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
Focusing on lead generation? You need a community map! by Dominic Bird, on 27/03/2020 Virtual, hybrid and live event organisers are currently facing an unprecedented challenge in sustaining their event revenue, both in the short and long term. Monetisation via spex sales and ticket revenue are under threat, and many organisations are quickly transitioning to digital event formats without a robust plan to protect this income. The game has changed, so to speak, but there’s one tool that remains as relevant and valuable in the digital space as it was in the physical environment. A tool that we recommend all events undergoing any sort of transition to the digital space employ. What is a community map? Simply put, a community map (sometimes called a market map) is a tool for understanding the composition of your end-user target market, which is essential if you’re going to work out how to best serve this audience and thereby build the right kind of monetization model. Creating one will help you engage effectively with your community to maintain and grow brand trust, as well as retain and grow your sponsorship and exhibitions revenue in the coming months. How do we create a community map? There are 3 steps to creating a comprehensive and accurate community map: Step 1 – Make sure you understand who your community is Make sure you can broadly define your end-user community in one or two sentences, and that you can easily identify who the ‘core’ group is that matters. Then ensure your whole brand team is 100% aligned on this. Step 2 – Divide your community into segments and identify the most important ones Once you’re confident in the community you serve and its core group, it’s time to break the community down in to further segments and identify the most important ones. To do this: Consider the different groups your sponsors want to most engage with Define parameters of each group in terms of sector, company type, job function and seniority. Group your segments into tiers to make the hierarchy clear and improve internal efficiency in understanding, using and growing your database and other routes to market. Then as you work through your marketing comms plan, your plan becomes as simple as “we need to grow our Tier 1A database and reach them with a 4-stage email campaign” and “our next LinkedIn advertising campaign needs to target Tier 1B”. There are several other benefits to segmenting and targeting your community in this way: Close new sponsorship deals. Being able to share exact figures on your community’s composition is a powerful leveraging tool to use on potential sponsors who are looking to engage a very specific audience. Retain more partners. In a similar vein, existing sponsors will become addicted to you if you’re feeding them valuable audience insights, as well as consistently growing the segments that matter most to them. Improve your marketing. Segmentation enables deeper, more personalised targeting of comms. Serving each group of your community with the content that is most relevant to them is an important step in engaging any community. Perhaps the biggest benefit is that it enables the most important step of all… Step 3 – Size your key community segments and analyse your current database to identify gaps Knowing the composition of your database is one thing, but avoid viewing it in a vacuum. Having your most valuable segment make up 80% of your database looks good on paper, but you could only have > 10% of the total contacts available in your core market. This may look good in isolation… …but when you look at the wider market, the gaps become clear. If your most important segment is HR directors at the world’s 50 largest banks, and your database only has 20 of them – that means you’re reaching less than half of your most important community members. To fill these gaps you should conduct database research where data privacy rules allow. If your research is small scale, try conducting this internally; your teams may be able to identify relevant contacts via social media and company websites. If you have a large pool of contacts to identify, consider employing an external agency to do the heavy lifting at pace and cost effectively. If this is not allowed due to privacy regulations in your target region, or there are still contacts left to identify, you can move to outreach such as PPC and organic social media to try and draw your contacts to your website via inbound tactics. LinkedIn ads will allow you to target based on useful parameters like job title, industry and even individual companies – you just have to make sure your ads and website are effectively encouraging them to share their data (and grant consent for comms) via a lead generation form. Wrapping up Community mapping is a vital tool for any business to survive and thrive. In a recent blog post, we outlined why understanding your community, and their needs, should be your #1 priority – read the full article here. At MPG, we’ve been creating community maps for the world’s leading B2B media and events brands for years. To find out more about how we do this for specific markets, please do get in touch. Continue Reading Topics: Audience acquisitionCommunity marketingDatabase developmentLead generationMessagingVirtual event platforms
Running a conference or exhibition in 2020? Your event marketers must do these 5 things by Dominic Bird, on 12/03/2020 In our previous blog post, we covered what B2B event marketers should do in the wake of an event postponement due to Covid-19. In this post we explain the actions needed for an event scheduled to run this year. Whether you’ve postponed a spring event, or you’re preparing for your annual Q4 conference/exhibiton; revisiting your approach to marketing is essential. In this tumultuous period, a spotlight has been shone on the events industry. Sponsors, exhibitors, suppliers and – of course – delegates look to their favoured conferences and exhibitions for a response to the Coronavirus outbreak that now dominates headlines. If you have an event scheduled to run in 2020 there are several key considerations for your event marketers who play such a key role in event success. We’ve put together a list of the top actions event marketers need to take now: 1- Release a statement to your entire community Your event community wants to see that you are responding to the situation. As your top priority – directly communicate an update of your position via email to your key event stakeholders. These are individuals who have in some way invested in or made a commitment to your event, including delegates, sponsors, partners, speakers and suppliers. Add a clear statement to your event website homepage. Also add a dedicated web page about your decision to run the event this year and include information and links that support your position e.g. official government advice. Consider adding a pop-up to appear to anyone visiting any page of your website to maximise visibility. If you have a FAQ section on your website, add Covid-19 related questions to the top of the list. Share this news on all channels, ensuring you reach as many people in your community as possible. Consider producing a video alongside your statement to condense it into something easily digestible and engaging, and to add a trustworthy face to the decision. Here is a great example from Money20/20. 2 – Share your contingency plan With a global situation that’s changing almost hourly, showing you have a robust back-up plan will give attendees, speakers and sponsors alike the confidence to plan to be part of your event. Explain how and when (provide a specific date) stakeholders will be informed of a possible postponement. Include when the postponed event is likely to take place if a postponement becomes necessary. At a minimum, state the likely month or date range, even if the specific date is not yet known. Be as specific as you can about where the postponed event will take place, especially if you’re considering a different venue. Take inspiration from this example, and other events’ contingency plans to ensure you’re covering all bases. This coronavirus response guide for event organisers from professional networking platform GUILD also includes some great examples of ‘going ahead’ statements. 3 – Make it clear how you are ensuring visitor safety With health concerns top of mind in the public consciousness, sharing how you plan to reduce the risk to attendees is vital. Share what measures your venue is taking, e.g. more frequent cleaning and the installation of hand sanitizers Explain how, as the event organisers, you are further mitigating the risks. This could be by: Advising against handshakes Adjusting session formats Providing on-site medical facilities 4 – Adjust your marketing communications strategy and campaign plan It may be tempting to stick to the original, familiar plan. But considering a slightly different approach to your marcomms to take in to account the new coronavirus shaded world could be beneficial to campaign performance. Review your channel approaches, considering how the situation may require them to change: Is it worth investing more in re-engaging past visitors over trying to generate new ones if your returning visitor rate could drop? Consider investing more in retaining booked delegates and revenue, instead of purely focusing on acquisition. Exclude your digital advertising (PPC) from appearing on news sites. You don’t want your banners alongside an announcement advising people to avoid gatherings. Does your wider messaging strategy need re-orienting? If your industry is feeling unease, should you focus on how your event addresses challenges instead of opportunities? Don’t feel the need to completely tear up your existing strategy. Doing so will only cause unnecessary disruption when simple tweaks and diligence can keep you on the path to success. Place more emphasis on lead generation and digital content creation until you are confident your event will go ahead as planned. Doing so will also allow prospective visitors to receive updates while they decide whether to commit to attending. Think about how you can communicate any existing or newly built in digital elements (livestreaming, video content, networking app) to show that your event has a strong presence in the digital space, as well as the physical event itself. Avoid messaging that states how many people you are expecting to attract, as you can’t be certain how many will turn up. Be wary of ‘over-promising and under-delivering’ Avoid using imagery that shows numerous people interacting closely or shaking hands. Consider adding coronavirus related content to your event agenda – e.g. a breakfast briefing – as well as event content to your site (speaker interviews, news updates) to ‘own the conversation’ in your industry. Make sure you build this new content into your comms, sharing via email and social as an agenda update, showing how you are responding to the crisis by making it a key discussion point. 5 – Provide frequent updates As the situation evolves, your community will expect you to respond in a responsible and transparent manner. Update your statement as soon as your plan or the situation changes and more clarity is needed. Include a date for when information was last updated. If a significant update is made, push this out on all channels as you did when the statement was initially released. Consider providing an update when a relevant news story breaks (e.g. a ban on gatherings of a certain scale) to quell any fresh concerns. Above all, don’t be silent about Covid-19. Taking responsibility and providing clear communications is vital in times of uncertainty. We recently published a blog with our advice and predictions on how to win in this new world and what the ‘new normal’ could look like – this is a must-read to ensure your business is taking the right community-led approach – read the full article here. If you have any thoughts on how our industry should react and how the marketing approach should adjust, we would love to hear from you! To find out more about short-term marketing considerations & tactics for postponed events, view the webinar outputs from our recent webinar which answered those all important questions. Continue Reading Topics: Content marketingDigital marketingEvent marketingMarketing strategyMessaging
Postponed your event? Here’s 10 things your marketing team needs to do NOW by Dominic Bird, on 11/03/2020 In the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, many event organisers are choosing to postpone their events. We gathered the MPG and AGNC teams to discuss the immediate steps marketing teams should take in the wake of a delayed event. You’ve made the decision. A new date is set, the venue is secured. Assuming you’ve already done the following, you may feel you have all bases covered: Key internal and external stakeholders informed Event suppliers updated Event budgets adjusted and confirmed Existing software contracts extended (e.g. event apps) Reservations moved (speaker and sponsor dinners, VIP parties) But don’t underestimate the responsibilities your marketing function has to ensure the success of your revised event plans. The strategic and tactical steps needed extend far beyond updating the dates on the website and sending out more emails. The below checklist covers the essentials your marketing team need to action to secure the success of not only your next event, but your brand as a whole. Forward it to your marketing manager to ensure they’re considering everything, at what must be a stressful time. Your marketing team’s postponement response checklist 1 – Review price points and targets With an extended campaign timeline and the prospect of booked delegates dropping out, revisiting the core objectives of the marketing function should be priority number 1 on any marketing manager’s list. Conduct an assessment on the impact of the postponement on revenue and attendee targets and set new objectives with a clear strategy of how your team will achieve them. Investigate whether your pricing strategy is still fit for purpose. Be wary of running another early-bird to spark bookings – you could irritate delegates who just paid full price! Similarly, increasing the final rate to add an early-bird could be perceived as taking advantage of the situation. Ensure you’ve secured the marketing investment needed to achieve new commercial targets. 2 – Conduct internal briefings to get everyone on the same page With revised targets, an updated strategy and a very unfamiliar set of circumstances – ensuring everyone is kept up to date is essential. To avoid confusion internally – and mixed messages being delivered externally – ensure your teams are fully briefed on the revised date (and the reasons for it), as well as the policies surrounding delegate ticket/sponsorship cancellations. They will need to know the answers to questions such as: I can’t make the new date, can I use my ticket to attend next year instead? Can I transfer my ticket to someone else? We no longer wish to sponsor – can we get a refund? I have already made financial commitments (such as a hotel booking) to attend – will I be reimbursed? 3 – Publish your statement Once everything is sorted internally, it’s time to inform your community of your decision in a clear and confident manner. Add a prominent statement to the homepage (and ideally also on a separate dedicated page) of your event website that clearly explains your decision and the reasons for it. Here’s a great example from a Summit in Singapore. Make sure the statement is updated frequently to address any fresh challenges and include the date prominently to assure viewers they are reading an up to date announcement. 4 – Get the message out Sharing the announcement on your website is not enough. To avoid frustration and confusion, all event stakeholders (including prospective attendees) must be informed. As a priority – simultaneous to the statement being published – notify all delegates, sponsors, media partners, speakers and other event stakeholders via email and telephone of the new date. Utilise email and social media to inform the wider market of the revised date. As on your website, make it clear why the decision has been made. Your event community wants to see that you are in control of the situation and acting in their best interests. 5 – Update your existing collateral As soon as the announcement is out, focus on changing key information on your marketing collateral with new event dates and venue arrangements. Review your existing collateral (brochures, agendas, interviews etc.) and update to reflect the revised date and venue (if applicable). Consider how the change may affect the contents and structure of your collateral: Was the venue a key selling point before, but now you’ve moved to a smaller site? Does the collateral refer to the previous pricing strategy (early-birds) which may confuse people? 6 – Don’t forget your automated activity! While dealing with ‘front-line’ activity, it’s all too easy to forget the systems you have running in the background. Take the time to re-group with your team on the automations in place and act swiftly to pause any activity that may conflict with your statement. Check all your automated activity for outdated information or actions that may no longer be relevant. Here are some examples of what could trip you up: Countdown ads in PPC campaigns that are due to start 1 week before the original event date Autoresponder emails that are triggered by form completions on your event site Pre-scheduled social media that still refers to the old event date An event countdown widget on your website 7 – Re-focus your messaging When getting back up to speed on your normal campaign activity, make sure you’re not just copy/pasting what came before. In the short term – avoid copy and imagery that could invoke unease for prospective attendees. This could be: Messaging around the size of the event (e.g. 500+ attendees) (also as your actual attendance numbers will be difficult to predict) and the ‘global’ nature of the event. Images of large crowds in proximity, or of people shaking hands or interacting closely Consider how the updated timelines and the Covid-19 impact may affect your event USPs and content. Will you be adding any new digital elements to your event? e.g. livestreaming of certain sessions? Will you be enhancing the app in any way or releasing it early so that delegates can get the most out of the networking opportunities your event presents? Do you need to include a session dedicated to the impact of Covid-19? Substribe Summit has done this very well by adding a ‘breakfast session’ to the start of the day. Is there a key piece of industry legislation that will now come into play before the event that will require you to adjust your program? How else might the industry (and wider macro environment) change between now and the new date? Can you try and secure new ‘big name’ speakers who maybe couldn’t attend the previous event? If you can have them join by video conference that may make it more likely they can speak at your event. 8 – Focus on lead gen With hesitant prospective attendees, sponsors and exhibitors; collecting contact info to nurture and re-engage is more important than ever. Make sure your ‘Register Your Interest/Subscribe for Updates’ forms are prominent on your website and in all comms. Dial down the ‘Book Now’ messaging temporarily and focus on content-led comms and updates about how you’re enhancing the event (e.g. with digital add-ons) to build and maintain confidence in the event. 9 – Provide regular updates With a rapidly evolving situation, your community will expect you to be vigilant and responsible. Share what you (and the event venue) will do to ensure visitor safety. This could include increased frequency of cleaning and hand sanitizers. Act on government and official advice and ensure your event attendees and stakeholders know you are heeding this guidance. 10 – Generate good content To keep your audience engaged and further build confidence with all stakeholders that the event is still valuable and relevant, an increased focus on content production would be prudent. Create and distribute high-value content (news updates, speaker interviews and collateral) that will keep both existing and prospective delegates invested until the new date Consider creating content that directly addresses the effects of coronavirus on your industry. ‘Owning the conversation’ about the issue that is top of mind for everyone can be a powerful method of engaging your community and driving revenue, as well as ensuring your community is served with all the information they need. Following these steps will help mitigate the short-term challenges an event postponement causes, for your marketing team and for your event’s health. But the long-term symptoms of this outbreak will extend far beyond the pain caused by a single event’s postponement. The B2B events industry is about to undergo a period of intense self-reflection, and the outcomes of this could change the way we approach the medium for the next decade and beyond. We’ll be diving deeper into the strategic implications of coronavirus on the world of B2B events in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. If you have any thoughts on how our industry should react, we would love to hear from you. From all of us at MPG, we wish you and your business all the best. MPG recently hosted a webinar focused on marketing considerations & tactics for postponed events. See the webinar outputs here. Continue Reading Topics: Content marketingEvent marketingLead generationMarketing automationMessaging
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
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
Knowing Your B2B Event Customer: Developing Buyer Personas by Helen Coetzee, on 26/07/2018 Great event marketing is about great communication. But B2B community marketers can often spend so much time crunching numbers in spreadsheets, working on CRMs and databases, budgets and attendance targets that it becomes easy to forget our important role of effectively communicating with our customers. (more…) Continue Reading Topics: Audience acquisitionCommunity marketingEvent marketingMarketing strategyMessaging
Event Marketers: Brand Experience is your new Strategic Priority by Kirsty Joynson, on 09/07/2018 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’. (more…) Continue Reading Topics: Brand strategyCommunity marketingEvent marketingMarketing strategyMessaging
Email Marketing Performance Benchmarks for B2B Events by Heather Whitman, on 02/07/2018 We have a dizzying array of channels and tools available to today’s B2B community marketers, and the humble email is still one of the most effective. Deployed smartly, email marketing remains critically important when marketing events. GDPR meansB2B community marketers are likely to be sending fewer emails to data subjects in the EU than they did previously, so it is even more important than ever that campaigns are designed for complete relevance, maximum impact and constantly measured against the industry benchmarks. (more…) Continue Reading Topics: Analytics and intelligenceDigital marketingLead generationMarketing technologyMessaging
‘Data Strategy’ is the New Oil by Helen Coetzee, on 29/05/2018 So, the world did not end on 25th May and we had a sunny bank holiday weekend to celebrate! Although a tremendous opportunity for sound businesses, those who won’t admit they got a few more grey hairs and suffered a few sleepless nights from Friday’s GDPR deadline are either overconfident or pretending.. In the B2B events world, we wait in keen anticipation to see what our significantly smaller databases will deliver for us in the coming days. I have great hope – validated by a BBC interview on the weekend where an email marketing expert claimed GDPR will result in email open rates more than doubling from an average of below 20% to around 40%. (more…) Continue Reading Topics: Database developmentLead generationMarketing strategyMessaging
#10 | Event Marketing: The Ultimate Project Management Challenge by Kirsty Joynson, on 15/12/2017 Event management is a complex process. The sheer scale and complexity of events can be overwhelming. Many great event concepts fail in execution due to organisational issues. When events fail to meet expectations, one of the most common reasons is a lack of project management – with no one single project manager appointed. At times, even if one is appointed, it may be someone with a lack of influence, or someone simply in the wrong role or with the wrong skill set. (more…) Continue Reading Topics: Brand strategyEvent marketingMessagingProject management
