going to be very high.”
– Stephanie Moore
SVP of Marketing, Softtek
Evanta’s intimate gatherings are designed to be high-touch, enabling you to form relationships and have in-depth discussions with the people who are the hardest to reach. In addition, our members advise you to leverage your existing relationships with current members for introductions, saying, “Peer recommendations go a long way.”
2. Start with the business problem, not a sales pitch
Evanta community members acknowledged that they want sponsors to be “tech agnostic” when starting conversations. They want them to know their business challenges and articulate how they can help. Today, persistent disruption and organizational changes are influencing their goals and future roadmaps, and they need partners who understand these complexities. This aligns with Gartner’s B2B Buying Report which states, “99% of B2B purchases are driven by organizational changes. This means buyers are most often motivated to solve longer-term, internal challenges that span multiple parts of the buyer organization.”
One C-level executive shared that they look for partners who “understand the value chain of the organization and where they can fit in and improve that value change.” They added that organizations have large ecosystems, and they want to know how a sponsor can work within their current ecosystem. Another executive suggested for sponsors to co-present with other vendors they work well with to show how they are connected to the greater ecosystem.
Alternately, if you are in the process of scoping which business problems and priorities are the most pertinent for your customers, sponsoring with Evanta gives you access to such intelligence. We put you in the room with C-level executives, allowing you to understand directly from key prospects what their challenges are and how you can help.
As Audrey Sullivan, AVP at BetterUp said, “I love that Evanta doesn't have your traditional sponsorship exhibit hall. For us, it's being in the community; it's being involved in the conversation. It's really being able to stay relevant.”
3. Share thought leadership and case studies
C-level executives join their Evanta community as an opportunity to collaborate with and learn from the greatest minds in their field, and they mentioned that they expect the same level of thought leadership from both their peers and sponsors.
We frequently survey members about their community experiences and ask them to rate each session they attend to ensure the quality of our programs is up to their standards. Regarding sponsored sessions, these are the three types of content they say are most valuable:
- Trends and insights - Showcasing thought leadership in areas that impact their business most
- Perspectives - Helping them gain new viewpoints on future trends
- Case studies - Demonstrating how they solved a customer’s business problem
If you want to learn more about sponsoring Evanta programs to connect with C-level decision makers, reach out to us here.
