In our most recent article on the future of B2B events, we shared insights from a strategy-focused roundtable organised by Renewd, combined with MPG’s insights from the work we do with our clients.

As B2B events leaders assess their future risks and opportunities, we have considered what the changes to the product and revenue mix mean for marketers.

Whether your events are delivered virtually, in-person or in a hybrid format, marketers should keep in mind the following 7 things when working to grow event revenues:   

#1: Exceptional customer experiences – starting with personalised marketing

With the rise of digital events and the emergence of many new products and brands, the noise in the marketing channels your competitors are also using can be deafening. Crowded email inboxes and social feeds are being ruthlessly filtered at best, and ignored at worst. 

To win the battle for the precious commodities of your target customers’ attention and time, not only do your products need to deliver more value, but your marketing messaging needs to be highly relevant, reaching the right person at the right time with exactly the right message.

Adopting personalisation is only possible when marketers have defined their customer segments and ensured their databases are well managed and set up in the right way for targeting via segmentation. Marketers also need access to analytics via a foundation of a solid and well-integrated marketing tech stack. To achieve the right level of personalisation, the marketing data and tech ‘space race’ is on!

#2:  Marketing strategy aligned with business objectives

As business leaders are becoming more confident in defining their medium-long term business strategies, marketing strategies are needed that support business objectives. Marketers will need to set commercially focused, measurable marketing objectives, with supporting KPIs, to ensure that the tactics they deploy are positively and visibly impacting business performance.

#3:  Measuring and analysing marketing performance

It is a marketer’s responsibility to provide ongoing visibility of marketing performance and ROI (the good, the bad and the ugly!). This enables business leaders to confidently make informed decisions on how to continue with their marketing investments. Marketers themselves also need this visibility to understand their audience engagement and how their target customers are interacting with their brands and products. Knowing what is and is not working  is the only way to optimise marketing tactics. 

#4:  Audience-first, content-led approach

Marketers need to have a deep understanding of their audience – their demographics, personas, motivators, challenges, ‘jobs to be done’ – to ensure their marketing messages are relevant enough. They need to work closely with content and sales teams to ensure alignment, create feedback loops and ensure that audiences’ needs are prioritised. If the audience is going to pay with their time, attention, and money, the content on offer needs to be highly valuable, and a content-first, benefit-led approach to marketing messages and communications is key to capturing and maintaining interest over time.

#5:  Highly targeted, account-based marketing

There is an expectation from customers that marketing messages are highly targeted, personalised, and super relevant to them as individuals. A well executed ABM strategy should deliver strong ROI through higher conversion rates, shorter sales cycles and higher average order values by creating highly personalised messaging and customer experiences for key individuals within targeted accounts. 

#6:  Marketing training and development

Marketing is always changing, and marketers should always be learning. Businesses that build agile capabilities in their marketing function by supporting and investing in training and developing their marketers are likely to get better results from their marketing, as well as achieve better staff retention. Many of the best marketers value continuous learning and progression opportunities more than a punchy salary. 

#7:  Marketing and sales alignment

Marketers need to play a bigger role in how businesses offer and execute marketing initiatives for their commercial clients. They need to work more closely with the sales teams who are selling marketing services in order to create marketing campaigns and initiatives that are more engaging (ideally content-led), effective, and can demonstrate ROI.

In summary, the key to success for B2B media and event marketing over the coming years will be about high-value, engaging and unique content delivered via a highly personalised, multi-channel approach that is executed, measured, and optimised with a rigorous approach. There are no shortcuts. But there are definite market-leadership opportunities to be grabbed when the right kind of marketing approach receives a good level of investment and executive support.

“MPG has a deep understanding of the pain points in marketing within our industry, and they can deliver a strong base of best practice, having been through this process with so many community-focused events businesses. Their rigour and structured process really gives us confidence.”

Phoebe Kimble-Wilde, Marketing Director at MarketforceLive

Do you need help defining a marketing strategy that is aligned with your business objectives?

High performance marketing that drives revenue growth and consistently delivers against business objectives can only be achieved when based on a robust marketing strategy. MPG’s Marketing strategists have a wealth of experience and expertise in developing high impact marketing strategies for B2B brands. Get in touch to find out how we can help you get ahead.

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