How Can TechCEOs Capitalise On Events To Drive Leads?
B2B Events should be part of any TechCEOs demand generation strategy. We recommend atleast 2 events any growing firm should participate to connect and engage with B2B buyers. Key reason why you should do this is that events are a place where a large number of B2B decision makers show to check what’s out there, learn and update their knowledge.
What’s more important, no other form of marketing activities gives such a large opportunity to present the brand, its values and establish a real face to face relationship with potential buyers. World-class marketers confirm this thesis. In 2019, most of the respondents (68%) indicated in-person events as a most successful tactic for generating qualified leads for the top of the funnel.
While most TechCEOs do participate in events, not many know how to make them work in their favor.
If you do not know why you are at an event and have a well defined process to drive value then you are wasting both your time and money. True value is generated days before and beyond the day of the event.
Case study of A Leading GTM Software Company
GTKonnect, a leading provider of Global Trade Management solutions based out of the USA wanted to improve their presence and create brand awareness in the GTM community. Though the company was present in GTM events year after year, they never made and impact with powerful marketing initiatives.
We worked with the GTKonnect management to re-position the company, develop a new brand message and target a launch at few select events.
Trade shows seemed to be a perfect opportunity to make a big impact to as many decision-makers as possible in the limited time they had, and showcase their brand. This conservative brand with limited reach and the same vintage customer base finally got five minutes of fame in a place full of its prospects. By attending key events they wanted to raise their brand awareness, build an online audience for GTKonnect’s products and solutions, as well as to double the number of business meetings and demo requests.
We had few areas of focus :
Reach: Influencing customers who do not know your brand
Amplifying to event attendees on Social
Deeper relationships with customers – face to face and online
Engaging before and during the event
Capturing data from Social into CRM system
Content to customer’s peer groups and co-decision makers
Encouraging advocates to share your content
Promoting advocate content to their co-decision makers & peers
How we developed a plan to launch new brand message
Driving value before, during & after events
Increasing engagement with event content
Driving advocacy to internal stakeholders & external peer group
Initiating sales team relationship – online & face to face
Driving registration & reducing drop outs
Additional data capture
Amplifying to target non attendees
3 Stage Process Pre-event – Event – Post-event Flow
Assess audit needs across organisation
Set pre-established measurement goals
Cross reference speaker / attendee lists against target / existing clients
Establish creatives
Agree on narrative
Agree on engagement channels (social media platforms, media interviews, organiser blogs, mailers, email)
Agree on paid, owned, earned mix & search strategy
Populate content calendar
Create content bank – research, thought pieces, long form at byline & short / soundbite grabs
Create visual assets – video, product shots, infographics
Outreach to influencers / customers
Pre-event activities involved: Our process ensures we achieve an integrated approach in distributing the most relevant content in social and digital channels. Before executing, determining a holistic social strategy is key. Insights from Agility Nexus’s listening or conversation map exercises are translated into an overall strategy. Only then can content planning and influencer /partners identification begin. Throughout this entire process, the project manager ensures the team is on track and provides operational, strategic and tactical guidance. We assist by doing the following:
Defining event objectives
Explaining our contribution and plan of action
Running listening exercise with relevant event/product and brand keywords
Establishing overall strategy based on extracted insights
Creating templates and/or adapt existing content
Reaching out to influencers/partners for distribution and amplification
Running through event day
Event activities – Experts involved during event: • Project Manager • Content • Publishing, Distribution, Amplification • Influencers • Partners During an event
On the ground at the event, the Agility Nexus team will develop, create and produce real-time content. The publishing, distribution and amplification teams monitor channels for new topics to create content around and the project manager ensures that timings are met and the team does not stray from the strategy in place. New exhibition/ presentation begins and once the content is in place, the final product is uploaded onto appropriate channels. Social channels are monitored for replies and shares.
Post event activities – Experts involved – • Project Manager • Analytics: After the event or product launch wraps up, the Agility Nexus team continues its efforts to track results. Measurement & reporting is necessary to gauge effectiveness of social efforts and to note down learnings.
We compile a list of all channels that content was seeded out of; run a final social listening exercise to determine how content was perceived; run an analytics exercise to determine how content and channels performed and compile finding. We help you leverage analytics using several channels and track your volume relative to competitors. Establishing the effect of performance on multiple channels helps optimize media budget and put together an effective strategy for engagement.
Agility Nexus walks you through event planning from start to finish and helps you set up a streamlined process for lead generation that you can leverage to engage customers in a more focused manner. Event planning and lead generation is a big challenge, take the next step in making it productive.
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3 Mistakes to Avoid In Your Tech Business To Grow Revenue Click here.
Do TechCEOs Get ROI from Marketing Click here.
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