As businesses remerge from the pandemic-induced lockdown and cautiously reopen offices, corporate leaders are looking to ensure their employees and families are protected from exposure to the virus. One such leader Stephanie Hannah plays a critical role as a VP – Field Marketing at Trace3.
Progressive leaders like Stephanie look at new ways to accelerate strategic Digital and Transformative Marketing Initiatives to ensure future business growth. Stephanie has spent the last 20 years producing media and live events for corporations and television, regularly exceeding expectations with her vision and expertise. Her team is currently responsible for over 150 events a year and an annual events budget of over millions of dollars.
Under Stephanie’s leadership, her team has fostered strong relationships with numerous talented professionals and trusted partners. Her passion for sophistication and style consistently places her on the cutting edge, but her personal touch and drive to overperform sets her and her team apart. Stephanie maintains a big picture philosophy with a focus on the goals and a critical eye on the details. Stephanie executes exceptional meetings and events that achieve business objectives and exceed expectations—all with ease and efficiency.
When Covid-19 hit, Stephanie and her team were able to pivot to a digital strategy in the matter of two weeks. They moved 144 Live events to Virtual Events and a Webinar series, and also created a two-day Virtual Summit to replace their large Evolve Conference in Las Vegas.
Stephanie plays a critical role in Trace3’s go-to-market strategy and has been instrumental in the creation of the company’s brand as it relates to the company’s role in driving innovation and supporting CIOs and their evolving role as decision-makers within a company.
Stephanie leads Trace3’s efforts in creating and executing a series of events throughout the country that feature prospective customers including CIOs and other stakeholders. This includes a series of CIO roundtables, an annual client advisory board meeting, and the company’s annual user event, EVOLVE which features more than 1,000 industry thought leaders, the media, CIOs, and Trace3 employees.
A Smart Marketer
Technology buyers admit that at least 60% of the decision-making process has happened by the time a CIO picks up the phone to contact a vendor in support of the latest initiative, whether it be bolstering security infrastructure, improving analytics capabilities, or accelerating a cloud strategy. Under Stephanie’s leadership, Trace3’s marketing efforts remain focused on the long-term, which means owning the conversation during this initial “60 percent” of the decision-making process, a time when most companies have little to no visibility on overall strategy, or changing technical requirements to drive their evolution.
Stephanie believes the traditional marketing ‘funnel’ is more circular than angular, and sales cycles have become longer and more dynamic, with smart marketers looking for ways to inspire CIOs and their teams about the possibilities of technology, helping them envision what’s possible from a strategic standpoint rather than peddling the latest product. She adds that this has been a core piece of Trace3’s own maturity and evolution and reflecting in its field marketing efforts, positioning the company beyond a traditional VAR and towards a more consulting-led, strategic approach to marketing, sales, and brand building.
The Outlier Award
Stephanie manages the strategy and execution of Trace3’s Outlier Award, which honors CIOs and other technology leaders who consistently deliver innovation and leadership in the field of information technology. Stephanie’s excellent promotional skills have positioned the Outlier Award as an equivalent to the Oscar Awards for IT. The Outlier award process involves soliciting award nominations from leading businesses in the year prior to EVOLVE, and then sorting through and selecting a list of finalists with the help of an independent judging committee.
Notably, Stephanie has worked with a number of top executives in the process, including CIOs and IT leaders from GE Digital, Renown Health, The San Francisco Giants, DIRECTV, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, the Miami Heat, and Broadcom.
These events play a key role in helping companies embrace technology. This tactic has disrupted the way the typical client engagement happens among ValueAdded Resellers (VARs) in Trace3’s industry by taking a thoughtful, consultative, long-lead and top-down approach to cultivating business with experiential events and advice, rather than relying on lower margin, volume-based sales – a model that continues to define many VARs today.
Stephanie also manages the strategy and execution of Trace3’s annual EVOLVE conference, which in 2019 had more than 1,000 attendees, including top CIOs and IT leaders. She manages Trace3’s Outlier award program, including submissions, judging, and awards at the event.