In recent years, the remit of the B2B community marketer has expanded – mostly to cover more strategically critical areas of an event’s value proposition.

The marketer’s role is no longer limited to planning and delivering a pre-event campaign to get ‘bums on seats’.  It extends to how customers experience the event itself – i.e. the ‘brand experience’, or more often called the ‘customer experience’.

Don’t let marketers be excluded from customer experience decisions

Marketers often have a deep understanding of an event’s brand and the value it delivers to customers.  However, when it comes to event design, they are not always at the decision-making table.  So, it often happens that customers experience an inconsistent brand message across the full event’s design, product development, marketing and delivery cycle.

This can take the form of speakers being booked because they are high-profile and attract attention, even if their expertise or profile is inconsistent with a brand’s positioning. Or, it can be as simple as delegates’ information packs lacking correct visual branding.

Any approach which leaves marketers outside the planning and decision-making process about event design and customer experience should be confined to history.

Marketers need to see things differently to achieve strong brand positioning

A good marketer must have a deep understanding of how a strong brand position needs to be developed and embedded in every aspect of an event and should champion this strategy. This ensures all internal event stakeholders are working to a consistent branding strategy when working on event features and when engaging with external stakeholders like speakers, sponsors and delegates.

A good marketer will also challenge the business and event team if a B2B community brand doesn’t include a compelling unique selling point or very strongly differentiated proposition versus competitors, or if the positioning is not consistent across all channels and touch-points – the most crucial of which is the ‘at-event’ experience.

Marketers need to ensure brand consistency for brand loyalty

Marketers should take on board the responsibility to step inside the customers’ shoes.  What does the customer expect from your brand, based on what has been promised?  How is the customer understanding and absorbing the brand’s positioning and messaging via every interaction?

A customer’s ‘event consumption’ and ‘at event experience’ – whether it virtual or live – should feel completely consistent with the marketing campaign that attracted them in the first place.  From the customer service interaction in making a booking and paying an invoice, to signage that directs the customer to the check-in desk, to the physical passes they are given as they sign in, to the look and feel of the event space – the brand must be consistent.

Similarly, when multiple events run off a parent brand, the experience should be consistent and therefore lead to a positive impact of delegates attending multiple events and increasing the loyalty to the brand as a whole.

Marketers must measure success to be masters of B2B community brand experience

As it’s so emotion-based, customer experience and brand perception are often difficult to measure – but that doesn’t mean it should not be measured!

It is essential to understand how your B2B community brand is being experienced> and if it is living up to its promise.  Marketers must pay attention to the following metrics and measurement methods: