SaaStr Insider: Weekly Sponsor Webinar Series August 3rd

Back in New York City today.

Your column is starting. Oh, it's fine. It's starting. Hold on, record just in case. Okay, we're good. We can let people in. Do it. Starting. It's start. Oh wait, start webinar. Oops. It like disappeared because I started streaming.

I know, I know. I saw it disappear on my end too.

I couldn't find it.

Like I said, no second screen for me today.

It's hard on a single screen.

Yeah, yeah, it is.

Yeah, it's really tough. Hello everyone, here they come. Welcome to Saastr's weekly Insider sponsor webinar series. Um, I'm Amelia, we'll get started in a second. I'm the SVP and GM here. I think everyone else knows Brian.

Hello, Brian. I think you all know me at this point anyway. You either know me as the VP of Sales here or as the guy with the big loud annoying voice. Either way, we're good with—

Big loud annoying voice.

Whichever one you want to go with. I'm good. Probably right either way.

It's, you know, if you're ever looking for Brian on site at Annual, you'll just follow his voice.

Yeah, yeah, I'm either in a golf cart, on a scooter, or just really, really flipping loud. Yeah, one of the three. It'll be easy to pick out. Yeah, for certain. Cool.

Well, thanks everyone for joining us. There's a bunch of you on. There is— we're going to try and keep this quick. We've got a few reminders and then a few things that you guys asked for last week that you wanted us to share. So we'll go over those. And as always, if you have any questions, drop it into the chat or the Q&A, either one works. And we'll do questions mostly at the end, because sometimes people ask the same question a lot since you can't see the other people's questions. And any and all questions are welcome. Of course, we do record these. We're actually gonna try and livestream this one so that we can send you the recording faster. And throw it on the SAS for YouTube channel. And we also will send the slides. So anything else you want to say before we start, Brian?

I think that there will be a couple of things I'll go over as well in terms of some items that, believe it or not, are still available in our ancillary list. I should say that they're surprisingly available. So there's some opportunity here today for— the lucky brand that wants to take it. So we can talk through that as well.

Cool. All right, let's do it. I think flip here is fine. Okay, sorry. I'm like, is it going? Okay, yeah, it's asking for tea. Yeah, if you need to reach any of us, These are our emails.

Very simple. Event detail. In case you didn't know or you thought we were at the Javits Center in New York City, we're not. We're in San Mateo County Event Center, uh, San Mateo, California. Bad jokes from Brian. Uh, this address though, probably good to know because your Uber is going to want to find it. So just putting that out there if you're not taking a shuttle from the hotel, that is. Uh, okay, so sponsor booths. Many of you, in fact most of you, were really great with getting the initial graphic submissions in, so thank you to those that did it. There were like, last year I felt like we were like, we were like, oh my God, I don't know if we're gonna get this in. This year it was like everyone was like coming in and there was communication. It was really a beautiful thing, I gotta say.

There was a, yeah, there was a lot. But yes, so this just serves as a reminder for those The few of you who maybe have not submitted your booth graphics knowing they were gonna be late, just confirming we still do need those graphics even if they are late. We do need them if possible. I think last week we needed them today. So if you've not submitted yet, you do absolutely need to try and submit that by the end of the day with the late fee, unless you know you're one of the 5 people who know otherwise. But yes, if you've not already submitted, We do need those today. You're pushing it, but like really no later than Friday, so that we can really get it to the printer and get proofs. For those who have submitted, which is the majority of you who have already submitted, our team is working on proofs. So what that means is they're gonna take your artwork that you sent, make sure it's all hunky-dory. Some of you, I know, like we didn't like link all the files in the artwork. That's fine. Um, so we've been going back to some folks if like other additional information or artwork is needed. Um, and then this week what our team is doing is starting to turn around proofs. So they're gonna take your artwork, lay it out on how it will look on the booth, and then they'll start sending it back to you next week. Um, so that you could say, yes, that looks great, or no, that actually doesn't look the way I want it to. And then you can do one last round of changes. Um, and then for that, everything in that last round of changes will need to be done by that Friday. I think it's Friday, August 12th. Yes, Friday, Friday, August 12th at 5 PM Pacific.

Content. A lot of you have content.

Like we're due yesterday. Yeah.

And so, okay. So content, just a few like things, right? Some of you did an awesome, many of you did an awesome job keeping within our editorial guidelines as well as our, you know, our really detailed notes that we've sent back. Thank you for that very, very much. Some of you also got notes back that were like needed some edits and revisions. Just as a reminder, like it's very important when we're doing our content that it's not a commercial. It is a thought leadership topic that is, you know, really focused on founders. Like how are you helping this community? What's something that's strategic and tactically you can take away? I know this feedback came back to some of the sessions. It might have been overlooked or missed, or however, it's fine. But if you're having confusion or concern about content based upon maybe feedback that you received, my only request is that you just reach out to the sales team. We will jump on a call with you, we will help you, we will talk to you, and we can talk through different suggestions we can have to help it get, you know, improved. So that, that would be my first, my first ask. But Amelia, for you.

Yeah, that's a good reminder. I think some folks have either changed around topics between, you know, original submission and now. Just know that we do notice, like, you changed the title on the deck you're submitting versus, like, what we've agreed to as, like, the topic. Not to say that changes can't be made, but if it's 100% off course, then we're probably going to ask you to revert. All content does get reviewed, so we are literally reviewing all these submissions right now. It's highly important if you have not submitted your outline or slides yet that you do so ASAP, since it was due yesterday, so that we can start that content process of review. Usually there, there are guidelines or revisions or reminders that we will give each and every one of you that has content. So It's super important if you haven't yet that you get that in already. Slides are mandatory for all sessions. I know some of you only have 10 minutes. Trust me, it helps when as an attendee you're watching a lot of these 10-minute sessions back to back to have slides to remember who said what, etc. So you do need to have slides. It does need to be succinct. We do have timers on stage. We do record all this content. and there it is in front of a live, not studio audience, but a live Soundster audience. Um, so yeah, you know, this is going to be in front of live people, not just on a Zoom like this. Um, so all important things to keep in mind as you're, um, truing up your content submissions there.

I will also say, I, we are getting a few sponsors reaching out asking if there are, um, speaking sessions still available for grabs. Well, there are no longer speaking sessions up for grabs, unfortunately. We are closed out of speaking opportunities for this event. That said, we are going to have a massively exciting and large and amazing braindate section, which, you know, I know we're probably gonna go over more later on this slide deck, but braindates, everyone can do them. So do them. They're fun. And they're, they're definitely a way to bring content into more of like a networking scenario, a roundtable conversation of fun. So that would be, that would be something to think on.

For sure.

Okay, okay, register your team. Hey, have not registered your team? Please register your team. Um, quick slide here, but obviously you all should have received an email from us with your sponsor code to go and get your sponsor tickets, which then allows you to register your team for sponsor passes. So please be good sponsors. I'm saying the word sponsor as much as I can, but please, please, please Register your team. Um, you could— you can do it. You can do this. Uh, it's important to do this because part of it, what we're doing is we're sending out attendee emails, and a lot of them have good deals. And when you're not registered, you're not getting the attendee emails. And then we're doing— trying to do double the work and making sure you're getting the messages that you're missing by not being on the attendee emails. Please, please, please, please, please, please register your team. It's gonna make everything easier, I promise. Many of you have done this, many of you haven't. Please register your team. It shouldn't take more than— sorry.

No, it should go quick. Like once you put in one person, you can like reuse the data if you need to, if like this is the same, you know, and then like swap out titles, swap out whatever. So it has like all the address information in one. It's quick. We do need you to register your team by August 17th. Um, when we did an audit yesterday, the majority of you had not registered your teams. So, um, if you do one thing today, it's register your team for SAS for Annual. This is really important for a number of reasons. Since we are within, um, 40 days of SAS for Annual, this is when our registration team goes through and starts auditing tickets, meaning they're going through all the sponsor codes to see who's registered, who hasn't. Some of you might have a weird promo code where like you got a free code from either the AEs before, you know, you had your own promo code, or you got a ticket through something else here at NASTR. At the end of the day, you all need sponsor passes because you're a sponsoring company of the annual. And so for our team to ensure that your badges print correctly, we need your information in the system. So right now we are starting our audits. The biggest flag from our team was that many of you are missing. And so we do need to get you in the system so that we can do our part to make sure you have a smooth onsite registration. That includes everything in health and safety. That includes making sure, you know, you have the right folks registered. There's no typos on the badges. Everything is crisp and clear so that when you come on site for SASRA Annual, it'll be a smooth and easy breezy process of, this is my name, this is my company, this is my ID, and then we get you your badge. It's a little hard for us to do that if we don't know who's attending. So you absolutely need to register your team by Wednesday, August 17th.

Do it.

Okay.

Invite your customers. Okay. I'm getting messages now from people saying, hey, Bri, just guess what? I got 10 people that want to come. Can you issue them their tickets? So first off, if you have a Google Sheet from us that has a first name column, last name column, company title, email, and country column, and you filled that out, that's going to be the easiest way for us to just tag our registration team and get them to issue tickets. If you don't have one of these fancy sheets, I give you two options. Option one is to email sponsorsuccess@saastrinc.com and we will issue you one. Option two, um, is to email sponsorsuccess@saastrinc.com with those fields, those people and those fields: first name, last name, company title, email. If you can do that, we will get it done for you, 100% processed, send them out. There's nothing else you need to do other than just to pass along the info of saying these interested people want to come. So yes, yes, yes, please do this. It is important. For the brands that have done this, thank you. I'm excited. Several of you reached out to me because you're excited about closing deals on site. And from our case study, we know that those that are going to bring customers and prospects on site, you're going to close business on site. You're definitely going to close business on site. It's, anyway, That's why we're doing this. We want to help you guys elevate the value of your sponsorships. So 10 per. If you're Platinum or above, you got more. It's part of the perks of being a Platinum. Um, but that was at a field's first. Last, company, title, email, country. If you get those to us, we'd—

okay. Yeah, um, for those who maybe have filled— I think there's a few questions from those who filled out in between our uploads. We do upload these every Friday, so if you like Friday morning, so if you filled out your sheet that Brian's talking about in like over the weekend, last Friday afternoon, yesterday, this morning, those customers have not been ticketed yet. They will be ticketed on Thursday night or Friday morning of this week when our registration team can go through, QC them, and then issue the tickets. So you can safely tell your customers they'll have their tickets in hand by Friday night. Because we look to it before Friday evening. If for some reason they don't have it by then, then just tag us in your sheets that you have. We've been going through and highlighting them as blue. So if you've added new people and you see like a weird blue highlight on your sheet, the people above the blue line means they were ticketed. The people below the blue line means they haven't been ticketed yet. So we do go through and highlight them once they've been ticketed off.

Rock and roll. I am getting a consistent note in here of people not getting the recording to this. By the way, you all hear the recording of this. We actually are live streaming this today on YouTube, and additionally, it is on YouTube. If you go to our YouTube channel, you should be able to find not only that, you'll find this week's, but you'll find last week's recording as well. They're on YouTube. Sorry, I just keep seeing the question come up, so I wanted to answer it quick. It's neither here nor there, so I apologize that I'm doing it out of order here. Um, okay, so we went through this. Design assets.

Oh yeah, so this is one thing I wanted to, um, call out the sponsors. So as you guys are ramping up and we're getting closer to show, um, I know many of you are starting your own promotions, whether it's email, social media, customer marketing, etc., um, just reaching out to prospects who are in the Bay Area, or possibly attending SaaStr Annual. There are a bunch of assets here you can use so that you don't have to like go bug your design team to make specific assets for SaaStr Annual. So everyone has a sponsor card. If you click that folder after this webinar, maybe we can drop it into the chat too. I'll try and drop it in the chat while we talk. Everyone has a set of sponsor cards that has your logo on them, so they're really good assets to use. You can use them again wherever you need. If you have a— if you have already secured content, then you will also have a speaker card for your speaker, and that will be in the one that's labeled speaker cards there. So I just dropped into the chat for everyone the sponsor cards. There, so that you can use them, and then I will drop into the chat the Speaker cards that you can use if you have a speaker who is speaking at SASRA Annual as well. So there's those. I know this is not clickable in real time via the PDF, so drop that into the chat there. You all, as you're registering, you may have forgotten that you also have a discount code to use for SASRA Annual on top of the 10 free tickets that you're getting. So if you want to do like a more wider promotion, to your, your base, you can using your codes. We've seen a lot of people ramp this up in the last sort of 45 days or so to annual, which is now. So you do all have that code. If you forgot what it was, just ask us and let us know. We'll get it to you. But yeah, you do have those codes to use. You've got some assets there to use to help your promotions leading up to annual.

I did not mean to advance the slide, so I apologize.

No, it's great. Let's do it. So last week a bunch of you were asking us about swag. So one thing we typically have a big pre-show, but we're gonna give you a little peek here at what the SaaStr swag's gonna be, because I think a lot of the questions were like, well, what is SaaStr giving people so that I don't give people the same things? So our swag only, like, there's some new things and some like old faves. So first we do do different t-shirts. So these are the soft shirts you see. There's a 10 years one because we are celebrating 10 years of SaaStr. There's a cute Saastr is my peeps, which we've kind of worked into the— we did this at Europe and they were gone like the first day, so we're doing them at Annual. And then there's our classic like mockup Saastr logo. This is what we give to attendees. We don't give them all of these things. How we do it is we have a system called Saastr Bucks. Basically when you pick up your badge, you get a Saastr Buck for a denomination of $10. And then if you do different activities, you can earn more. So everybody starts with 10 and like all the items are basically 10. So basically you can pick one item, and then if you do like extra things, then you can pick extra swag items. That's how we do our swag store. This is the swag that's available to attendees in the swag store. As a sponsor, when you register, you do also get Sasterbucks. So if you're like, oh, I've been waiting to get one of these Saster water bottles because my team last year came back with a Saster water bottle, you are not exempt from getting Sasterbucks. So yeah, when you register, they'll give you your Sasterbucks same as everyone else. Which you can redeem in the swag store. As a sponsor, you can still do the other activities that attendees can do to earn more Saastr bucks, which is typically like going on a brain dates or doing some of the networking stuff. So you can do those or more Saastr bucks and get more Saastr swag. If you're like, I really like whatever these plushy things are. So, so yeah, we've got like 3 different t-shirts. The water bottles are always a hit. These are a fave. These are sponsored by Airbase. We, we are adding some bags actually to this. So we are doing a like a, like a drawstring, like kind of swag bag that we're adding to the mix. So if you're thinking of doing like tote bags, we have those as well. They're just not pictured here. We're doing socks. I know a lot of people like the socks. Those are like different sponsors do the socks. That like big hexagon thing that's on the right is like a stress ball, but in the shape of the Sastre logo. It's sometimes you get a little stressful on site. So then, yeah. Anyway, um, the two left, kind of like Hexies as we call them, which is sort of our unofficial mascot, um, the top one is a plush, so he's just like a fun plushy thing. Um, the bottom one is actually a dog toy version of the plushie, so for all you pet parents, um, it has a squeaker inside which will either drive you crazy for a couple days until your dog breaks it— like mine probably would— but, um, it's a fun kind of sashabang thing which you know, your dog can use. And then if it inevitably— when it inevitably breaks, you will have had a good time, and he'll know that they thought— you thought of your pet while you're in Zoom. Um, yeah, that's, that's our swag, so that you have an understanding of what we're giving away to attendees. So then different swag ideas, and then Brian, um, will chime in as well. Um, so this loving giraffe that's on the left-hand side— this girl does not work for Giraffe, which is why I chose Koto. Um, I forgot, she was a part of like another sponsoring— I'm sorry if you're on this webinar and I forgot your name. But, um, these giraffes that Giraffe did were everywhere. Yeah, everywhere. They're in a bunch of photos, like a bunch of our photos. Like, we can't get rid of them.

At one point, Cash Cash had one on stage with them last year.

Yeah, our big party band had a giraffe on stage and they were like, okay. Yeah, yeah. Um, It's just a thought provoker of like, I'm not saying everyone should go into a plushie of whatever mascot or animal you may have in the wilderness of your company. It's just a— it's just an idea to do something that is unique for Giraffe, right? It sounds like giraffe. So Giraffe, it's part of their logo. These were everywhere. People were looking for these giraffes. So it's kind of a fun thing that they did. We kind of do something similar with our Hexy mascot who roams around the campus and is obviously on some of our swag and a lot of our signage. So it's just a thought of like, if you're thinking of doing swag, obviously unique is good because it'll be unique to your brand. People do multiple things, right? It doesn't have to be apparel. I think a lot of times people are like, we're gonna do the shirts, which like, you know, this Expensify one, shirts are great. Their CEO wore it on stage, their booth staff had it, like it was a cool nod. Now they've got like full photos with like their shirts. But everyone does shirts. So like the more unique you can be, the better. It does not need to be a payroll, right? Like they did these custom branded giraffes, the unicorn that I have in the second photo. Like Microsoft brought little versions of like this unicorn costume that they had that they were giving away. So like, again, something unique that's more for you that people are like, oh, okay, like this is something I would only get from you tends to have more longevity of swag. I also threw in a photo of what Calendly did for some of like our VIPs. They did these really cool duffel bags. They did the water bottles. They did sunglasses, which a bunch of people, a lot of the speakers actually used. And then like these cool like campfire mugs, which again, like campfire mugs are great because they're not gonna break on people's way back. Like when, if you're thinking of doing a mug, campfire mugs like those are great because they're like aluminum. So they're not gonna, they're not glass. They're not gonna break in someone's bag on the way back. Like it's a nice-to-have mug. Obviously, people use the mugs when they're on other meetings, like just thinking of swag that maybe has a little bit more longevity than like, okay, I'm gonna get people a t-shirt and like they're gonna maybe use it on their Peloton, or maybe they're gonna use it when they run errands on Saturday. And that's sort of it. Like, not to say that we don't do shirts, and obviously I just showed you guys our shirts, and like people really love rocking the Zaster logo. People love rocking shirts that, you know, are not just like a logo, but like something that says like a tagline. I know Brian has a bunch of like Salesloft shirts that he's constantly in on tester calls. So yeah, like doing something that's maybe a play or throw and making it more unique of like a tagline or something so that people don't, you know, just take your swag and then not need it after the show when they get home and they're like, well, I actually didn't need this. Thinking about something that will have more of a shelf life, if you will.

I mean, I do wear my fair share of—

Shockingly, you're not wearing one today.

I wear my fair share of swag, I will say. I mean, I don't know how it fits in anyone's plans, but I'm a medium. But that said, so we have— we get a lot of really cool, like, creative minds that you all have on your teams that ask us questions that are awesome. And And like everything from mascots to breakdancers to— I've seen it all. And as long as you're incorporating it into something, the middle picture is actually of a breakdancer Microsoft had a part of their activation last year.

They had— Yeah, as part of their unicorn.

Yeah. They asked permission and they were like, can we do this? But their swag item that they gave out were stuffed unicorns, like large oversized stuffed unicorns.

Yeah.

Like, so it mapped in, right? I think that is if you're making the ask and you're, You know, it's okay to take a slight risk so long as we're involved in it, please. But yes, swag, swag can make or break your show because if you have great swag, you'll attract great eyes and attention and you want to be that booth.

So yeah.

So we have a little list here of swag ideas. Again, just so you're all on the same page, this is live streamed and on YouTube. You can play this back and stop the call, the recording here and use this list. As like, you know, brainstorming list.

You can. Yeah, I think to our point, again, anything unique and custom branded to you has a bit like it goes a little bit more viral on site, I will say, amongst attendees. Like other people will obviously see that and be like, where did you get that? And they will flock to your booth. I've seen people do like raffles at their booth of like, you know, come back at 2 o'clock, here's your ticket, we're gonna raffle off AirPods. We're gonna raffle off an Airbnb gift card, a trip to Hawaii, a trip to your headquarters. Well, maybe not a trip to your headquarters, but a Peloton.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, um, it's doable. Actually, the Peloton raffle, for those that haven't thought of doing that yet, it's probably a solid one because you can ship it anywhere in the world. You don't have to have it on site.

So, um, sorry, we're big Peloton fans, clearly. We'll shut up now. Um, wait, go back real quick. Sorry, so yeah, anything unique, custom branded, like again, if you're like, dude, I don't have time to get something unique and custom branded, fabricated, yes, to Brian's point, we've seen people do like kind of big ticket raffles. We've seen people do like kind of spin to wins in their booth. We've seen them do like different tickets or different activities, like take a meeting and get XYZ big thing. So yeah, anything unique obviously can create a little bit of like virality, as you've seen in the photos I just showed you. So giraffes are everywhere. Um, South Street Annual is just— that's a reminder in general— South Street Annual is both outdoor and indoor. Um, so for those who are new here, it is outside and inside. So, um, some of the things people did last year that were super popular on site were like things that are layerable or for the outside, right? Like sunglasses, an umbrella for the sun. Um, I think I saw people do like Frisbees and like beach balls and, um, like Again, a lot of like visors, hats. Hats went really fast last year, especially like the really cool like tagline caps. Like, I think they were gone day one. It is Bay Area, so don't forget, like sometimes in the mornings it starts really cold and then gets pretty warm by the time it's 2 o'clock. So, you know, layers, all that stuff works. Non-fragile items. So again, don't do like a glass mug. It'll break. You, if you do a glass mug, I've seen people do it like in a box. Just know that like that is bulky for people to take home, and like there are a lot of sponsors. We have a big expo hall. There's after swag. There's a lot of swag happening. So be mindful a little bit of people's, how much space you're taking up in their life with your swag. It cannot be food related unless you already otherwise have permission from us. So there are a bunch of people doing food related giveaways. Who've gone through us. But if you haven't yet, it's— So what I mean by non-food related is like, you can't just like bring in your own caterer and be like, I'm gonna give everyone a sandwich. That's not allowed for a lot of health. So don't do that. If it's handheld, my simple rule is like, if you can hold it in your hand, if it's like, you know, those branded M&M bags that they, they wrap, they ship. It's like, you know, self-contained, especially because with still, you know, coming out of the COVID era, personal, like individually wrapped small things handheld in the shape of your hand is fine. I've seen people do like the branded like Sugarfino like bento boxes. Those are fine. Those you can hold. That's not like a food that you're serving out to people. So that's what I mean by non-food related there. Some sponsors throughout the years have remembered the fact that everyone does get a badge and a lanyard. So if you want to get people to put something on their badge, put something on their lanyard, spice it up somehow. Everyone does get one. So it is something sponsors have thought about and some people have played with that. You can make an activation. Again, just ask us if there is space within your booth to do something like this. I think some of you are already doing this. I think I have someone bringing like a custom like airbrushed hat thing, which is kind of cool because again, the hats went fast.

I'll probably do that booth at some point. Yep.

Yeah, probably. Last year, one of the folks brought like a t-shirt press so they could do— I think it was Silhouette Studio— a t-shirt like on demand with whatever you chose, which was fun because it was interactive, right? Making an activation. I've seen people do money machines where it's like different swag items. So like when they pick the money, it's like, that's what you win. Quantities and size. Yeah, go ahead.

The new hot thing in hats, by the way, I'm a hat guy. The new hot thing in hats is melon, the melon hat. And that's M-E-L-I-N. They're actually nice. They're like $100 hats. Like, these are nice hats, but they're really— they're waterproof, they float. They're like, if you're an outdoors person, this is a type of hat. Uh, they make a winter version. I'm just putting it out there.

Um, on the subject of hats, I'm gonna say there were not enough bucket hats last year's Astral Annual, and you all know that's a vibe. So bucket hats, I'm here for it. Um, Quantities and sizes. We've gotten a lot of questions about this. So quantities and sizes, and then we'll go through it with the rest, and then we'll get to shipping. And listen, not everyone can do 1,000 big ticket items because it will bust their marketing budget, um, at fast or annual. Obviously work within your budget. There are different things you can do, um, to, you know, limit the quantity that you want to bring for VIP items. If you do something that is apparel, recommend doing all sizes across the board. We try and like at SASSR, like all of our swag is more unisex so that, you know, any gender, etc. So we can't give you the perfect quantity to bring to Annual. I will say there are some sponsors who have run out when they're at Annual. There are some sponsors who have a lot to ship back. It just depends on what you're trying to do with it and how you're giving it away. So like if you're doing more of a raffle and like, you know what times you're going to do it, then you probably know your quantities that you need. If you're doing more of like smaller branded items, like sunglasses and hats, you could probably bring anywhere between 500 or less of those. If you want to bring more, obviously you can. But again, keep in mind, like other, other people are doing swag. If you think it's gonna go really viral, then great. Also keep in mind, like you are gonna have to manage the swag at your booth. Like getting the initial shipment, getting the boxes, restocking with Freeman. Like the more swag you have, the harder it's kind of— it is to manage your own kind of mini swag at your booth. And so yeah, keep all that in mind once you're ordering swag, because I know a lot of you are ordering this week, and thus it was one of the top topics we want to go over. Again, think about, think about what the use of your swag is post-event. Is it thought-provoking? Is it a keepsake? Is it funny? Is it a utility? Are people going to use it? I've started to see people do like branded AirTags. I love a good AirTag. Like those are, those are helpful. And those are maybe the cheapest Apple product you can get branded. VIP items, you know, I always think it's good to have a mix of like items that you're fine giving away to anyone and items that you want to maybe keep for customers. Prospects you've been talking to, etc., to vary up your swag so that you have something that's just for them. And don't forget your fellow sponsors. I've seen other companies do this really well over the years of like they've gifted their fellow sponsors like something unique. Yeah, and then yeah, so go forward one to shipping. Let's see. So there's a few questions here on shipping. This is in the exhibitor services kit that we sent you all. I know it's really long. It's in there. I'm also gonna drop a link. Hold on real quick. I'm gonna drop a link to the Exhibitor Services Kit in the chat right now so that if you're like, I can't find it, Amelia, hold on, I'm gonna link it to you right now. Hold on. I know it's 100 pages. I'm sorry, but it is all— it is something you should read. You don't have to memorize it, but I do think you need to read it and review it because there's a lot, a lot of helpful information in there. So without further ado, The exhibitor services kit is in the chat if you can't find it, or if you want to bookmark it for later. Exhibitor services kit. Okay, there's a lot in that kit. We'll go over a lot of it more next week. In the meantime, I did want to pull out the shipping instructions. So there are 2 different instructions here. It depends on when you ship your swag, your uniform, whatever you want to ship to your booth. It doesn't have to just be your swag. It can be like I don't know. I bought this really cute prop that I'm gonna like put on my counter. It's extra annual, whatever you're shipping. So it really depends on when you can get it to Sastre and Freeman. So if you can ship it before Tuesday, August— Tuesday, sorry, Tuesday, September 6th. I said that wrong, looking at 2 different dates. If you could ship it before Tuesday, September 6th, which is the week before event, you're gonna ship it to that warehouse address that is at the top right there. So you ship it to that above address, make sure it gets there before Tuesday, September 6th. You have about a month to do this, so you can basically start shipping now because they're going to start receiving them next Friday. So you can start creating your labels now, getting it all set up. So next Friday is the earliest that they'll receive at the warehouse, and then Tuesday the 6th is the latest that they'll receive at the warehouse. If you know you're gonna get a shipment from your supplier and then immediately ship it to Freeman and you can't get it there by Tuesday the 6th, then it needs to go directly to the San Mateo County Event Center. So that address is right here on the bottom. So if you can't make it by the 6th, or if it says like the 6th at like 10 PM, they're not gonna receive it at the warehouse. Um, it actually says on there it needs to be by 3:30. So, um, if you cannot make it by Tuesday, September 6th at 3:30 to the Freeman Warehouse, then you do need to ship it to San Mateo directly, this is the address to ship it to. So if you ship it there, put your booth number. At the very least, put your company name on it. If it doesn't have those things, trust me, we have— we as a team have had to open boxes to see what it is. If it says you're local on the apparel, most of the times you can figure out. Sometimes we've been like, we don't know who this is. So, um, make sure it says your name. If you're shipping it from your office and like you've already gotten it back from your vendor, Stick an extra slip inside the box. It's always a good idea to be like, this is Expensify, we're at this booth number, this is ours, this is my contact, this is my phone number. That's always a good idea to put like a base shipping label inside the box, not just on top of it, so that we know who it gets to in case something gets scratched during the shipment. Okay, last but certainly not least, and then we'll do questions. Um, keep the questions coming.

I know Brian's trying to answer them and I'm plowing through the ones that are covered. I've answered. There's a few more to answer that we'll answer as a group.

OK. So yeah, keep them coming. We'll do it right after this. So last but not least, Braid Dates are launching at the end of this week into next week. So for those who are unfamiliar, Braid Dates is one of our main networking platforms at SAS Re:Invent. What is a Braid Date, Amelia? So a Braid Date is a way to meet and learn from new people who have different interests, challenges, and experiences from you. It's very topic-driven in Brain Dates versus like person-driven. So that's a little bit of a difference there. And if you're thinking about Brain Dates versus like more of a speed networking thing, so it is more topic-driven focus there. It is, it's a tool, but it's just, you know, it's a tool that we, and a platform that we happen to use to help attendees and sponsors meet one another and facilitate a conversation around a topic versus just like, I'm a marketer, Brian's a salesperson, it'd be like, let's talk about sales and marketing alignment. So it's more topic-focused. Okay, so what are, what are the formats of Brain Dates? So Brain Dates are part of our, like I said, mentoring and networking platforms here at SaaStr. They're usually 30 minutes unless you're part of something called a Super Brain Date, which I'll get to in a second. Basically, once we launch Brain Dates, you'll see that there are different sizes of Brain Dates, but they each have the same goal at the end of the day, which is to help you learn from other people, make new connections, and meet up in person. Obviously, meeting up in person is super helpful these days since we've all been on Zoom a lot. We're on Zoom right now. And you can meet around a shared topic of interest. It can be something like you're trying to solve a challenge or You just did this crazy cool email campaign and you wanna share it with other people in case it helps them. Anything like that is all cool. And you can meet— it's a great way to meet your fellow attendees, your fellow sponsors while you're at FASTR Annual. We just did Europa. We did, I think, 600 of these in 2 days. So you can imagine with a bigger footprint at FASTR Annual and more attendees, we're gonna do maybe even over 2,000 of these during the course of the 3 days. So they are super popular and we do encourage people to register beforehand for them, which we'll get to in a second. But at the end of the day, like I said, all the bridges have the same goal. They really just have different sizes. And when people ask us for recommendations, I'm like, oh hey, should I join a group? Should I join a one-on-one? I would actually say join both. You get different experiences, right? When you're in a small group setting, sometimes it helps to be in a small group, which is the one-on-four. So that if you've got like a different topic of interest, different people can like chime in and you'll get different ideas from the group. The Super Brain Dates, which are like more of the 1-on-20, are curated by Saastr. So that's more of like a small group present, like intimate presentation, if you will, of like you're going to be able to ask that speaker a bunch of questions. It's more of like an interactive session in a Super Brain Date versus a group discussion. And then the one-on-ones are the default. So that'd be one-on-one. So Brian and I right now are a one-on-one. Webinar, we would be a one-on-one Brain Date that is just literally one host and then one participant. If you're like, you know, you're like, what is Brain Dates? I still don't get it. There is a video we linked here that you can watch that gives like a handy-dandy, like, 60-second overview because I don't— anyway. So where are Brain Dates? We've gotten this question a bit too. So Brain Dates are actually within the sponsor Hall. So you guys are all in the sponsor hall as sponsors, so that is that big C section on the east side of the map. Listen, this map is not to scale. It's huge. It's huge. It's a big space. Maybe— I don't— Brian, you might have to refresh a bit because there's a few slides after this.

Okay, hold on.

I will.

Let me see if I can do that real quick.

But Brand Days are in the sponsor hall. People can sign up on site. We're gonna show you in a second how to sign up beforehand. People do a mix just in past after events. As a sponsor, I do recommend signing up pre because it's a little bit easier. Okay, yeah, so this is great. So this is like a zoomed-in version of the map you just saw of like just zoomed in on the sponsor hall itself. So you can see where all the booths are and where sponsors have started to pick their booths. And then Brain Dates are on that kind of lower right quadrant, if you will. And both— all the, all the Brain Dates are there. So no matter the size, all the Brain Dates are there. The Brain Date team will be on site to help us facilitate the networking. You'll basically check in with them 10 to 15 minutes before your topic and then meet your group. So yeah, it's super cool. It's kind of in the middle of everything. So yeah, it definitely helps with traffic flow. If you have not yet picked your booth, there's a reason why the booths by Brain Date are now almost gone. And that's because the networking is super popular. It is, it's going to be a really high-traffic area there. And yeah, that's where Brain Dates are. So if you have a Brain Date on site, or if you want to sign up for one, it's within the sponsor hall and on your way to Stage A, basically. Just remember that. And then last but not least, just for those who haven't done a Brain Date before, once we open up what we call the Brain Date, like, marketplace, I just took a screenshot of the Europa one. This is what it's going to look like. So there are two ways you'll be able to participate in Brain Dates. The first is this way where you come into the marketplace, you'll be able to join a Brain Date. So if I'm like, okay, I'm just looking for other marketers, I don't feel like posting my own topic, I could just join an existing Brain Date and pick a time. So that is what this is on the marketplace. Um, new topic would be if I wanted to say, hey, I really want to have a group discussion around The best email marketing trends of 2022. I could throw up a group topic and let other people join me. So either you join a Brain Date or other people join you on Brain Date. So there is a limit to how many topics you can create just so that people don't spam one another. So do keep that in mind if you are creating your own topic. Other questions we've gotten around Brain Dates, like how, how does it fill up? How do I know how I'm doing? Again, I would say don't create more than 1 or 2 topics to begin with. If they fill, then you can think about creating more. There are other things going on. It's after annual. So we, you know, balance that out in your schedule how you will. But don't create more than a couple topics at once. One, because there's a limit. Two, because the more topics you have, the less it— the less persistent it'll be in like that in their algorithm. So like if you just have one or two really cool topics that you're like, I want to see, you know, again, best email market, whatever your topic of interest is. I'm just using the best email marketing trends of 2022 as an example. Um, you could see who joins your Brain Date. Um, from there, we do promote Brain Dates quite heavily. A lot of people do join last minute, so keep that in mind. If you're like, there's one person in my group Brain Date, like, I'm not sure if I should just cancel it because it's not gonna fill or switch it to a one-on-one, keep in mind a bunch of people on site sign up for Brain Dates because They don't do it beforehand. So, so that is Braindate.

We're going, we're going into questions because we're running tight on time. Yeah. All right. Okay. So we'll, we're gonna, we're gonna answer these questions. We're gonna try to keep it somewhat brief so we can, we can get through all of them. There's a lot of questions in this thing. So we'll, we'll start where we just were and work backwards. Can anyone set up a Super Braindate?

No. Oh, good question. No, but if you have a proposed topic for a Super Brain Date. Um, this is the only place where there is content, if you will, um, that we could potentially slot in. So, um, email me.

Very different from a regular Brain Date.

Very email.

Very regular Brain Date.

Yeah, they're separate.

I don't want to describe it. Yeah, yeah. Super Brain Dates and Brain Dates— one is a mentored session by, you know, a specific brand. One is something that— a topic that you came up with. So Super Brain Dates, very different. This person said about a Super Brain Date, if you have a topic or you are interested in leading a Super Brain Date, what should the process be there?

Yes. So if you are interested in leading a Super Brain Date, it is not completely off the table yet. We have like, I think, 3 slots, but there are more than 50 of you watching this. So no promises, but if you have a speaker and topic, email it to me. I'm ai@sasrank.com. That is my real email. It's not artificial. It's my initials. So ai@saastrink.com. Email me your topic. I'll give you a quick yes or no. Please don't be offended if I say no. Again, there's more than 50 of you on this who I'm sure are thinking of topics and only 3 slots.

Do topics have to be submitted for approval on Brain Dates, the regular Brain Dates?

On a regular Brain Date, they don't. However, it is limited. So keep that in mind too. If it is Promotional, like learn how to buy Salesforce, we will take it down. We is in our discretion. We really haven't had too many of those, but there have been a few over the years of like super spammy topics we will take down. So there's not an overall restriction, but just know that like we do read each and every single Braindate topic. So if it's a commercial, we're gonna take it down.

How do we access this Braindate marketplace, Amelia?

Oh, great question. So if you're registered, you'll get it in your attendee newsletter the minute it launches. If you're not registered, we will send you— well, actually, if you're not registered, you can't get into Brain Date. I take that back. I take that back, actually. So this is why you should register your team, because they use our attendee list to give people access to Brain Dates. So if you're not registered, you can't Brain Date. So register at least one person so that one of you can get into Brain Dates.

Um, the sponsor logo, uh, is there limitations in using it and can we promote with it? Um, for instance, we want to apply to our, to our branding. Um, are there limitations? Okay, cool. And can we use it as a signature watermark into our social media comms?

You can, yeah. We don't— go forth and promote.

Go forth and promote. Um, is there any, any info on parking you can share, location, cost, etc.? I do think we covered this one last week.

Uh, we did. I'll have more for you guys next week on that, um, with like shuttles and all that stuff. Just because we're running out of time, we'll do like a full campus map review, um, some more on that next week. But just as a quick answer on shuttles, there is a shuttle to and from Crown Plaza multiple times of the day. If you're not there, then you will need to plan like rideshare for to and from the hotels. Um, parking, there will be plenty of parking on site. We're just working through if there will be a cost.

Um, so how do I register my team? What is the site? We're gonna go backwards here. Yeah, on this, we, we did catch it just in case you, uh, joined late. It is— here is the link, okay? Uh, sasrano2022.com, buy tickets. You should have a sponsor code that was emailed to you, so please look into your email. Um, you do have a code for your sponsor tickets, and that will be the way in which you do that. Um, can we register a few people now and add to the list later?

You can, but you still need to do it by Wednesday, August 17th.

Yes, please.

Especially if you do want access to Raid Dates the moment it launches, you got to do it today, basically.

Um, can you remind us when our team should arrive to set up on the 12th or 13th?

Yes, great question. Let me pull it up. Hold on, um, if you want to stop sharing, Brian. I will— give me one second while I pull, while I pull up the schedule. What's the next question?

Um, will attendees get a confirmation directly from SaaStr when their registration is processed?

Yes, they will. So if you guys are inviting your customers, they will get a congratulations, you're in, um, ticket confirmation. It will have their ticket number, it'll have their company name on it. Um, so yeah, that will all be there in their That will all be there in there. They'll get a ticket, they'll get an email.

This live stream is listed as unlisted on YouTube. Um, okay, so maybe first and foremost, uh, if you want to, if you want to copy the live stream link on YouTube, you can. But additionally, we're going to post this to YouTube at the end of this. So yes, we have a recording going. This is being recorded. We will post it. It'll be its own post on our YouTube page as well.

Yeah. It will be there in a second. We usually do it unlisted during, just in case it's glitched sometimes. So then if we need to swap it for the Zoom, we will, but we will move it to published right after. Okay, so event agenda. Let me go full screen here. Great. We will go over more of a deep dive of this next week, but just, you know, if you're booking travel this week, you can actually begin loading in and registering your team starting Sunday the 11th. So that is the first time it is available to you. Registration will be open, sponsor load-in will be open. It doesn't mean come assemble your booth. Your booth will already be assembled. It's turnkey. You can just show up, make sure everything looks good, get your bearings, start storing your swag, whatever you need, put some plans up, make yourself at home. Um, Monday, which I think is the day many of you will be coming in for load-in because it's the day before, um, sponsor load-in starts at 11. And goes all the way till 6 PM. Registration will also be open at that same time, so you'll be able to come get your badge, go through health and safety, and then make yourselves at home in your booth, get your bearings for Annual. And then Tuesday, I believe this is on the website as part of the full agenda, but just in case you need it, every morning there is about an hour before registration opens that you can come in as a sponsor to get early access to your booth, etc. Usually this is more prevalent on the second and third days of Annual, because you need to spruce up your booth after you've set it all nicely and you've been talking to people all day. So starting Tuesday, which is the first official day of Annual, you can come as early as 7:30. Again, it— you've got about an hour or so until people start showing up to get everything set. Wednesday, 7:00 AM, you can start coming in, refresh your booth, and then it opens to attendees at 8:00. Same thing on Thursday. You can come at 7 AM. Reg and attendees will start coming at 8. So we try and buffer our sponsors with an extra hour before attendees come. That does not mean that some people will not come early. Some people do get really excited to come to Annual in the morning. There's always like some stragglers coming through in the morning, but the core of people will start coming that hour after. So great question.

The Google Drive links you sent need to be— they're saying they don't have access. Amelia.

Oh, well, that's sorry because I did that in real time. All right, there you go.

Get that one done.

I'll update that.

Also, in terms of sharing the link to the deck that we just went over, um, you know, it's going to be— this was all recorded, so it would all be live. You can look at it that way if you want to share that. We can put the link in here, I guess, as well.

Um, yes. Yeah. I will— I mean, you guys want to try and refreshing what I linked. It should work now. Okay, give it a sec, you know, give a second to go through the air.

Only if you guys—

yeah, I'll show the deck while you go through the next.

What info do we need to have on our shipping label again?

Well, if you want to pull that up.

Yeah, you got it.

Link in view. All right. Let me drop in the link to the deck here, guys.

Here is the shipping part sharing.

There you go. Okay, um, yes, you, you need all this stuff. Basically, your company name and booth number is the top line, no matter when you're shipping it. Fast Trade 2022 is the second line. That's the name of our event. And then where shipping is the rest of it. So if you're doing it before September 6th, um, it goes to the Freeman Warehouse. Basically, that's the one in South San Francisco. After September 6th, it's gonna go directly to the San Mateo County Event Center. Their shipping address is San Mateo Expo Center. It's just, it's the same thing as the San Mateo County Event Center. It's 2495 South Delaware. That's the address. That's the address. So yeah, your name at the top and your booth number. Again, good idea to print extra of these and put them inside your box just in case something happens. So we know it's for you with like your name, phone number. Also, don't forget to include a return address. Some people forget that if they're like, I'm just going to give this away at the booth. It still needs a return address.

Can we do COVID testing and assess our premises on the 11th of September?

Yes, you can.

We've made it. We have made it.

Oh, I was like, that was an easy one.

We have made it. The questions— that was the rest of them.

Woo-hoo! Right on, Lori!

All right, look, great questions today. Great, great, great questions today. Ashley, I see your hand raised. If you have a question, you can type it out in the chat here. You can also put it into the Q&A. And then the email to send the Braindate ideas again is ai@sasterinc.com. I'm typing it out here. There you go.

AI. Saster.

Alrighty, everyone. That is, that is a full lid. Thank you very much for joining us this week. This post will be up on YouTube here very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very shortly. Um, if you don't know where to look on YouTube, you go to YouTube, go to Sastre's page, and you will see our live webinars for this. They are there. Um, fantastic, Amelia. Thank you.

Yeah, hold on, before we leave, I'm going to copy the link. I'm going to drop in the chat, so if you guys need to link to the recording from this livestream. There it is right now. So, um, there you have it. You've got the deck, you've got all those links in the chat. If you need anything else, please email sponsorsuccess@saastrinc.com or any of those emails we saw in the beginning with any of us. I'm ai@saastrinc.com, Brian is brian@saastraco.com. If you think of a question later, that's how to reach us. And, uh, if you want to see something on next week's webinar let us know.

Um, I don't dance. Whatever you— I don't dance. If you want to see me dance, I don't dance. Just— I'm putting that out there. Uh, sorry. Um, just fair warning. Okay, everybody, thank you for—

thanks for joining. Thanks for watching.