In this episode of The High Profit Event Show, I sit down with Mark Stern, founder and CEO of Custom Box Agency. Mark is not just a box designer—he’s a customer journey strategist who has redefined how physical products can create immersive experiences for virtual and live event attendees. With an MBA from Duke University, a former consultant at Deloitte, and a feature in Forbes as one of the next 1,000 entrepreneurs to watch, Mark brings a wealth of knowledge and a powerful perspective to the conversation.

We dove into the idea that an event doesn’t start on Day One—it starts the moment your attendee registers. Mark shared how strategically using custom event boxes before, during, and after an event can dramatically increase engagement, retention, and conversion. He explained how his agency helps event leaders use boxes to pre-frame the event experience, boost show-up rates, and even engineer the buying journey. One standout story included how a pre-event audio journey and physical box led to a 20% increase in show-up rates for one client—and even sparked community buzz online before the event began.

Mark also broke down how boxes can activate more senses—beyond sight and sound—by introducing touch, smell, and even emotion into the mix. He walked us through how Custom Box Agency builds "book-sized" boxes designed to live on bookshelves and remain top-of-mind. These boxes become containers of memories and breakthroughs, filled with envelopes, QR codes, and carefully timed reveals that guide participants through a meaningful transformation.

Mark integrates behavioral psychology into his box strategies—like sending attendees “Box 1 of 2” to create a powerful open loop and drive desire to ascend into the next program. It’s a smart blend of story arc, gamification, and identity-shifting strategy.

If you're an event leader looking to deepen your connection with attendees, increase engagement, or elevate your post-event follow-up, this episode is a must-listen. Mark’s insights into blending physical and digital experiences will inspire you to think beyond the screen—and into your audience’s hands, homes, and hearts. Be sure to catch the full episode and learn how to implement these ideas into your next high-ticket event.

Want to connect with Mark?

Website: http://series.com/

Activate Series (blueprint from 7-8 figure entrepreneurs on how they acquire customers): https://activateseries.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marustern/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.sterno/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksternofficial/

Welcome to today's episode. We have a special guest with us, Mr. Mark Stern. Welcome, sir.

Rudy, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, Mark. I'm excited to have you here, man, because chatting with you in the green room, I learned a couple of remarkable things about you. I want to share with our audience so they lean in to this episode and they're like, why should I listen to Mark talk about boxes for live events? First and foremost, you're the CEO and the founder of The Custom Box Agency, who specialize in creating unique customer box journeys through high-touch innovation, direct mail type experiences for live events. But you're not just any box guy. I mean, you were featured in Forbes Magazine and one of the next 1,000 entrepreneurs. You have a MBA from Duke University. You were a consultant at Deloitte Consulting. During COVID itself, you were actually teaching virtual events and virtual event strategies and you made a pivot during that time. Instead of competing with everyone else who's going virtual, you moved into being the expert when it came to creating the box experience that goes to virtual events and all of a sudden, you had turned competitors into collaborators. In the last several years, you've launched over 150 products around the world. That's really impressive, man.

Thank you. Honestly, we're having so much fun. So it's people, when they think about box, and then they see how we start to interpret the role that it can play, especially like as a huge strategic advantage and then you realize the sky's the limit. It really turns into this playground for us.

So I'm super curious to dig into this a little bit. One of the things in our episode, we like to jump right into the value as quickly as possible. So our audience is leaning in and wanting to hear the rest of the episode and I know the top of mind problem and challenge that I'm sure your clients deal with too, they come to you about this is, they're like, Mark, Rudy, again, how do I fill my event? How do I get more people to my event? And I know you've had a lot of experience in that arena, especially when it comes to the customer journey and how to incorporate the box. You can kind of speak to that right away. I feel like that would get our audience leaning in for this episode.

Totally. One thing I want to anchor on is one of the biggest challenges that I see a lot of people with virtual events is people may buy a ticket, but how do I actually get them to show and seeing what show rates are? Because as much as you'd believe they buy a ticket, they're going to show up. All of a sudden you're seeing that we have a 50, 60% show rate, sometimes less than that. It all depends. But it's interesting to think about when you think about journey for an event and things that I can influence. A host of an event, oftentimes, like that journey doesn't start on day one of the event. Truly the journey starts leading up to the event. So that's one journey. And are you thinking strategic about the asks you have before they even show up to the event? Then there's the actual event itself and then the aftermath of the event. So all those are things that can be influenced and they can be influenced with the box experience that gets sent out. So for me, I'm going to answer the question around filling the event with the assumption of how do I increase show up rates for the event itself, for those who may have a ticket, whether it's free ticket, pay ticket. When we do boxes, one of the things that we've started to introduce with a lot of clients is the simple idea of can I set you on a journey and do something before you even show up to the event? Meaning you may get something in the mail or I may set some expectations, even if you don't get something in the mail, to do something that anchors you. One of the things that we did with one of our clients, Maya Camarota, Maya's brilliant. She has this business called Born For This. She services women 30 to 70 years old who have truly dedicated their life to their significant other or their kids and kind of checked their own journey at the door. Her whole message is around, we were all put on this earth for a reason.

It's already written in the stars. It's time for you to step into the person that you were born to be. What we engineered before they even attended day one of the event was something we called the journey and it was a simple card when they received their box with a QR code and a simple ask to say, I want you to go outside for 30 minutes. It was an audio experience. It was something that she could just be in their ears, anchoring them and priming them and preparing them for the event and what was incredible about this was there was a call to action around it that her community, as they all started to receive these boxes and go through this experience, we had about 25 to 30% of the community post on social media acknowledgments or evidence of things that they were doing, which then all of a sudden for everyone else who is set to attend this event or those who may start to see the ripple effect of these people who are attending the event post, it starts getting them activated in a really powerful way. So when it comes to day one of the event, it's not Maya being in your ear the second that you show up to day one of the event, it's Maya being in your ear to anchor you and prepare you. So she's already started the nurturing process and priming of what to expect before the event itself. So from that, it was amazing to see that her show up rates skyrocketed. We saw the same thing with Penelope Jane Smith, which again, sending people on some type of journey, she's in the financial space, teaching people how to be financially free and just by introducing Box, she's been doing events for the last 10, 20 years. She told me her show up rates increased by 20%. The only thing that really changed was anchoring some type of Box experience beforehand and leveraging that as a strategy and encouraging people to take some type of action, which then has the ripple effect for those who may have bought the ticket or may not to start to drive buzz for the event itself. There's just some power when you see something physical.

Yes, a hundred percent agree. I know we talk about filling the event and often, as you said, oftentimes people, they sell the virtual ticket and just expect they're gonna show up. But yeah, to your point, I run an agency that supports virtual events as well as in-person events and we look at show up rates. What you said is absolutely right. Like oftentimes, show up rates for virtual events would be as low as 50, 60% for a paid event. So anything you can do to increase that show up rate makes a difference. So it sounds like the Box experience and getting people to take action and do things in preparation for the event and then start sharing and tagging others, it creates this buzz and ultimately more engagement when not just getting to the event, but through the event. That makes a lot of sense.

Even the simplicity of an unboxing, it's amazing to see that even if it was not a well-thought-through strategy beforehand but just an incentive to unbox, people love to show off what they've received in the story around it. I've seen people get emotional over it, but even when one person does it and exposes the story in the Box, you still see people do it again and again and again because people want to share and they wanna tell their take of it. So I have seen events that there's just been dozens and dozens and hundreds of people posting the same type of video, but that's part of the excitement. If I can get you to take action, it becomes a lot easier to turn your people into ambassadors for your products and more importantly, get them to get excited to want to show up to the event.

Yes, as you're saying that, Mark, it actually took me right back to a couple of moments where I've received a Box in the mail and I just realized, wow, that was an emotional moment for me. Different packages, different things I've signed up for over the years, but I do clearly remember getting these unique boxes and these products in the mail and it began the experience. That's a really good, it's easy for me to forget that, but to your point, that was a very important aspect of that experience that I was a part of. I know we jumped right into the Box and I wanna make sure, because maybe some people listening to this maybe still aren't quite sure what we mean by a Box that comes in the mail. Can you kind of take a step back and maybe just talk about strategically what this Box is in the context of a virtual event or a live event type of strategies? I think I kind of stepped over that a little bit.

No, I'm glad you did this, but this is a great question. So where I anchor people is when we talk about what is experience, experience to me, the best way I can describe it is seen through the senses. So when we talk about senses, we talk about sense of sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. When you are dealing with a virtual or a digital only product, you're only dealing with two senses, what you see and what you hear. The power of sending something in the mail to compliment the digital experience, you have this ability to activate more of the senses. If you've ever been to Disney World or your favorite restaurant or gone to a movie theater or gone to a live event, the thing that's so powerful about it is it's stimulating so many more of the senses. When we're in these digital channels, so many of these senses are limited just based on the platforms that we interact with. The power of sending something like a Box to people, for me, one of the biggest challenges as to why I even started this business was I was getting frustrated that people were making me run through hoops just to get started with a product or service or the event. I was going to, because if you assume I'm going to take your PDF or your digital workbook and print it out, you're assuming I have a printer that has paper, that has ink, that's hooked to my computer and when I print everything out, you're assuming that I'm organized. So if one of these things go wrong, you just put up an obstacle that makes me say, someday I'll get to and the reality is the cost of these boxes and print materials are not that much. So that's the power of actually sending people the tools they need. You remove the excuses for letting them get started now. They don't have to go somewhere and do anything. They can open the box and be ready to engage and how you can roll out Easter eggs and surprises. There's so many different things. The other thing I'll mention is, and this is kind of how we do it within our own company.

We're very intentional with a box that you would receive in the mail about thinking through what do you naturally save in your life? So if you see a lot of our boxes, I know that when you read a book, just like in your background, Rudy, typically people don't throw out a book after they read it. They put it on a bookshelf. So you'll see a lot of the boxes that we do are designed to be the size of a book. There's so much you can put in a box this size. We'll brand the spine so you can put it on your bookshelf. We'll think about the experience because a book is something you can go back and reference. As we think about the pieces, how do I stay relevant and top of mind? I want to take up real estate in your house. The bigger the box, the more likelihood someone's gonna break it down and throw it out. So when we think about it, there's a lot of different modalities that we're always thinking to say, what do we save? And how do I engineer that degree of intentionality into the experience itself? So that's to me like the power of box and starting to think through experience and how it should be leveraged that's different. It truly feels different than a digital only product.

Wow, good point. I love that idea of making it the size of a book or something you can put on a bookshelf. Because you're right, all the big boxes, I either threw them away, broke them down, stuffed them in the garage somewhere out of sight. But if it's something I can throw on a bookshelf, that's pretty cool. I love the idea of maybe able to put my notebook in there or any other materials from that event in that box. Reference that I pull out the box and go to that specific notebook or what have you. That's brilliant. Actually.

Yeah. Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, no, it just makes sense. I was just gonna say exactly what you just said though too is a box is more than a box. It could be a container of your story. It could be a container of that experience. So that is like the power of it is a box can be more than a box. It's a story that you create around it and that container. So you can innovate and create. It's amazing to see we've had clients that have leveraged like the interior of a box as part of where people capture breakout moments from their events. So there may be a post-it notes that they write down every time they have a breakthrough, they can pull off the breakthrough and stick it on the interior of their box. So now it becomes a container of the story and their key takeaways. So there's just so much to leverage the space itself that makes it just more than just a box.

Yes, yes. Okay. So there we are. We have the box. We received the box in the mail. It's a unique experience in itself. We go to the event. We're excited. We got our box. We didn't have to go print anything out. We didn't have to, we were ready to go because everything was in the box. The event starts. Talk to us a little bit about how your experiences has worked with using the box and as part of the event experience to keep maintain that engagement up and ultimately to get people in the room, like not off camera, not leaving, but in the room doing the event, getting the result and ultimately wanting to come back to the next event or to join whatever program might be offered at that point.

Yeah, it's a great question. Commonly what we see is typically a one day or three day event and so depending on whether it's a one day or three day event, it's going to change how we think about the structure and the story with inside the box. The best thing about box and especially like, because when we build a box, we have to have a clear journey. A three day virtual event's an easy journey because day one, day two, day three makes it just a clean way to structure that journey. We leverage heavily envelopes that could hide things that don't get exposed until they earn the right at that point of the event to increase engagement. But when we think about an event, what are the common modalities, especially if it's virtual, you could have a presentation on stage, you could have an interactive workshop that people have a working session with materials inside the box. There could be a panel, there could be breakout groups. So depending on how they start to structure that story, maybe how we start to lay out the experience. The cool thing about boxes is if you know that there's breakout groups, I can create a scenario that in the envelope, when we say open this envelope for this breakout session, I may have something different in my envelope than you have, which may help facilitate discussion in that setting. So the things that we're constantly looking at is based on how you're laying out the virtual event and what the different styles of presentations that are taking place, we can engineer exactly the pieces that would increase engagement for that experience. So that's what's fun. A common thing that's really easy is people may have a morning and an afternoon session. So I may have a series, if it's a two or three day event, there could be a series of envelopes that literally they don't, or box pieces that they don't open until it gets to that point. So it's constantly evolving and surprising. Then literally inside those envelopes are the resources that they need access to.

To your question about how do we groom, the story arc is so critical when we're thinking about the story arc to get them to want to buy. There's a couple of things that you can do and play with. One is when you get to that point of sale, which typically we see it afternoon of day two, if it's a three day event, we want to have some degree of a brochure and we like to leverage QR codes in a heavy capacity because I can control a QR code down to the minute where it goes. So if I scan a QR code today, and if I scan a QR code an hour from now, that is something that I can change. We built our own QR code platforms with the virtual event in mind, because the power of having a QR code in a box experience, instead of it being the thing that at the restaurant you can scan and it beams you to the menu, I can leverage a QR code as a means to beam information directly to you. So if a speaker's on stage and they want you to go buy a book on Amazon, you can hide affiliate links behind it. If there's something that they're pushing, you can have one QR code that can leverage to any asset that you need it to, or guide people to go anywhere. It could take them to the Zoom link, but leveraging QR codes is a great way to increase the interaction to send people where they need to be at any given point in time and just have that information accessible. If you're making the offer, you can update the QR code in real time and send people to the offer page. We love to have overviews of whatever the upsell is as a brochure that's dedicated and hidden in an envelope, but we never include pricing because that needs to be controlled by the dialogue on stage because what I don't want people to do is open an envelope, out of turn, and be exposed to part of the surprise of the event. It needs to be inconspicuous enough that the person leading the event can control that dialogue.

The other thing that we can easily do is if we pre-frame a journey that starts with the virtual event and continues with the upsell of whatever program, product, or service is on the backend, it's not been uncommon that we've had clients put on their boxes that the event box may say that it's box one of two in order to complete the series and get box two of two, you have to ascend to the next program. So creating those open loops is a really powerful thing as well. So those are all different modalities in terms of strategies of how to leverage the packaging. But for me, it's critical to think through what is the story arc? What are the different modalities of presentations that are happening? And then whether every box is the same or there's pieces that are different, I like having it where you may have breakout groups that have different pieces. It just encourages engagement because if I have something different than someone else in my breakout group, it helps facilitate that conversation and engagement in a different capacity. So those are just some things just to consider when we start to think about the actual event itself and even start to think about how do I groom people for the next phase.

That's brilliant, man. I never really thought about the fact that you could send different people different things in the mail or different components in their boxes and leave a level of curiosity or mix and match type of element when it comes to breakout rooms and different groups. Like I said, I love the box one of two concept that you put out there because we're all wanting to finish what we start. That's kind of part of our human nature, meaning consistency. So he's getting a box, like, hey, if this box is cool, I can only imagine what the second box is like. I just wanna join the program or go to the next event so I can see the next box.

That is completely inspired by, by the way, Spartan races. I started doing Spartan races and what they did so brilliantly is I just was looking to do the 5K, like the sprint, which is their base race. It's under five miles. They gave me a medal for completing the race and then they said, they gave me a third of a medal and seeing that third of a medal drove me nuts. What they said is now you have to do an eight to 10 miler and a half marathon mud run and had you told me at the beginning of the year, I'd be doing a half marathon mud run, and I would have said you lost your mind. But when I collected two of the three pieces to complete the medal, and they said you had to do it in the same calendar year, it was exactly what I needed to, for me, attempt a half marathon mud run. I wanted that last wedge to complete the series. For me, it was about achievement and accomplishment and an identity shift that I went through because I didn't think it was possible I could do it. For them, it's lifetime value. They engineered a way for me to want to give them more money.

Yeah, absolutely and to you pointing to the whole idea of identity shift as well, your identity, which is arguably the most powerful force inside of each and every one of us is our desire to stay congruent with our identity. Oftentimes when I'm working with clients and we're discussing sales at their events, like what it comes down to is, hey, how do we support them in aligning their new identity with your program so it seems like the natural next best step for them to take is to go to the next program, the next event, et cetera. Just exactly like you're describing with The Spartan Race. It sounds like the box strategy is a critical component in that process and strategically can be as well and as far as the design of it. It makes me realize, Mark, as you're describing all this, that it's not just a box in the mail. There's actual strategy and thought and foresight that goes into this and I'm sure your boxes are probably even more intelligently strategic than just a random box in the mail that oftentimes people just throw out when they sign up for things. So this has been really excellent.

Yeah, I have one thing that I wanna leave you with too is also the aftermath. This is a big strategy that a lot of our clients do, which is even if the client does not, the attendee does not ascend right then, how can we still be top of mind and relevant? So again, we've had where we've left them with a gift, that it could be something as simple as a magnet with a QR code. Some clients have done what we've called lifeline cards that they could stick into their wallet. If they ever needed a lifeline or help with whatever dominion, like if you're in high-ticket selling, here's a lifeline card if you need any support at any point in time, put this in your wallet. When you give them the action to do, they will follow it and what's cool about this is, again, with QR codes, I can set a QR code that if you scan it on Monday, it's a different experience than if you scan it on Tuesday is a different experience if you scan it on Wednesday and it could just completely repeat that system. So if you're in the workout space and have a water bottle, it could be the Monday workout, the Tuesday workout, the Wednesday workout. If you're in the health and nutrition space, it could be different meal prep meals for the different months of the year. If you're in the space of like myocomorota and you're in a negative head space and you need that lifeline card to get you grounded again, it's a piece that lives beyond the event. But when they scan it, every time they scan it, will be a different video or different experience. What is powerful about that is if I can get you in the habit of keeping it, not only in my top of mind, but I can reinforce it under the link or under the video with another point of sale or schedule a meeting if you're ready to ascend. So it's another opportunity to be able to be there and be prepared to ascend that lead or that customer, even if they weren't ready to ascend right at the event. So there's ways that you can build products that people want to save, especially if it's always evolving.

It's a simple, just having a QR code that has a redirect based on different criteria, easy to build out with dynamic codes, just a powerful way that you can always have that touch point when people are ready to potentially ascend up at a later time if they don't ascend during the event.

That's awesome, man. Some great multi-repurposing strategies there with QR codes and events and boxes. This is awesome. Mark, a couple of things I wanna touch base on before we conclude our interview today. One, for our guests who wanna, either they lead events, virtual or in person, or they support people that do, what is the best way for them to learn more about what you do and how they might incorporate a box into their existing strategy?

Yeah, no, thanks for asking. Best thing to do is feel free to go to our website that is customboxagency.com and you can schedule a free meeting with a member of my team. There's endless, to me, this is such a playground in things you could do. You could also find me on Facebook or LinkedIn. You may see me on LinkedIn as Mark R. Stern. Just look for the guy with the mustache, and that's me and feel free to reach out. I love to hear what people are doing. But those are the easiest places to start.

Okay, great, excellent. Also in the green room, you and I were discussing about a giveaway for our audience. I know you ran an event this past October where you interviewed several seven and even eight figure business owners on their best strategies for customer acquisition. Can you speak a little bit about that and how our audience could get access to that gift as well?

Sure, sure. We built a product called Activate Deck. The goal of Activate Deck is to help you lay out and visualize your customer acquisition strategy. This product came about with every client that we interacted with. We saw a clear pathway from how people discover you to buying your products and services and so we did a whole virtual event around the launch of this product. You can go to activateseries.com and opt in. It's completely free and you'll be able to see about 20 different interviews of me interviewing seven and eight figure entrepreneurs. But more importantly, what I think is really cool is we took the blueprints using the Activate Deck system and created PDFs that break down each one of those entrepreneurs acquisition strategy. So if you want to see how some seven and eight figure business owners go about finding clients or customers and nurturing them, closing them to deliver upon their products and services, it's just a wealth of knowledge that, you just opt in, you'll be able to get access to it, all of it.

Yeah, really cool. I'm actually looking at it right now, activateseries.com. You have a series of experts here who you interviewed. I love the fact that you got them to create a blueprint, a PDF, and like really step-by-step and I see people from various niches and different industries that you interviewed here. So this looks like a very robust resource. So yeah, for our audience here, we're gonna include the link somewhere here near the video or the audio. Check out the show notes. Go below, activateseries.com and then we'll also include a link to Mark's company, customboxagency.com there as well. Mark, I'm curious, my friend, can you leave some final words for our audience here? Any words of advice as someone who's running a live event and they're just, they're looking for the best practice when it comes to leading profitable and impactful live events?

Yeah, I can't stress the power of niching down and getting more specific with the events and who you serve. I say that just because when I started this game, I had a virtual event business, I had a custom box business, I had a lot of pieces in the fires and what ended up happening was my mentor looked at me and said, you know, I asked people, who is Mark Stern? Some said, you're the box guy and some said, you're the virtual event guy. You're confusing the marketplace with the noise. So I was making it difficult for other people to be able to recommend me and spread the word. So niching down changed the game for me and so that would be the biggest thing that I say is that I'm seeing a lot more success with a lot more hyper niched down virtual events or events. I'm seeing that some of these more big general virtual events or live events, it's not the same game in the landscape anymore. So that's something that I can't stress enough is the more specific and specialized you are, the more people feel like you're truly talking to them and then you layer it with the right experience with, and this is again, why I love the box modality. You are truly able to position yourself in a different way as their trusted mentor.

Awesome, man. Thank you for that. Just great words of wisdom. Appreciate your time on our podcast today. What a unique interview. Truly, you're the only box guy that I know. You are the box guy in my mind. You are the only one. You are the Highlander.

We did it. No, it's the funniest thing, because you told me that this is, when I grew up, I was gonna be doing, building a business in boxes, I would have said you lost your mind, but it has been the perfect vehicle for my mind and the strategies that we do. So it's been such a fun journey.

Awesome, brother. Appreciate it again, man. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and best practices with us here today.

Appreciate you, Rudy.

Absolutely. That's a wrap.