Think about the last event or party you hosted. Whether it was your toddler’s birthday party or a dinner party with your folks, chances are a considerable amount of planning went into it — from picking a guest list and sending out invitations to selecting which food and drinks to serve. Now multiply the efforts by a thousand, and you’ll get a fair understanding of what it’s like to plan a B2B event.
Feeling overwhelmed already?
It’s a no brainer that marketers often express their scepticism about the event marketing process as a whole. How do you get the most out of your event marketing investment? How do you build a successful event promotion strategy? How do you ensure your event shall be trending? The questions are endless.
If you’re like many B2B organisations, you’re investing a great deal of money into event sponsorships, event promotions, booths, speaking gigs, travel, and more. You want to make sure you’re getting out at least as much as you’re putting in so you can prove the ROI of your efforts.
Let’s dive into a few ways you can utilise account-based marketing for event promotion to get more from your event investment by creating awareness before the event and by substantially improving your follow-up process.
Must Read: Measuring the ROI of Your Account based marketing Strategy : Key Metrics to Track for Success
1. Encouraging Audience Attendance with Targeted ABM Campaigns
Use account-based marketing to help drive the right people from the right organizations to attend and meet with your team. B2B events are not numbers games! Had it been about packing your venue with spectators, you could simply extend a free welcome to the public. Who doesn’t love free stuff, right? B2B events must concentrate on the quality of attendees, not the quantity.
The most significant key to generating a good ROI is ensuring the presence of the right people to break through the chaos and get your message delivered in front of those people.
Must Read: 5 ABM Mistakes You Can Not Afford To Commit
Now, the million-dollar question is: How will you get these people to your event or an event you’re sponsoring?
You can use:
- Your CRM to distinguish prospects and customers in the region the event is taking place
- Send email invites to targeted lists (per role, designation industry, etc.) from your marketing automation platform
- One-on-one, personalized outreach from your sales team to invite your target accounts to the event.
- An account-based advertising platform like ONLYB2B a renowned event promotion company to serve relevant (personalised if required) ads to your targeted attendees.
2. Setting Meetings on Your Audience’s Terms with ABM
Another means to make the most of your time at an event is to use ABM campaigns to schedule appointments before the event date. This strategy works whether you’re hosting, sponsoring, or even just attending someone else’s event.
Additionally, set up a lunch or dinner to give hot prospects and customers a chance to meet one another, converse candidly about their business problems, and get to know your team. This tactic is an excellent idea for accelerating the sales cycle and building relationships with your opps and customers.
Must Read: Account based marketing tactics in 2023
3. Post-Event Follow-Up from Marketing and Sales
Let’s say that throughout a several-day event, you speak to 100 attendees. Roughly, there are one to two people per company present, so we can assume that you now have about 50 to 75 accounts/firms/team to follow up with.
Most companies instantly insert these new quality leads into their CRM system and start following up via phone or email. We recommend striking while the iron is hot, enabling you to see immediate ROI from your event — but what about the connections you made with people who aren’t quite willing to make a purchase?
That’s where marketing technology pops in. To ensure no accounts get neglected during the follow-up process, you can engage attendees that match your ICP using email nurturing, account-based advertising, and SDR outreach.
Email nurturing using marketing automation is the best mode for B2B marketers, but it’s not sufficient. The endless emails are never even opened. And what about all the decision-makers at those organisations who didn’t attend your event and therefore aren’t in your database?
Use account-based advertising to stay top-of-mind with event contacts and develop your reach to their colleagues who didn’t attend the event — even if you don’t have their contact information.
Get in touch with us for the Best ABM Technology for Events, Event Promotion and Beyond
Need effective event promotion strategies?
We can help you increase the registrations and drive more footfall to your events by offering an integrated, flexible and end-to-end event promotion package that is tailored as per your industry needs. We specialize in webcasts, webinars, meet-ups, seminars, product launch, and other live events.
Must Read: How To Generate Sales Lead Without Cold Calling.
Vikas Bhatt is the Co-Founder of ONLY B2B, a premium B2B lead generation company that specializes in helping businesses achieve their growth objectives through targeted marketing & sales campaigns. With 10+ years of experience in the industry, Vikas has a deep understanding of the challenges faced by businesses today and has developed a unique approach to lead generation that has helped clients across a range of industries around the globe. As a thought leader in the B2B marketing community, ONLY B2B specializes in demand generation, content syndication, database services and more.
