MPG’s advice and predictions: overcoming the crisis and winning in the new world by Helen Coetzee, on 21/04/2020 The last two weeks have been very busy for my team. Not because we’ve been swamped with new business enquiries, unfortunately. I hope these will come in in a few weeks once the world has worked out that nobody can ever cost cut their way out of a crisis in customer confidence. Especially if most of those cuts are in marketing investment! So, what have we been so busy with? The phone has not stopped ringing. Clients and others in our network have been calling us to ask the following three questions: What is everyone else doing with their live events for the rest of 2020? Are they still running them or cancelling them? Or making them virtual or hybrid? Do you think we should be planning for virtual or hybrid events? What tech should we buy to ‘digitize’ our events? And in response to these 3 questions, I have said three things: There is very little, if any, precedent here. So, whatever advice we give you will be based on our best judgement and what we think is logical and sensible. Anyone who claims to have the absolute answers right now is probably someone writing a blog to flog a virtual event platform (I almost got taken in by one of these very well-disguised pieces just this morning…it was the ‘request a demo’ at the end that gave it away…) AND… You may be asking the wrong people, and… You are most certainly asking the wrong questions! But before we proceed any further: it’s important we’re clear about our very strong views on the future of events. Events will HAVE to either be fully virtual or hybrid in 2020. And from 2021 onwards, anyone who wants to continue running their events in the same way they did before Covid-19 is being at best unambitious and at worst oblivious to how much our world has already changed. If you’re planning to run live events in late 2020 or early 2021, your PLAN A should be to run these as hybrid events. So, keep your in-person offering on the table and build livestreaming (for content-led events) and digital directories (for tradeshows) into the fabric of your event, making it clear to all stakeholders that all content, showcasing of products and many of networking opportunities will still be available digitally alongside the in-person experience. And also make it clear you have a strong PLAN B to just run with the digital event, should it suddenly become impossible to host large gatherings, or gatherings of any size due to further ‘waves’ of the virus making more lockdowns necessary. But to get back to the issue of ‘are you asking the right people the right questions?’… The conversations I’ve had over the past few days have gone something like this in terms of my response: “Before you called us, how many of your customers did you call? Of these customers, how many were in your ‘end-user audience’ i.e. the ‘core’ of your community as attendees, visitors, delegates to your events – the people you attract to your events to buy from your sponsors and exhibitors? And for those end-user conversations you did have, did you ask them the following questions? What do you think you’ll need in the coming months in terms of learning, knowledge sharing and networking? How can we help you get what you need here? If we were to run all or part of our events in digital format, possibly alongside some in-person events – how do you see yourself participating and benefiting?” My team and I will always encourage you to ask the above three questions of your community before doing anything else. And then we will offer you the following six pieces of advice that we think could help you not only save your events and your business, but more importantly, help you take advantage of the immense opportunities facing B2B media and events businesses in becoming ‘community first’ brands: Make understanding the shape, size and needs of your community your #1 priority. By this, we mean ‘end-users’ – that valuable audience that you sell on to sponsors, exhibitors and advertisers. Because we tend to ‘follow the money’ and most of this tends to come from vendors selling to our audience, we’re putting the cart before the horse by starting with tactical responses to their needs. This can degrade our content and the value we’re creating for the valuable members of communities who make up our audience. Audiences WILL disengage and they will disappear. And then what do you have to offer your clients? Don’t think about your events just as events. ‘Events’ are just a format. Think about what goes into your events and what makes them valuable. Ask your core community members what they value most and work out how to serve this up digitally – to replace in-person experiences in the short term and be the ‘core’ of the events product in the long term, with in-person experiences then added on (not the other way around!). We’re working on some strategic projects where clients have seen great opportunity in either rolling digital event content into their subscriptions product to create a more community-focused membership offering, or launching a membership with digital event content they’ll be creating (and in some cases have already started delivering). The thing to do here and now is to ‘think different’. Essential innovation happens by turning your current formats inside out and upside down and shaking them about to see how you can get the most valuable stuff out and serve it up in a way that gives your community what they need – digital for now, then digital-first with face-to-face added on in the longer term. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Keep your valuable content and networking opportunities you can facilitate, in-person or online, front and center. What is hugely valuable right now and potentially unique, is the relationships you have with the ‘biggest names’ and senior decision-makers in the community you serve, along with their confidence in your content and ability to help their businesses move forward. Continue to invest in these relationships. They are the key to collecting valuable knowledge from these ‘top minds’ and then curating and packaging this up for your community – along with facilitating important connections and discussions between people who really need to talk to one another right now. You hold a privileged position and have an important role to play in helping your community face their current challenges and identify potential opportunities that may present themselves in the coming months. Only choose your tech once you’ve worked out what your new value proposition needs to be, based on what your community needs. Tech companies have fantastic salespeople who usually won’t ask you what you really need before they sell you their kit. So, it is up to you to first figure out what your value proposition should be, then what your requirements are, and only then evaluate what is out there in terms of tech solutions. And remember – it is the content you put in to the tech, how you manage the data and customer journeys around and through the tech and how your people make the tech work for your communities and clients that matters most. No tech can make up for poor content or bad operational delivery. Double-down on marketing. Invest in the skills you need to make content marketing, marketing data and marketing technology work in the way you need it to. Of course, I do have a vested interest in recommending this. But the truth is that now is not the time to be cutting investment in the internal people and external partners who probably understand how to make digital events work better than anyone else in your business – the marketers! You need strong marketers now more than ever to make your 2020 events portfolio work. Digital and hybrid events need even smarter and a higher volume of digital marketing than traditional live events ever did. Getting your audience to notice, commit to and engage with your virtual and hybrid events will take strong marketing skills and lots of hard work. If you under-invest in marketing over the next few months, you’re making a fatal mistake. Your delegates and sponsors won’t want to invest in your events going forward unless they can see you’ve invested first. And what more obvious way to show them you’ve invested than with good marketing – which stakeholders will notice. And they will certainly notice absent or bad marketing even more. Looking ahead to 2021 events: it’s nearly May! If you want your large annual events in the first half of 2021 to succeed you have to start working on the marketing now. Start now in building the strategies, databases and pipelines of sponsor, exhibitor and delegates leads if you want to make 2021 events a success. If your events in 2021 fall flat after the pain you and your event stakeholders have experienced in 2020, you’ll most certainly enter the dreaded ‘event death spiral’ that is almost impossible to reverse.Not investing in planning and marketing your 2021 events – starting now – could cost you everything in the long term. Help your clients – sponsors and exhibitors – understand and realise the value of digital event formats. What they may lose in the ‘intimacy’ of in-person events they will almost certainly gain in scale. The digital reach of your events will be far greater than your live events could ever be (if you invest in marketing of course). Also consider how you can help sponsors develop and execute their strategies to qualify, nurture and convert leads generated by digital event formats. Instead of taking direct enquiries, orders or doing deals in the live event format, as they’re used to doing, sponsors and exhibitors will have to work out how to identify and engage with their most likely future customers in different ways. So, take the initiative! Set up a ‘sales and marketing taskforce’ to help your clients build and optimise their lead funnels so that they end up with a good and measurable ROI from your events. We all know that most of the money in the world of B2B events comes from clients. It will take some time to shift our models towards the safer subscriptions-led, recurring revenues. You will notice in our list of top six areas to focus on – I have still put ‘clients’ last. Because that is how the value chain works. Whatever you do, don’t let short term tactical moves to ‘keep our clients happy now’ sabotage the strategic priority of putting your audience first and in so doing creating and looking after your community. Play the long game. Focus on delivering community-first value and hold your nerve. Don’t let the bumps in the road and inevitable setbacks knock you out of the premier league of the smartest and most valuable B2B community organisations. Like top athletes, winning is about being determined, intelligent, psychologically resilient and laser focused on the end goal. Continue Reading Topics: Community marketingEvent marketingMarketing strategyMarketing technology
B2B event marketers: for now, digital content is your product by Helen Coetzee, on 07/04/2020 Q2 is here and things are looking… interesting. We’re taking a step back to think about the #1 priority event marketers should have for the next couple of months. Events have been postponed or cancelled. Virtual and hyrbid events and digital ‘add-ons’ are being created and launched at lightning speed. But budgets are frozen. Many B2B event marketers are feeling uncertain about what they should focus on in the coming weeks to deliver value to their business and prove their worth. They are so used to be being pushed every day to deliver results in the form of revenue or ‘hot leads’ for the sales team. The job they may feel they have been hired to do cannot be done. So, they’re sitting at home, probably feeling quite anxious, in a makeshift – yet now permanent-feeling – home office, wondering what do to. For marketers looking for something to get their teeth into, that will deliver great value for their businesses in the next few weeks and over the longer term, content marketing via digital channels is the one true path. Digital content’s new role The value of content marketing to drive growth in B2B events and subscriptions has long been known, but until a few weeks ago seldom properly thought about or invested in. For years, speaker interviews, industry reports and podcasts have been a powerful way to grow engagement, reach new people and capture data of individuals who find most value in our products. B2B community marketers now need to get very comfortable with the process around creating and distributing strong, engaging digital content to their communities. This will not only solve the short-term problems around maintaining engagement of valuable communities – but more importantly, will prove to be a great asset that can continue to be leveraged as we push ourselves into recovery mode in a few months’ time. Digital content, and the marketing of this content, is an asset that needs investment – now more than ever. And this investment should pay off in the short, medium and long term. Who wouldn’t see that as an attractive place to put their money right now? What makes content so valuable At its core, content solves problems. People watch webinars not because of a flashy social post or catchy name, but because the subject addresses a challenge they face in their working lives. It’s fair to say nearly every worker in every field is facing a myriad of challenges in our working lives right now! When community members ‘purchase’ our content, they pay with us three valuable things: 1. Their time 2. Their attention 3. Their data These three things are the currencies we’re trading in right now when dollars, pounds and euros are being kept firmly in companies and investors’ zipped-up pockets. What does good content look like? Now is the time for producers and event content specialists to use their knowledge of the most pressing pain points and burning needs of their community. At a time when people cannot gather together at events, or their companies may be limiting how much they can spend on the most valuable information sources, your content is a life raft. Faced with huge uncertainty over their flagship events series Money20/20, industry titan Ascential put their community’s needs first. The Moneypot addresses the issues the fintech community faces right now in short, engaging pieces. Frequently updated content incentivises community members to subscribe while also referencing their event series to keep their conferences top of mind in a smart, customer-friendly way. Social Media Week has always been a leader in content marketing. Their latest #5Things podcast covering some incredible work being done by some of the giants in the world of marketing in response to the Covid-19 challenges the world is facing. How should marketers promote & amplify content? For optimal results – marketers need to treat their digital content as their product. That means deploying all the usual marketing strategies and tactics in promoting it: Use your audience personas and map out your community to understand who the content best serves and how it solves challenges they are currently facing. Create a messaging strategy that communicates the USP and benefits of your content consistently across channels. Deploy a multi-channel comms plan to achieve strong reach within your community. Host the content in a dedicated spot on your website, announce new pieces via email and social media and re-target past users to pull them back to your site. Collect data and segment accordingly to create the most relevant and welcome communications. The data you collect now can also be used later to push subscriptions and events sales – so make sure it is collected, stored and structured in the right way. Thinking of digital content as a product may feel strange to many event marketers, especially those used to be focused on revenue. But this new mindset is absolutely essential in maintaining your brand & position, and in ensuring you are doing all you need to for your community right now. If you look after your community now, they will look after you when things get back to the new normal – however that may look. You can read more about our advice on winning in the new world here. Continue Reading Topics: Content marketingDigital marketingEvent marketingMessaging
Excellent project management: a game-changer in event marketing by Helen Coetzee, on 28/11/2019 Why is project management so important in event marketing? Marketing an event is a complex process. The end deadline is immoveable, multiple channels must be kept aligned and firing at optimal times, the product evolves daily with new speakers, updated sessions and new features and customer data must be continually updated to ensure marketing messages hit the right people, at the right time. With all this complexity, it isn’t surprising when event marketers struggle to meet deadlines, or sometimes don’t achieve or demonstrate a good return-on-investment in their marketing efforts A high-performance event marketing function relies on strong project management. Without effective project management, you’re missing key campaign opportunities and limiting the return on investment you get from your marketing function. In this blog post we outline best practice in project management for event marketing campaigns, and how you can ensure that your marketing team has the right skills, support and tools to deliver high performance marketing campaigns – on time, every time. What does good project management for event marketing look like? The marketing manager is given full ownership of project management to enable their campaigns The wider event team – content producers, sponsorship salespeople etc. – are encouraged to support the marketers as project managers The marketing manager always works to a solid campaign plan, with key deadlines and tasks – visible to the whole team The marketing manager takes responsibility for coordinating the campaign contributions of all stakeholders The marketing manager works well ahead to build in all the steps needed to develop and deliver strong marketing collateral and campaigns – incorporating the contributions of various stakeholders. The marketing manager breaks down project elements into individual project tasks, with a clear brief and deadline for each task. Top tip: invest in a project management solution for your marketing team. These are not expensive and are highly effective in driving efficiency and effectiveness into your marketing – when used correctly. We use ClickUp, which has been game-changing for MPG ! The marketing manager runs a weekly project meeting, for each event, for all key internal stakeholders – usually the event director (P&L holder), content producer and head of sales. Ahead of this meeting (ideally the day before), the marketing manager should circulate a report on event performance and an agenda of key points to discuss to ensure marketing stays on track. If you put these essential ingredients of good marketing project management in place, you will start seeing results. But do be mindful of the top three things that could prevent your marketers from being effective projects managers: 1. They’re not fully supported or enabled by senior management or the wider team 2. They don’t have the skills or experience needed to create a strong event marketing plan, or run complex campaigns effectively 3. They lack the confidence and/or gravitas to lead a project team Well-supported, rigorous and disciplined project management can make all the difference to the performance of your events. Enabling your marketers as project managers helps them gain the support and input they need from other team members to deliver effective campaigns. They will be able to hit deadlines and manage their workloads effectively across multiple events. By ensuring your event marketers are also good projects managers, you’ll improve marketing productivity while also preventing marketers from burning out. It’s the best (and possibly the only) way to improve your return-on-investment from marketing and to ensure you retain your best event marketers! About the author Helen has over 2 decades’ experience in the B2B events space. She is now the proud CEO and Founder of two high-performance marketing agencies – MPG – designed to address the most pressing exhibition and conference marketing challenges facing organisations today. Continue Reading Topics: Content marketingEvent marketingMarketing operationsProject management
How to find new sponsors & exhibitors with smart marketing by Helen Coetzee, on 21/11/2019 How to get new sponsors & exhibitors to invest in your event Sponsors and exhibitors are essential to the profitability of an event, but too often sales teams rely on the same few clients that return year-after-year, neglecting the opportunities available in ‘new business’. Why acquiring new sponsors and exhibitors really matters Events need a variety of partners to work. Attendees expect to see new companies each time they return. Part of the value proposition of a successful event is that the event presents new and innovative suppliers and vendors in the sector. Mixing up old and new faces also protects your event long term; even the most reliable clients can change their marketing objectives and end their commercial relationship with your event, putting a key source of revenue in jeopardy. Why sales teams neglect new business Sales teams’ natural process doesn’t usually focus on sourcing and nurturing new business – especially for an established event. Most go first to their tried and trusted contacts to renew their contracts and secure quick wins. It’s often only when the event looks like it might miss its targets, that the urgency arises to reach out to new prospects. But by then it can be too late to source, nurture and convert clients before the event happens. This can be compounded by sales teams lacking an established process to generate new sponsorship leads. How a sales lead generation process can deliver a 500%+ ROI What is the solution to the ‘new business’ challenge and this often missed opportunity? You need to invest in good ground-work and forward planning in sponsor and exhibitor lead generation. This can often generate faster growth than pushing harder on your delegate marketing. Specific marketing programmes focused on generating new leads for sponsorship and exhibition sales could deliver as much as 5x on your marketing investment, based on the KPIs we have been tracking on events MPG has supported over the past year or so. Here are the steps we recommend you take: 1. Define the sponsor value proposition Be clear about the USP and benefits of your event from a sponsor or exhibitor’s perspective, especially the key gains for them if they commit at an early stage many months before the event. 2. Define your target market and decision making unit The decision to sponsor or exhibit at an event is usually made by a group of people. CMOs or CEO’s may be the final decision-makers, but senior sales people and marketing managers are also key influencers. You will need to reach and convince them all that their presence at your event is worth investing in. 3. Build your marketing database & inbound channels for lead generation Map the market, deciding the ideal size of business, geographical location, sector and job titles. Then research your database, ensuring you include all the decision-makers within one organisation. Consider how you can quickly build your database to reach out to them, using data research for rapid growth and by also feeding engaging and relevant content in to your inbound channels and optimising your website for maximum ‘enquiry form’ completions. 4. Set up your marketing funnel For outbound marketing, plan your email campaigns, with tailored messages for different audience segments. Get your inbound marketing working well by pushing compelling messaging and content via the obvious inbound channels – PPC and social media. Optimise your sponsorship landing page (with enquiry form) on your event website and also offer carefully crafted sponsorship options and event attendee profile PDF’s behind forms for lead capture. Optimise the rest of the website to direct sponsors who land anywhere else on the site to your sponsorship page. 5. Leverage your delegate marketing Add sponsorship and exhibition lead generation elements to your delegate marketing by including in delegate emails and on delegate focused web pages some calls-to-action pushing people to the sponsorship opportunities page. Also consider adding to all lead generation forms on the website – including those focused on delegate marketing – the option for people to tick what they are most interested in (e.g. attending, speaking, sponsoring or exhibiting) before submitting the form. Those who choose sponsorship and exhibition options are clearly very good people for your sales team to call straight way. 6. Nurture your leads Use marketing automation to track incoming sponsor leads and set up a nurturing programme. This is an easy win as you are earning more revenue from the investment you have already made in your marketing automation systems for your delegate marketing. 7. Incentivise sales teams Monitor how quickly sales teams follow up on marketing generated new business leads. Offer enhanced commission rates for acquiring brand new clients to reward the extra effort, or nominate one person in the sales team as the new business specialist. 8. Learn and fine-tune In the first year, measure everything and find out which types of leads convert fastest and for the highest average order value. Consider how profile (e.g. company type, country etc) and engagement behaviour (e.g. what they downloaded or clicked on) when ‘scoring’ leads. Even if you can’t convert a new business lead for the event it was generated for, you still have a good chance to convert it for the following year’s event. It is important to consider that generating leads for your sponsorship and exhibition sales team requires a different approach and skill set than what is required for delegate marketing. You might need to set up a specialist marketing team to generate sponsorship and exhibitor leads, or consider engaging an agency to initially run a pilot programme for you to assess how to proceed longer term for further investment in lead generation for your sponsorship and exhibition sales teams. A steady stream of new business leads is bound to make any sales person happy! About the author Helen has over 2 decades’ experience in the B2B events space. She is now the proud CEO and Founder of two high-performance marketing agencies – MPG – designed to address the most pressing exhibition and conference marketing challenges facing organisations today. Kirsty is MPG’s Marketing Director for events globally, and a seasoned event marketing campaign manager, strategic expert and marketing function leader. Her team of conference and exhibition marketing pros deliver outstanding, high performance full-service campaigns for some of the world’s most prestigious events and brands. Continue Reading Topics: Community marketingDatabase developmentLead generationMessagingSponsor acquisition
What will make your event marketing pay in 2020? by Helen Coetzee, on 12/11/2019 Rapid revenue growth from conferences and exhibitions is a high priority for many B2B media businesses. ‘Flagship’ events often generate much of this growth. The momentum and profit generated when a flagship event grows fast creates business value in the short and long term – especially if a chunk of the profit is then invested in strategic development of a B2B community and subscriber base served by the flagship event. But, in many cases, a flagship event won’t grow as fast as it should – or grow at all – due to under-performing event marketing. A very common complaint I hear from CEOs is that they’re investing more in event marketing every year – but they’re not seeing the return they hoped for. Why is this problem so prolific? Usually because of one or both of the following: The event product isn’t strong enough The event marketing function is not set up as it should be to deliver growth. If your event product is strong – it’s your event marketing function that needs attention. But how do you fix this? Which areas should you invest in? And how do you ensure your investment in marketing your events delivers a good return? We can answer these questions by looking at the essential ingredients of high-performance event marketing. 1. Create a solid strategy to market your event Marketing decisions should be based on analysis. One of the best things digital marketing has given us is the ability to measure marketing performance – in every channel and at every level. Analyse all the data points you have available and if needed, invest in a customer insight project to ensure you’re on track with your strategy. Making sure event marketers are always focused on clear objectives is critical. What are we trying to achieve in terms of event attendee and sponsorship/exhibition revenue and number of attendees? What profile of audience do we want to attract to the event to make it super-valuable to all attendees and sponsors/exhibitors? How do we want to grow the event in the long term? How do we want our brand to be perceived? A clear, well-defined and well-understood event audience makes or breaks an event campaign. Does your event solve pressing pain points? Can you group your audience into segments based on job roles, company function or experience levels to deliver highly targeted and relevant messaging, at the right time? If you can’t answer these questions with a resounding ‘yes’, it is time to invest more in truly understanding your target audience. A strong messaging strategy ensures you’re positioning your event and brand as you want them to be perceived. The first step to developing a robust messaging strategy is making sure you have a firm grasp on your USP (unique selling point). From there, you can craft a strategy that communicates the unique value your event offers – with authenticity and confidence. Develop a pricing strategy that ensures you achieve your revenue targets. Finding the right pricing is a delicate balance, but by analysing competitors and crunching your historical data around how your customers’ buying patterns respond to pricing changes, you can determine the best pricing to maximise revenue. Developing a strong multi-tactic & multi-channel strategy to effectively reach, engage and persuade your audience via multiple touchpoints. There is no single winning channel or tactic for event marketing – you need to reach your audience via multiple channels and means, with the emphasis on what works best for your customer. By consistently monitoring, measuring and analysing the performance of channels and tactics, you will determine the winning formula for your event. 2. Measure your event marketing and evaluate performance regularly What does effective event marketing measurement look like? It starts with the ability to collect and compare the metrics that matter – starting with sales and revenue versus targets, then looking at engagement level across channels, and then drilling down into the detail of what is driving results (e.g. email click through rates, website bounce rates etc). The insights gained from this kind of regular and robust analysis will be gold dust and make all the difference in the return you achieve from your marketing investment. 3. ‘Safe hands’ in your marketing team covering the range of marketing skills you need – ideally in the following defined roles: Event marketing manager To provide direction and objectives for all marketing efforts, communicate on behalf of the marketing team with all event stakeholders and deliver strong campaign project management to ensure objectives are achieved. Marketing communications assistant Providing the ‘muscle & speed’ to execute the marketing – making event website updates, setting up and email sending emails, keeping your social media channels buzzing – building up the momentum of your marcomms as you sign up more speakers, sessions and sponsors. Marketing database specialist To keep your valuable target list of contacts on your database well organised, ‘clean’, compliant and growing. Martech specialist To select, join up and effectively manage all the tech you need to ensure you’re engaging your audience effectively via all channels. Design specialist To ensure your visual communications are of high quality & effective in communicating the value of your event. Website specialist To keep your most important channel functioning well and fully optimised to attract and convert web visitors to leads and customers. PPC (pay-per-click/digital advertising) specialist To help you reach new audiences and more strongly engage those who are already aware of your event and just need a bit more convincing to come back to your website to become a customer – or at least fill in a form to gain more information. Marketing analytics specialist To provide vital insights on campaign performance, so you know where you need to put your investment in marketing to generate the greatest ROI. That’s eight different skill sets – some of which can be grouped together in to one role. But you certainly won’t get all the required skills in one person! Many event organisers put in place event marketing managers and marcomms assistants and expect them to deliver to a high standard across the full range of skills needed. Some also invest in developing inhouse specialist roles & skills, and when managed well, this can be very effective. But most event organisers, for various reasons, can’t ‘hire in’ all the skills needed. This is usually due to organisation or department size, budgets, business structure, or downward pressure on head count. Often it’s because they just can’t find the right people to hire; and once hired, retaining them can be very tricky. The best way to build a high performance event marketing function is to strategically engage with strong external partners – to compliment what you can manage and deliver well inhouse. These partners, like all good employees, need attention and investment to ensure they are engaged and fully integrated into your team. It’s a mistake to treat valuable and strategically important partners as mere ‘suppliers’. The right kind of partner will respond very well to being treated as a valuable ‘member of the marketing team’ – delivering the unique value to help you succeed. The most successful events businesses are built on putting in place, investing in and effectively managing highly skilled and highly valuable internal resources and 3rd party partners. Events business leaders are acutely aware of the importance of excellent content people, sales people, venues, AV partners etc. But when it comes to the marketing function, focus and an event leader’s attention and investment can be less forthcoming – maybe due to a lack of confidence in event marketing as a driver of growth. We need to break this negative cycle. It will be up to event business leaders and their senior marketing stakeholders to ensure the key ingredients of high-performance event marketing are put in place with the right level of attention and investment. Then, once this investment has been made, the marketing function should be held accountable for the value and return-on-investment to be delivered. Continue Reading Topics: Analytics and intelligenceDatabase developmentEvent marketingMarketing strategyMessagingProject management
How Event Marketing Can Build – Or Break – a Trusted B2B Media Brand by Helen Coetzee, on 27/03/2019 What nearly all of the most successful community-focused and subs-led brands have in common is a strong and growing events portfolio – where their subscribers (or members) can come together to learn and network with their community across a range of event formats. It is at these events where subscribers also come face-to-face with the information brand they rely on, reinforcing trust and building loyalty. And it is also at these events where much of the lost advertising revenue has now re-surfaced as income from sponsors and exhibitors – now often called ‘spex revenue’. A combination of strong delegate and spex revenues from events can drive highly profitable, high annual growth for a B2B media brand. But events present a much greater strategic opportunity – or risk – for B2B media brands, depending on how the marketing of these events is conducted. Event marketing can be a frantic, siloed, highly tactical exercise (often done on the cheap) focused only on attracting the largest possible number of attendees in a short space of time to satisfy internally driven or spex-driven quotas – an approach that severely compromises the quality of communication and the audience. This is very dangerous for a brand that relies on the trust of its subscribers. Or event marketing can be strategic – with brand trust as the starting point for developing an effective strategic marketing communications plan that, when executed well, leverages and reinforces brand trust. As with building effective and sustainable subscriptions marketing campaigns, strategically approached event marketing requires longer term thinking, planning and investment. The best kind of event marketing not only fills venues with high quality delegates representative of the brand community, it also attracts new, high-quality subscribers, thus growing the engaged brand community. The 5 areas brand leaders should invest in to ensure their event marketing builds brand trust and overall brand growth: 1. A good database and CRM A well implemented and organised database in a good CRM will enable segmentation by demographics, behaviours and transactions – meaning communications can be personalised and made relevant. In addition to ensuring event communications are relevant to an individual’s role and challenges, it is very important subscribers are treated differently to non-subscribers. When managing data through an event marketing cycle, the best set-up of systems and processes will also enable the identification of potential new subscribers, and push them in to the subscriptions marketing funnel. 2. A strong inbound marketing engine for events Inbound marketing should run all year-round, driving event awareness via social channels, and shared email and event leads via a well-optimised website – while building overall brand awareness and strengthening brand positioning. Subscriber engagement and brand-trust will often be positively influenced by what they see in social channels, especially if reinforced by a third party via likes and shares, while potential subscribers will often be drawn in by a compelling event-specific message. The impact that the presence and engagement of high profile and well-respected speakers, sponsors and other third-party event stakeholders can have on a brand’s social channels should not be under-estimated. 3. An event website that reinforces a brand’s positioning, while integrating the event with the subscription value proposition A strong event website helps customers extract more value from their subscriptions by engaging with event content before, during and after the event. Highlighting and serving up unique ‘subscriber-only’ event-specific content and networking opportunities via your website is a good way to drive subscriber retention and acquisition. The FOMO factor is powerful, especially if what sits behind a paywall is highly current and relevant, as with event content. 4. A well-managed event marketing and sales funnel An optimised funnel also ensures marketing qualified leads are followed up by sales people in a timely manner with relevant communications. Team members skilled in delegate sales, as well as solution and value-focused spex sales people, can make a significant contribution to brand building. And if you can incentivise sales people to prioritise subscriber renewals and acquisitions over chasing down delegate and sponsor revenue, you’ll have a winning formula. 5. Ongoing measurement of engagement and conversions It is important to understand how deeply subscribers and potential subscribers are engaging with an event, and then how customers are engaging with a brand beyond the event. “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”, as the famous Peter Drucker said. The tools are now available to every business to put meaningful metrics at the forefront of making decisions and driving results. Events are powerful. The way in which events are marketed, all year-round, is equally powerful. The impact of events can be extremely positive for a B2B subs-led brand, or can destroy a brand by quickly eroding customer trust. Continue Reading Topics: Analytics and intelligenceCommunity marketingDatabase developmentEvent marketingLead generationWebsite optimisation
Event Marketing Strategies to Drive B2B Media Brand Growth by Helen Coetzee, on 26/02/2019 MPG recently hosted a round-table event for some of the most senior and experienced marketing leaders in multi-platform B2B media brands. The discussion focused on how a successful portfolio of events, that are well marketed, can and should support strategic brand development. Discussion participants were all senior marketers who oversee marketing functions that support a number of revenue streams – including subscriptions, memberships and advertising, as well as event sponsor, exhibitor and delegate revenue. Chaired by marketing guru Ashley Friedlein (Founder of Econsultancy and most recently founder of the new professional networking app Guild), this elite gathering uncovered the key challenges and opportunities in how events are marketed, taking into consideration the role events play in growing a multi-platform B2B media brand: Event marketing investment trends Overall, investment in the marketing of events is increasing – both in terms of people and direct spend, as the successful marketing of events is more resource intensive than other types of product marketing. As marketing investment increases, heads of marketing are expected to provide more granular marketing budgets and better measurement of the return-on-investment of various marketing initiatives. Subscriptions marketing generally requires less investment than events, relying mostly on SEO and other forms of inbound marketing – usually delivered by digital agencies. The high quality of this web traffic in turn supports events and overall brand growth. As the return-on-investment on email marketing, PPC and social media becomes more transparent, event marketers are investing more confidently in digital marketing. However, direct mail and telesales continue to earn their place in the event marketing funnel and spend mix – used for the nurturing and closing of prospects already engaged via digital channels. Direct mail is still an important part of the marketing mix for events – especially when highly targeted and creatively deployed to achieve cut through. By matching sales data to marketing data, a return-on-investment can be ‘assumed’ (if not completely accurately measured). A well-executed direct mail campaign, showcasing an excellent event, has a positive ‘halo effect’ for the whole brand. LinkedIn has become the important social channel for most events and continues to grow in importance. Building LinkedIn groups are no longer a focus, while targeted sponsored posts are becoming more effective and efficient in driving web traffic, leads and bookings. Data, technology and the much-prized single customer view The discussion on data and technology centered on the need for, and benefits of, a single customer view – particularly for multi-platform brands. Senior decision-makers seek visibility of how customers are engaging with the full range of events and subscriptions products. For many B2B media brands, only a small proportion (approx. 10%) of subscribers become event delegates and vice versa, which is concerning when brands are seeking deeper engagement with their customers. Some B2B media brands have achieved the tech stack and data flows that give them the much sought-after single customer view. This has allowed marketers, sales people and those in product development to gain real-time information about how an individual customer, or defined group of customers, is engaging with and consuming content, products, marketing and sales. This should enable co-ordinated, relevant and personalised delivery of communications and content to each individual via all touch-points with a brand. In many cases, the single customer view is still elusive, with many organisations grappling with costly and lengthy tech and data projects. However, there was consensus that a single customer view is needed – even if it is not necessarily as straight-forward to deliver as tech vendors have promised, or as essential to effective marketing and decision-making as the ‘hype’ around a single customer view insists it is. Event marketing skills and team structures There are two commonly used marketing team structures in B2B multi-platform media businesses: A brand-led structure – where all products within a brand’s portfolio (subscriptions, events etc.) are marketed by the same team, usually led by a ‘brand manager’ A product-led structure – where distinct marketing teams exist to promote different product types, i.e. the subscriptions marketing team is separate from the event marketing team. The brand-led structure is usually deployed when an organisation is aiming to be more customer-centric. However, this approach has distinct operational disadvantages as event marketing tends to dominate the marketing team’s time and focus due to the high volume of activity and the hard deadlines associated with events. The group agreed that either structure can work, as long as marketing teams are well resourced and managed, and the required marketing skill sets are in place. The greatest challenge faced in event marketing is the lack of specialist marketing skills required to get the most out of digital channels and data. Most event marketers in situ and newly hired tend to be generalists who struggle with the technical and analytical aspects of ‘data and digital’. Generalist marketers are usually good at strategy, planning, messaging, project management and stakeholder engagement. They tend not to focus on mastering data and digital-focused skills due to a lack of time or interest. Round-table participants tabled a number of possible solutions to this dilemma: Hiring dedicated data and digital specialists into an event marketing team Upskilling and refocusing willing generalist marketers to become more adept at digital marketing and data-related work Working with external partners, usually agencies, to provide the expert delivery of ‘data and digital’ marketing elements. Overall, participants face very similar challenges in ensuring all aspects of marketing a multi-platform B2B media brand are resourced and optimised with the right people, systems and processes. Strategic investment in event marketing is essential for success and growth. Marketing leaders are being held more accountable for the return on this investment, which is important if marketing wishes to move up the organisational value chain. We look forward to being part of this next chapter in event marketing’s journey! Round-Table Discussion Chair: Ashley Friedlein CEO & Founder, Guild; Founder & President, Econsultancy Round-Table Discussion Participants: Jemma James Pageant Media Paul Gilbertson LSX Leaders Gareth Pike Faversham House Jonathan Perry PEI Media Sophie Eke Incisive Media Yetunde Akinwale Last Word Nik Dinning Retail Week & World Reail Congress Continue Reading Topics: Community marketingEvent marketingMarketing strategyMarketing technologyProject management
7 Strategic Predictions for 2019: Conference & Exhibition Marketing by Helen Coetzee, on 03/01/2019 Settling back into work as we kick off 2019 (which we all know is going to be a bit of a rollercoaster ride!), the MPG team has taken some time to reflect on the key challenges and opportunities our customers and wider community are likely to face: 1. Events will be more important than ever before In times of extreme uncertainty, imminent change and heightened risk – meeting face-to-face with other professionals facing the same challenges is one of the best ways to proactively acquire valuable intelligence and essential contacts. Responsible companies will want their ‘fingers on the pulse’ of their customers and their industry. Many will find that sharing and collaborating with their industry peers is the best way to find solutions and opportunities. In 2019, event marketers will need to be highly attuned to the burning questions and priorities of their customers – attendees, sponsors, exhibitors, speakers and other event stakeholders. Our deep empathy and a keen understanding of what matters most will be essential in creating and effectively communicating event value propositions and marketing messages. 2. Event customers will be more discerning and protective of their time At MPG we have always believed that event customers will always prioritise ‘return on time’ over ‘return on money’. If an event product very effectively meets a market need – the cost of participating in an event becomes less of an issue. Event customers will demand an excellent return on the time they invest in an event and will pass harsh judgement if any of their time is wasted. In 2019 it will be even more important for event content, speakers and programme formats to be highly relevant and very well executed to deliver exceptional ‘value for time’ and a good experience. Event marketers will need to get products to market early. We will also need to ensure our messaging is highly relevant and compelling to stake a claim to some precious days in diaries. 3. Strong brands with excellent events will win For B2B media brands, in-person, hybrid and virtual events will become even more important for brand engagement and value delivery – especially within ‘core customer’ groups. Brand equity will be a key part in attracting customers to events – with the confidence and trust they have in a brand playing an important part in decisions to devote some of their precious time (and budget) to participating in an event. Events businesses will also start prioritising brand building as they recognise the importance of being more customer-focused rather than product-focused. More B2B media and events businesses will understand that their brands belong to their customers and that being responsible brand custodians means investing in the unique and genuine value a brand delivers to the community it serves. In 2019, event marketers should relish and take full advantage of the opportunity to strategically build brands that will help attract high quality event customers – embracing the exciting opportunities for strengthening content-led, inbound and brand-led marketing. 4. Referral and influencer marketing will come to the fore In times of uncertainty, event customers will do all they can to reduce the risk of wasting their own time or their company’s money. They will also be more mindful of protecting and building their personal brands – carefully considering how their managers, peers and potential future employers perceive their involvement in the events they choose to participate in. Event customer acquisition and retention will rely more on validation and referrals from trusted colleagues and influencers – to reduce risk and protect reputations. In 2019, event marketers need to truly embrace the ‘human-to-human’ movement. Our marketing programmes need to consider how key individuals – who are influential with our event customers – will become brand advocates and publicly support our events. And we’ll need to be acutely aware of ‘WIFM’ (‘what’s in it for me’?) when putting together plans to get the right messages to the right people at the right time. 5. Customer insight and data will be in high demand for good decision-making To be more confident in their decisions and strategies, senior managers will push their teams harder to produce valuable insight on customers and their behaviour (particularly their propensity to purchase) throughout an event cycle. Events business leaders know this data is critical to drive growth and reduce risk, and they are also aware that the required data points are readily available with the right digital marketing tools and approach. Event marketers are the natural owners of customer insight and in 2019 will need to take more responsibility for collecting and analysing data that helps the business understand how customers are engaging with their events (and potentially the wider business). Business leaders will also have to make strategic investments in the skills and resources needed to make this possible. If this investment is made well, the return should be excellent – especially in the long run. 6. Deeper personalisation will be key to event customer engagement Although artificial intelligence is showing strong potential for delivering a more personalised customer experience, in 2019 most organisations will still be relying on a more manual approach to ensuring the content and messages served up by marketing to targeted audience groups is highly relevant. Getting the right message to the right person at the right time will be more important than ever. And having a well organised customer database is the first step to making any personalisation possible – whether driven by AI or more manual means. In 2019 event marketers will need to focus on getting the most out of their CRMs/marketing database systems – ensuring their #1 priority is organising the database of customer and prospect records so that targeted marketing is possible, even if more manual than we would like it to be. 7. The full range of skills needed for event marketing will be recognised Effective event marketing requires a team of marketers – each with specific skill sets. 2019 will be the year business leaders recognise that they cannot expect one individual to have all the required skills around strategy, data and analytics, campaign planning & project management, content marketing, copywriting, design, email marketing and marketing automation, social media and pay-per-click advertising (and more). Marketing is a deep and broad discipline, and events require a very specific type of product marketing that is very different from other types of product marketing. In 2019, event marketers will be recognised as a unique, valuable and scarce resource. Businesses will start thinking differently about how they acquire and retain the skills needed to create and drive effective event marketing strategies and campaigns. Upskilling, outsourcing and partnering will be explored as ways to fill the critical resource and skills gap in event marketing. Even though these predictions take in to account the unique challenges we’re likely to face in 2019, we believe all the above would be on the horizon regardless of Brexit or Trump-fuelled uncertainty. As consumers become more powerful, a more collaborative and sharing-based economy emerges and our world becomes fully digitally-enabled, event customers will demand more from the event brands they choose to nail their colours to. Event marketing needs the right kind of investment to make the essential strategic contribution required to drive growth – which is possible even in difficult times. B2B media brands and events-focused organisations that can think differently about how they invest in marketing for the best return will be the winners in 2019 and beyond. MPG accelerates the growth for conferences and exhibitions. We deliver: Event Growth StrategiesOutsourced Event Marketing Get in touch to find out how MPG’s marketing approach has consistently achieved 40%+ annual growth for events. Continue Reading Topics: Analytics and intelligenceBrand strategyEvent marketingLead generationMessagingVirtual event platforms
How are event marketing leaders creating high-performance teams? Insights from MPG’s Round-Table by Helen Coetzee, on 28/11/2018 GET REPORT Event marketing is being transformed. Organisations are becoming more customer-focused, and attention is shifting from outbound to inbound strategies amid changing customer expectations and rapidly downsized databases due to GDPR. In this new era, where marketers have more data, technology and influence at their fingertips than ever before, the strategic impact and responsibilities they hold within organisations is growing exponentially. It is up to marketers to ensure all stakeholders understand just how important best-practice marketing is to the future success of a business, and to build the most efficient and skilled marketing functions to deliver on this potential. MPG’s round-table, held on 9th November 2018, brought together some of the UK’s most influential B2B event marketing leaders to discuss the key challenges involved in building a high performance event marketing team. Round-Table Discussion Participants: Nicole Abbot IQPC UK Matt Ackroyd The Telegraph Babak Daemi GovNet Lubtcho Dimitrov Capacity Media Vivian Linecar Haymarket Hannah McCulloch Hanson Wade Matthew Tremlett Pageant Media Sharise Wilkinson KNect365 Key Insights from the Round-Table Discussion MPG have put together an overview of the key points from the discussion, providing valuable insight into the following areas: The shift to more customer-focused organisations How to increase event marketing’s contribution across an organisation Why it is so important for the marketing function to have an investment mindset The value of marketing performance measurement Ongoing changes in tactical and strategic marketing practices The opportunities tech and data offer marketers Marketing’s evolving role in project management Challenges in staff recruitment and retention DOWNLOAD KEY INSIGHTS Event Marketing Leaders Round-Table Series MPG runs a series of events dedicated to marketing leaders. These gatherings enable discussion and the sharing of ideas around the most important challenges and opportunities in event marketing today, as well as important trends impacting the future of event marketing. Sign up to event updates to join our community: SIGN UP TO EVENT UPDATES Continue Reading Topics: Community marketingEvent marketingMarketing operationsMarketing strategySkills training
Unlocking the Potential of Marketing: Some Sage Advice for Events Business Leaders by Helen Coetzee, on 01/11/2018 Our guest blogger – experienced event and content advisor Tim Mann provides insightful tips on how events business leaders can be confident in the return on their investment in marketing. “By improving the reporting process for the marketing team, you are also helping the marketing team communicate with other functions, enhancing their value to the organisation. Marketing reports, made accessible and actionable, should be shared with all functions in the business – especially sales.” As is the case in all types of organisations, senior executives focused on the success of B2B events have to quickly process information from a variety of sources to make good decisions – on an operational and strategic level. A cause of frustration I often encounter when working with senior executives is how difficult it can be to efficiently receive and understand data provided by B2B community marketers. Frequently, meetings with B2B community marketers or the reports they provide tend to overflow with analytics – where important context and actionable insights can be difficult to pinpoint. It can be unclear how marketing spend is being allocated, which channels or elements of an B2B community marketing campaign are working best, or what is being done to optimise marketing performance in the months and weeks leading up to an event. This can strain relationships between marketers, executives and other stakeholders. So, what are the reasons for this and how can you address this challenge? The language of leadership and the language of marketing Marketing is a frequently misunderstood function. The analytics and language of its reports can be impenetrable to ‘outsiders’, especially when compared to other functions such as sales – despite the fact both functions should be closely aligned. CEOs, Managing Directors or Divisional Directors (P&L holders) in B2B Media and events businesses still tend to come from a background of content or sales – giving them a stronger, innate understanding of how non-marketing functions operate. Even if marketing has been a career path to senior management, the function has changed so much in the past five years that marketing experience gained years ago is probably of limited use. Compounding the problem, changes in recent years in the technology and tools being employed by marketers has resulted in marketing spend and the reliance on marketing investment increasing, as well as the volume of data and analytics rising. This growing cost and complexity of marketing has widened the disconnect between marketers and their senior executive team who see vast resources being sucked up, but hard-to-find or difficult to understand evidence of a return-on-investment. Ask the right questions… As a CEO or MD, you have to make sure your marketer(s) know what analytics and insights you need to see on a regular basis. Establish the data points, metrics, context and resulting insights and recommendations that are most valuable to your decision-making process and provide clarity for marketers on when and how you wish to see this information presented – usually in a combination of routine reports and meetings. …get the right answers Ensuring reports and meetings provide the information you want may involve rebuilding the whole process from scratch, which you need to be prepared to do in order to effectively manage your marketing function. Also be prepared to improve and refine this reporting and meetings process as you go along – building on what you learn about the value and accessibility of information your marketers can provide. A useful comparison and possible starting point may be your sales report. As marketing should be, sales is focused on financial results and customer engagement, and is effectively a marketing channel. Sales reports tend to speak the language P&L holders understand – communicating activity, engagement, forecast revenue and commercial outcomes. Good sales reports will also include a focus on quantity and quality of leads generated and conversion rates. Ideally marketers should provide the analytics and insights ‘further up the funnel’, and while showing joined up results with sales where relevant, ensure their reports also answer the following questions: “What, where and how are we spending?” “What are we aiming to achieve and what is the expected ROI? What does success look like?” “What results have been generated by marketing investment to date? How have these results been generated?” “Are there signs we should adjust or change our approach for better results?” “What is marketing doing to analyse results on an ongoing basis and flex to respond to results to maximise ROI over time?” Asking these important questions and insisting on context, benchmarks and insights will result in an intelligence-based approach to marketing decision-making, strategising and investment. Bring all functions into the conversation By improving the reporting process for the marketing team, you are also helping the marketing team communicate with other functions, enhancing their value to the organisation. Marketing reports, made accessible and actionable, should be shared with all functions in the business – especially sales. ‘Sales and marketing’ are effectively one process and need to be joined up for optimal results – yet they often operate in silos. I’ve regularly seen campaign meetings and plans launched by sales with no input from marketing and vice versa. Are sales people aware of the content and messaging marketing is communicating? Do marketing know who sales are talking to? Get marketing and sales people in the same room to understand each other’s strategies, activities and results so they are better able to align and integrate. Better information + better communication + better teamwork = better results As a business leader, you have the responsibility to ensure all functions are pulling their weight and well-supported and enabled to do so. The contribution marketing makes and how to lead marketers effectively can often be one of your most difficult tasks – often made more difficult if you’re not ‘speaking the same language’. But, if you work on this relationship and ‘help them to help you’ make good decisions, your investment in marketing should pay for itself many times over. Tim Mann currently works with a number of privately owned events and media businesses on overcoming the challenges of scaling and achieving faster growth. His work encompasses developing leadership capabilities, building and executing event and portfolio growth strategies and all actions that lead to sales growth. Previously to this Tim worked as Managing Director for several businesses involving conferences, executive forums, exhibitions, publishing and research. Connect with Tim on LinkedIn. Continue Reading Topics: Analytics and intelligenceCommunity marketingEvent marketingLead generationMarketing technology
B2B Events Growth Framework: Six Areas for Strategic Focus by Helen Coetzee, on 12/09/2018 Over the past 12 months, the most popular reads on MPG’s website have been the 9 Strategic Success Factors in Event Marketing blog series by Kirsty Joynson and How successful events can transform a B2B media business – a report based on research conducted with some of the most well-respected leaders from our community of B2B events professionals. (more…) Continue Reading Topics: Community marketingEvent marketingMarketing strategyProject management
An essential new tool for our community? How new messaging app Guild could shake-up B2B events. by Helen Coetzee, on 11/09/2018 We spoke with Econsultancy founder Ashley Friedlein on his latest venture, Guild – a messaging app that facilitates valuable conversation between professionals. (more…) Continue Reading Topics: Community marketingMarketing technology
