Whether by building brand awareness, showcasing your USPs, or maximizing leads generation, events are an essential marketing strategy for B2B businesses. Both audience engagement and audience generation are vital parameters determining the success of a B2B event.
All the more, it is crucial to focus on bringing in the right profile of attendees in terms of their company, designation, needs that resonate with your products/services, and a genuine possibility of gaining value from your event. A well-planned event marketing strategy can uplift your business and bring it to the limelight as an industry leader.
Here are six valuable tips to maximize audience engagement and attendance at B2B events:
Know your Audience
Hosting an event will be futile if you don’t rope in the relevant attendees in the first place. Getting the desired ROI from any B2B event (physical or virtual) mandates that you spend sufficient time researching your target audience and carefully plan your list of possible attendees.
- Start with building a basic profile of the company, department, designation, geographical location, and other demographics.
- Analyze their reasons/benefits for attending an event, and the communication should directly address their business challenges.
- Make sure your event marketing collateral reflects real value aligned with their needs.
Personalized Communication
Whether your email marketing is automated or not, there needs to be a personalized touch in your email invitations to strike a chord with your target audience directly. Aside from addressing their requirements, use engaging content and copy to generate a buzz about the event. Throw in some freebies towards the end, and have a CTA tab placed strategically for maximum responses. Last but not least, make sure your email invites are mobile optimized.
Ease out the Event Registration
There is nothing more appealing as a marketer than having potential attendees fill out detailed forms, giving you all the valuable information you need. But lengthy forms will only deter applicants from signing up.
Keep the CTA/registration as quick and straightforward as possible. Once they are enlisted to attend, you can always get the required information from them during the event or post-event feedback collection.
Host a Top-Notch Virtual Event
Whether it is a trade show, product launch, or service facilitation, holding virtual B2B events has become a norm for most businesses nowadays instead of physical events.
The massive infrastructural savings aside, virtual events make it a lot easier for potential leads across far-off locations to attend with ease. Do pay attention to the following points to host a world-class B2B virtual event:
- Exceptional content
- Concise event with a limited duration (nobody has the patience for long events nowadays)
- Hold an interactive event as opposed to one-way communication
- Simple to download resources
- Buzz-worthy backdrop
- Post-event freebies (mention in the invitation mailers to encourage participation)
Social Media Promotion
Besides sending out personalized emails to prospective attendees and updating details about the event on your website, don’t forget to leverage your social media presence to maximize attendance.
Reach out to influencers, business partners, trainers, guest speakers, etc., and provide direct CTAs for anyone interested in attending. Keep your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) while drafting your promotional content on social media.
Post-Event Engagement
Building a rapport with potential leads after the event has concluded is crucial for getting the required ROI from the event. Do keep the following points in mind for post-event engagement:
- Have one-on-one communication with each attendee to solicit their feedback.
- Enable screen sharing to make the event livelier.
- Be a good listener and offer solutions only after carefully listening to their requirements.
- Post-event, ask your audience to be open with their queries and concerns for a healthy discussion.
Conclusion
As a B2B marketer, not cashing in on events implies that you are losing out a significant chunk of your target audience to competitors. The proper pre-event audience research, social media campaigns, personalized emailing, top-notch content creation, and post-event follow-up strategies can bring in high-quality leads, drive up engagement levels, and bolster conversions. Post Covid-19, virtual events have majorly replaced physical events, and this trend is expected to continue in the future. Gearing up with these altered dynamics will ensure that your B2B business attains phenomenal growth.