CROs and CMOs are racing to hire for a new section of their marketing departments: “IRL”
IRL, short for In Real Life, is being used to describe marketing that happens face-to-face instead of through screens. Think live events, dinners, panels, meetups, and curated networking experiences where real conversations happen.
And there is a clear trend happening with companies looking to increase their in-person efforts through live events that connect them with their audience on a more personal level.
A lot of the reason for this sudden, sharp increase can be attributed to all the AI slop polluting our feeds, blog posts, and yes, even direct 1:1 communication.
I’ll explain why this matters with one example: If you upset someone, and then gave them an AI written apology, and later on, that person you apologized to found out through one way or another that your apology was written by AI, how do you think they’ll take it?
The clear answer is they’ll take it wrong, no matter how well worded and perfect your apology may be. Why? Well, for one simple reason: Because it wasn’t authentic.
And that’s exactly what IRL marketing tackles. Authenticity.
The lack of this critical ‘metric’, if you want to call it that, is driving a resurgence in building genuine relationships. I use the term “resurgence” because this is how business used to be done.
And now, it’s on the comeback.
Taking advantage of this channel in 2026 is as simple as follows:
- Create an event people want to attend (Panels with experts on whatever industry you are in work great, or simple networking events with free food)
- Find a list of your ICP (You can use Zoominfo, Apollo, SeamlessAI to find the data you need)
- Send them personalized invite emails
That’s it. That’s really all it takes.
In fact, we’re not just talking about this, Krafted is doing an event for CEO’s of B2B companies, which will take place on January 20 in Doral. If you would like to attend, feel free to message me on Linkedin for details.