Corporate Marketing at GitLab

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Welcome to the Corporate Marketing Handbook

The Corporate Marketing team includes Corporate Events, Corporate Communications (PR, Executive Communications, and Social Media), All-Remote Marketing, and the Community Team. Corporate Marketing is ultimately responsible for creating awareness and driving top of funnel interest in GitLab. We do this by driving conversations in the communications channels that accelerate our objectives, and by developing an integrated communication strategy that is executed globally.

On this page

• How We Work
  • Project Management
• Brand personality
• Brand Message
• Tone of voice (TOV)
  • About
    • GitLab the community
    • GitLab the company
    • GitLab the product
• Design
• Speakers
• Corporate Events
  • Mission Statement
  • What does the corporate Events team handle?
• How We Evaluate and Build Potential Events
• Questions we ask ourselves when assessing an event:
  • For Corporate Marketing - Event Scorecard
  • Corporate Events Strategy / Goals
• Meet the Corporate Events team
  • GitLab Commit User Conferences
  • RFP Process
  • Event Execution
  • Best Practices on site at a GitLab event
• Accessibility at GitLab Hosted Events
  • In advance of the event, we promise that we will take into account the following:
  • Communicating Accessibility
  • For speakers
  • Coming soon
• Swag/ Merchandise Handling
• All-Remote Marketing
• Corporate Communications (Public Relations, Social Media and Internal Communications)
  • Social Marketing and Social Media

How We Work

Project Management

There is an initiative underway to simplify Project Management across all of Marketing.

In the meantime, we have implemented a few practices to help us get organized:

• Add weekly milestones to issues based on the week you expect to work on the issue (format is Fri: Apr 17, 2020)
• Move issues forward into future milestones, or place them in the backlog milestone if they're no longer planned
• We close out the week's milestone each week, and issues will be moved forward if they are not closed out
• You can use labels however you like, they are a tool for you and your team to filter/sort issues

Brand personality

GitLab's brand has a personality that is reflected in everything we do. It doesn't matter if we are hosting a fancy dinner with fortune 500 CIOs, at a hackathon, or telling our story on about.gitlab.com…across all our communication methods, and all our audiences, GitLab has a personality that shows up in how we communicate.

Our personality is built around four main characteristics.

1. Human: We write like we talk. We avoid buzzwords and jargon, and instead communicate simply, clearly, and sincerely. We treat people with kindness.
2. Competent: We are highly accomplished, and we communicate with conviction. We are efficient at everything we do.
3. Quirky: We embrace diversity of opinion. We embrace new ideas based on their merit, even if they defy commonly held norms.
4. Humble: We care about helping those around us achieve great things more than we care about our personal accomplishments.

These four characteristics work together to form a personality that is authentic to GitLab team-members, community, and relatable to our audience. If we were quirky without being human we could come across as eccentric. If we were competent without being humble we could come across as arrogant.

GitLab has a higher purpose. We want to inspire a sense of adventure in those around us so that they join us in contributing to making that mission a reality.

Brand Message

At GitLab we believe we believe EVERYONE CAN CONTRIBUTE. This is the story of how we Iterate Faster and Innovate Together. How we succeed together. How the Open DevOps Platform enables digital transformation.

Tone of voice (TOV)

The following guide outlines the set of standards used for all written company communications to ensure consistency in voice, style, and personality, across all of GitLab's public communications.

The tone of voice we use when speaking as GitLab should always be informed by our mission & vision. We use inclusive, gender-neutral language. Most importantly, we see our audience as co-conspirators, working together to define and create the next generation of software development practices. The below presentation should help to clarify further:

Watch a walkthrough of the TOV project and guidelines - GitLab's Tone-of-voice: Seat at the Table

See the Blog Editorial Style Guide for more.

About

GitLab the community

GitLab is an open source project with a large community of contributors. Over 3,000 people worldwide have contributed to GitLab's source code.

GitLab the company

GitLab Inc. is a company based on the GitLab open source project. GitLab Inc. is an active participant in our community (see our stewardship of GitLab CE for more information), as well as offering GitLab, a product (see below).

GitLab the product

GitLab is a complete DevOps platform, delivered as a single application. See the product elevator pitch for additional messaging.

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Design

Read more about our Brand Guidelines in the Brand Activation.

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Speakers

For resources for GitLab team members who are planning on attending events or speaking at conferences, see Speaker Resources. To join the GitLab Speakers Bureau, see the Developer Evangelist page on the Speakers Bureau.

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Corporate Events

Mission Statement

• The mission of the Corporate Events Team is to:
  • Showcase the value and strengths of GitLab on all fronts
  • Deliver creative solutions to problems
  • Provide exceptional service
  • Build lasting and trusting vendor and internal relationships

What does the corporate Events team handle?

• Sponsored events (events with global audience of 5000+ attendees for NA, 3000+ for other territories (50% or more of audience is national or global). There are some exceptions. There are handful smaller events that we handle due to the nature of the audience, product specific, and the awareness and thought leadership positions we are trying to build out as a company). The primary goal is always driving brand awareness but that cannot be the only result.
• Owned events
  • GitLab Commit, our User Conference
  • GitLab Culture Open House Events- by invite only
• Internal events (Contribute-sized events)
  • GitLab Contribute, our internal company and core community event
  • We also serve as DRI for all internal Sales events- SKOs, Force Management planning, Rewards Travel, SQS, QBRs. Must be above 25 people attending for corp events involvement. Please review our events decision tree to ensure Corporate Marketing is the appropriate owner for an event. If it is not clear who should own an event based on the decision tree, please email events@gitlab.com.
• Speaker management and session production for internal and external GitLab speakers. This includes management of the GitLab-owned call for proposal (CFP) process, agenda-building sessions, coordinating speaker communications, and establishing work-back and event-day run of show schedules.

How We Evaluate and Build Potential Events

All GitLab events must check at least drive two or more of the aims of our events below to be considered.

• Brand awareness- we want to be a household name by 2020!
• Build community
• Gain contributors
• Thought leadership
• Help with hiring
• Gather new relevant leads/ drive ROI
• Educate possible buyers or users on our product or features
• Marketplace positioning
• Partnerships/ Alliances

Corporate events must also meet:

• Audience minimum requirement of 5000+ attendees NA, 3,000+ EMEA, 1500+ other territories and…
• Audience demographic requirements. We consider the balance of roles represented (contributor, user, customer, potential hires), and the Global reach of the audience. Audience profile must be over 50% national/ global.

Questions we ask ourselves when assessing an event:

• How and where will this position us as a brand?
• Does this event drive business goals forward in the next quarter? Year?
• Is the event important for the industry, thought leadership, or brand visibility? We give preference to events that influence trends and attract leaders and decision makers. We also prioritize events organized by our strategic partners.
• Will there be a GitLab speaker? We do not require a speaker slot in return for sponsorship but we do prioritize events where the audience will be hearing about GitLab - either from a GitLab team-member or a member of the wider GitLab community.
• What type of people will be attending the event? We prefer events attended by diverse groups of decision makers with an interest in DevOps, DevSecOps, Cloud Native, Kubernetes, Serverless, Multi-cloud, CI/CD, Open Source, and other related topics.
• Will we be able to interact with attendees? We stress events that provide opportunities for meetings, workshops, booth and/or stands to help people find us, as well as create other interactions with attendees.
• Where will the event be held? We aim to have a presence at events around the globe with a particular focus on areas with large GitLab communities and large populations of support.
• What is the size of the opportunity for the event? We prioritize events based their potential reach (audience size, the number of interactions we have with attendees) and potential for ROI (also account for cycyle time).
• What story do we have to tell here and how does the event fit into our overall company strategy, goals, and product direction?
• Do we have the bandwidth and resources to make this activity a success? Do we have the cycles, funds, collateral and runway to invest fully and make the event as successful as possible? Event must be weighed against other current activity in region and department.

Suggested events will be subject to a valuation calculation - will it meet or exceed objectives listed above?

For Corporate Marketing - Event Scorecard

Each question above is graded on a scale of 0-2. We then tally the scores and assign the event to a sponsorship tier.

• Events scoring below 8 are not eligible for corporate sponsorship or financial support.
• Events scoring 10+ are given top priority for staffing, and resources.

Criteria / Score	0	1	2
Thought Leadership
Audience type
Attendee interaction
Location and Timing
Event Relevance/ Strategy
Brand Reach
Opportunity size/ Potential ROI

We ask these questions and use this scorecard to ensure that we're prioritizing the GitLab's brand and our community's best interests when we sponsor events.

Corporate Events Strategy / Goals

• Brand
  • For Sponsored Events: Get the GitLab brand in front of 15% of the event audience. 40,000 person event we would hope to get 4,000+ leads (10%) and 5% general awareness and visibility with additional branding and activities surrounding participation.
  • Human touches- Tracked by leads collected, social interactions, number of opportunities created, referrals, current customers met, and quality time spent on each interaction.
  • Audience Minimum Requirements- volume, relevance (our buyer persona, thought leaders, contributors), reach (thought leaders?), and duration of user/ buyer journey considered.
• ROI
  • Work closely with demand gen campaigns and field marketing to ensure events are driving results and touching the right audience.
  • Exceed minimum threshold of ROI for any events that also have a demand gen or field component- 5 to 1 pipe to spend within a 1-year horizon.
  • Aim to keep the cost per lead for a live event around $100.
  • ROI Calculator we aim to make 5x ROI on pipeline focused events but this can be used to estimate what return we might get on an event.
• Thought Leadership and Education

Meet the Corporate Events team

Meet the Corporate Events team

Emily Kyle

• Title: Manager, Corporate Events and Brand
• GitLab handle: @emily
• Slack handle: @emily

Lauren Conway

• Title: Senior Corporate Events Manager
• GitLab handle: @lconway
• Slack handle: @Lauren Conway

Emily Chin

• Title: Corporate Events Production Manager
• GitLab handle: @echin
• Slack handle: @emilybchin

Teagan Shurtleff

• Title: Corporate Events Manager
• GitLab handle: @tshurtleff
• Slack handle: @Teagan Shurtleff

GitLab Commit User Conferences

• Commit Virtual 2021- Planning Epic
• Goal Call for proposals (CFP) and agenda-setting process:
  • 9+ months pre-event: Open an internal call for track issue (GitLab team members)
  • 7+ months pre-event: Select Commit track(s)
  • 6+ months pre-event: Open a public call for proposals (CFP) form and invite contributions
    • Track manager trainings and establishment of deadlines and workflows
  • 5+ months pre-event: Convene the CFP selection committee
  • 4+ months pre-event: Early session acceptances begin
  • 3+ months pre-event: CFP closes; Next round of acceptances sent
  • 2+ months pre-event: Final acceptances sent; sponsorships close
    • Any submissions not selected are thanked and – should the proposal be a potential fit for a future event – invited to stay in touch for participation at a later date
    • Draft agenda is reviewed by stakeholders for strength and diversity of content and speakers
  • 1+ month pre-event: Agenda is final and publishable
• GitLab's event experience is unique for speakers in the hands-on approach that the Corporate Events team takes to ensure that speakers feel supported and prepared. A typical Commit speaker experience will include:
  • Access to a speaker page with all relevant deadlines, resources, and contact information
  • One-on-one access to a presentation support team, including the session track manager and production manager
  • Dedicated working document or email thread between the speaker, track manager, and production manager to work through final session title, description, and slide content
  • 2-3 Zoom meetings to discuss session flow and practice for timing, pace, and polish
  • Weekly communication and updates
  • Optional training and slide creation support
• Commit Virtual for GitLab team members:
  • We need support the day of the event with such tasks as chat moderator, booth staffing, social monitoring support…
• Onsite at Commit for GitLab team members:
  • You will be assigned one or multiple onsite tasks. It is critical you show up for your set duty and communicate any changes in your plans. Clean your schedule on the day of the event, as it will be a full day commitment.
    • Tasks include:
      • Track Scanning- it is essential you show up and stay for this if you are assigned. Our partners have paid to get leads form their talks and it is our promise to provide said leads. All talk attendees must be scanned for this purpose.
      • Check in Support
      • Swag table
      • Questions/ help desk
      • Booth Duty (Hiring, UX, Support, Security, Demo..) - do not leave the booth unstaffed. We have back up. Ask for help on coverage if you need it.
  • Dress code: casual to business casual. Wear what you feel comfortable in. No open toed shoes for safety reasons.
  • Team Travel
    • Team members may come in the day before the event and stay the night of the event. No additional days will be covered unless you have arranged a special circumstance with the Commit planning team.
    • We can only provide Visa support for speakers and external attendees for this event series.
    • If you live within 60 miles of the event you will be asked to commute to the event unless you have a specific arrangement with the Commit planning team.

RFP Process

• See finance handbook for when you need to go through RFP process
• Use RFP Templates for uniform evaluation of vendors
  • Questionnaire to send to vendors bidding
  • DMC RFP Template
  • Questions on using the templates ask them in the corporate-events-team Slack channel.

Event Execution

For event execution instructions, please see the Marketing Events page for detail instruction and the criteria used to determine what type of events are supported.

For both GitLab-owned and external events, speakers and content DRIs should build in steps for legal approvals from necessary parties on pubic-facing presentations before materials are due.

Best Practices on site at a GitLab event

• Employee Booth Guidelines
• Scanning Best Practices

Accessibility at GitLab Hosted Events

In advance of the event, we promise that we will take into account the following:

• Accessibility will not be an afterthought.
• Events will be inclusive and accessible.
• Venues will meet International Accessibility Standards guidelines.
• There will be seating available and accessible seating made available upon request
• There will be gender neutral pronouns in event communication.
• General dress guidance will not include male/female binary descriptors, and attendees can decide for themselves what works best for them.
• Feedback will be collected during and after the event to gauge accessibility and comfort levels.
• Designated confidential resources will be available for team members.
• Name badges will have write-in areas, printed or stickers for preferred pronouns.
• Large group meals will have ingredients and allergens listed. If you have communicated your needs with the event staff and the kitchen cannot provide a suitable meal for you, there will be a designated amount you can expense per meal on site.
• The Events team will commit to the idea that no detail is too small
• For all GitLab hosted events of 300+ we hire security that is also certified in first aid.

Communicating Accessibility

• Gathering attendee needs during registration.
  • Dietary restrictions: If you have any questions, please follow up with the individual privately. Determine the specific restrictions and provide information on how ingredients will be provided. Offer solutions in case there is an issue onsite so that the attendee is prepared.
  • Additional needs: Include an open text area in which attendees can list specific needs to help ensure full guest participation. Example requests include interpreting services, assistive listening devices, accessible parking, accessible hotel rooms, captioning, Reserved front row seat, wheelchair access to working tables throughout the room, Lactation room, or seating for in-person events. The team will make all good faith efforts to carry out requests, or will open lines of discussion for options when not available.
  • Preferred pronouns: Aim to avoid a closed field for gender and instead provide a blank write-in field or inclusive dropdown options so attendees can select/type their preference pending on the badging system. This information will be displayed on name badges, or available to add with stickers etc. Email and landing page communication
• Put accessibility information in the event page footer or have a page dedicated to accessibility.
• Send out email on accessibility specifics and resources in advance of the event. Examples of what to communicate in that email:
  • Use of flash photography
  • Any sort of strobe lights or flashing images that may cause seizures
  • Distinctly amplified sounds/music
  • The use of fog machines/any other chemicals or smells that may make your space inaccessible to individuals with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) or Idiopathic Environmental Intolerances (IEI)
  • Whether interpreting services will be provided for various speakers, panels, talks, etc.
  • Whether assistive listening devices will be provided.
  • All optional parts of your event, including off-site social activities, that may not be fully accessible.
  • Information about meals and dietary restrictions.
  • Accessible transportation options
  • First Aid/Medical Assistance options
  • Info on how to get in touch with questions or concerns.

For speakers

• Speak clearly (ideally facing forward without covering your mouth)
• Avoid acronyms and colloquialisms as much as possible
• When addressing someone specifically, ask for his/her/their name and confirm pronouns
• Specify when you’re finished speaking
• For interpreters, always look at and address the participating attendee
• Repeat questions posted by the audience before responding, especially if there is not a roving microphone available.

Coming soon

• Supplier/ Vendor diversity list that encourages the use of LGBTQ-, woman-, veteran-, or minority-owned businesses.
• Venue Sourcing Accessibility Checklist

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Swag/ Merchandise Handling

For merch team, see more details on handling and fulfillment specific on the merchandise handling page All swag requests, creation and vendor selection is handled by the Corporate Events Marketing team.

• We aim to have our swag delight and/or be useful. We want to create swag that is versatile, easy to store and transport.
• As a remote company with team members in over 60 countries - our swag often has to go on miraculous journeys.
• With this in mind we try to ship things that are durable, light and that will unlikely get stuck in customs.
• We strive to make small batch, limited edition and themed swag for the community to collect.
• Larger corporate events will have custom tanuki stickers in small runs, only available at the specific event.
• Region specific sticker designs are produced quarterly.
• Our goal is to make swag self-serve => web shop. Please note our swag store is not intended for ordering and expensing back items purchased, see below on how to order swag if you are internal to GitLab.

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All-Remote Marketing

Please consult the All-Remote Marketing Handbook.

Corporate Communications (Public Relations, Social Media and Internal Communications)

Please consult the Corporate Communications Handbook.

Social Marketing and Social Media

Please consult the Social Marketing Handbook.

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Return to the main GitLab Marketing Handbook.