Integrating Events Into The Marketing Mix. Web:

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1 Integrating Events Into The Marketing Mix Web:

2 Marketers Have Embraced Events As marketers, we are often the front line in bringing clients, prospects, and employees together to achieve key business objectives. When those objectives include lead generation, brand awareness growth, education, or recognition, events are proven to be an excellent way to move the needle. If you re going to add events to your marketing mix, you re in good company. Face- to- face exhibitions are the predominant marketing tool for companies that employ them, accounting for more than forty percent of total marketing budgets. 1 And the marketing spend on events is not limited to attracting new clients. Events are an important component in marketing to existing customers as well. In a recent customer marketing study, sixty- one percent of marketers surveyed said events are their top activity for marketing to existing customers. 2 As we continue our discussion, we ll look at both how and why events have gained such a prominent position in the minds of successful marketers and how to effectively incorporate them into a marketing program. A Unique Value Proposition Recently, the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) asked trade show exhibitors why they view participation in events as an important part of their marketing plans. Ninety- eight percent of them said it is because exhibitions deliver unique value over other channels. 3 One way that events create that value is by allowing us to achieve multiple sales and marketing objectives at once and in a compressed time period. Over the course of even a single- day marketing event it is possible to reach multiple prospective customers, meet partners, demo new products to existing clients, and interact generally with your industry much more easily than if you had to do each separately and from some distance. And while we re interacting with all of those different groups in one place, think about just how much data we re able to collect. There are many ways that we can learn about prospects or customers at an event. The most straightforward is just talking to them. But in today s events landscape there are dozens of other ways to capture data about preferences and behavior including badge scanning, social media interaction, polling, and short range communication technology. A third reason that events are important to so many marketers is that it gives them the ability to meet one- on- one separately from any formal event programs. 1 The Marketing Spend Decision. Center For Exhibitions Industry Research (CEIR), March 3, The State of Customer Marketing: New Benchmark Research. Influitive/Demand Metric, October Young Professionals Exhibitor Needs And Preferences Study. CEIR, April Page 2 of 5

3 According to Jeffrey Cesari of Shimmer Events, You really do lose the important face- to- face interaction of those impromptu conversations you would have over a coffee break when you rely too heavily on virtual or hybrid meetings. This is why despite advances in virtual meetings, only three percent of marketers say that they re using them to replace live events entirely. 4 Event Metrics for Marketing Professionals So we ve got a lot of good reasons to use events. But there is a catch. No conversation about event marketing would be complete without discussing event return on investment (ROI). Event production or participation often means a significant financial and time commitment by an organization. Marketers are required to show justification for events with quantitative data that indicates an alignment with company strategy. This may sound fairly straightforward but it s much easier said than done. In fact, it s been reported that fifty- nine percent of event marketers currently have no way to calculate event ROI. 5 When considering event ROI, we can measure the value of participation based on both marketing and sales dimensions. But what, specifically, should we be measuring? Remember that every business is very different and there is no one- size- fits- all method for calculating event ROI. Top objectives typically cited for events on which ROI is measured are: - New, qualified sales leads generated this can be measured in total number or an agreed- upon scoring system on which marketing and sales have collaborated, - Meeting clients again, there are numerous ways to measure this such as savings on multi- site travel, a new sale, etc. - Building product and brand awareness this one can be a little tougher but there are metrics like net promoter scores, social shares, etc. that will work in this regard. Obviously, the most common objective is to generate leads that will turn into sales. But we also need to make a determination on how to isolate which sales truly are a result of our event. Isolating event- driven sales is a topic for a later time. We could spend several pages on this topic. For the time being, the takeaway is to set goals for your marketing events and be sure that you have a way to measure against them. 4 Virtual Reality, Meetings Outlook. Meeting Professionals International, Winter The State of Event Marketing. Hubspot and Eventbrite, Page 3 of 5

4 What Makes A Great Event? So if you know what your goals are and you know that events are a good way to achieve them, what are some of the things to think about when actually putting an event together? Below, we ll cover some of the things that are key to event success. Focus on Engagement: Be active at your events and encourage your attendees to be active as well. Not only will it make the attendees feel that they got more out of your event, you ll also capture a lot of data about preferences and behaviors that can aid in your marketing and sales efforts. Generating leads is great, but generating qualified leads based on observed behaviors will dramatically improve the close rate after your event. Create Experiences: Einstein said that Play is the highest form of research. A great way to drive engagement is to use experiential marketing in your events. Experiential marketing is the inclusion of interactive activities that allow attendees to immerse themselves in your brand. Keep in mind that your prospects are attempting to learn about your company and your products. Let them interact in some way with them to get the most out of their time. Again, if you re paying attention and have the right monitoring tools in place you ll gain an incredible amount of data that will help you achieve your objectives. Embrace Event Technology: We just mentioned having the right tools in place which makes this is a perfect time to mention event technology. Event- tech is a very broad area but it s one of the hottest topics of conversation among event marketers today. The use of technologies like ibeacons, touch- screens, scanning applications, etc. not only allows you to share and collect data, but it also gets your customers using their own devices to do your marketing for you. Over two- thirds of event attendees engage in online activity while at the event. So, make your event part of an overall connected brand experience and you ll find that you re creating brand advocates. People that find value from their interaction with you will ultimately do a good portion of your marketing work for you by sharing with others - recommending or sharing information about your brand two to four times as much as your typical customer. 6 Deliver Value: Attendees at your events need to get as much value out of them as you do. Their time and budget are limited so provide them with content and interactions that are going to be of value to them. Focus on quality of interactions as opposed to quantity for both you and your attendees. Some ideas to keep in mind: - Have your conference presenters serve as facilitators instead of lecturers, - Don t be overly sales- y in your interactions but make the value of your products or services obvious by responding to customers concerns, 6 Why Events Are The Best B2B Marketing Channel in the World. DoubleDutch, February Page 4 of 5

5 - Share content succinctly that addresses real customer topics. Think about the way we consume information in Tweet- sized bites. This can be as effective offline as online. This ties back to our early conversation about brand advocates. If your attendees feel you re delivering value then you won t have to shout to be heard. They ll do the shouting for you. Conclusion A great way to sum up what our event discussion means to today s marketers is with a quote from Ricardo Molina of the BrightBull marketing agency. Mr. Molina was asked about event trends for He said: I see a big challenge: The current skillset of an event marketer. It has become very apparent that knowing how to market an event is not, and will not be sufficient for event marketers. 7 Producing events that are of mutual benefit to you and your attendees requires a deep understanding of marketing principles, technology, human behavior, and analytics. While this may mean a considerably different role for marketers than in the past, those who are able to successfully integrate events into their marketing mix will provide incremental value to their organizations. About eventuosity: eventuosity is a cloud- based web and mobile application for managing the people and resources associated with events. It is the first application to bridge the wide event technology gap between registration and post- event communication where logistics, project management, budgeting and other tasks critical to event success currently fall. eventuosity provides corporate, non- profit, association and other event planners with a toolkit that connects all stakeholders in the events workflow from the first planning meeting to the final attendee survey while giving them a level of control and visibility that today s patchwork, manual solutions cannot provide. eventuosity allows event planners to think strategically about their programs rather than focusing on routine task management. Our users can optimize resource utilization, manage team assignments, and effectively communicate with anyone participating in their programs. The result is a reduction of event costs, improved attendee experience, and an ability to focus on strategically- relevant or revenue- generating aspects of events which all contribute to greater event ROI Experts Predict The Trends Shaping Your Eventbrite, January Page 5 of 5