The first and main question I get from B2B clients is – how do I get more leads? I consistently hear myself repeating the words “more reach with quality content that is of value to your customers”, now if I look back at what has been the number one most successful initiative for my B2B clients– it was more than content.
For lead Generation in B2B – Event Marketing is King.
Don’t get me wrong, content and social media are still a key part of the lead generation process for most B2Bs. After discussing this topic this week and giving it a lot of thought, I realised that the majority of leads generated for B2Bs have been through events and not online campaigns. In fact many of the online and social activity is conducted after you receive the lead and it is used to nurture our potential customer.
By running an event we get to know our audience well, we have the opportunity to “WOW” them and showcase how we can make a difference in their lives. At the end of the event session we are able to offer free personal consultations or free demos at which time attendees are ready to take up the offer and take their next step in the buyer journey.
Now not all overly excited attendees will progress from the free consultation to a paid service/product, but from my experience if you can convert 3 to 5 people from a 25 person attendance then that is a good conversion rate and an excellent ROI for many B2B clients.
The attendees that don’t proceed will be on the list to be nurtured until such time they are ready to take the next step.
So while we all try to do our best when it comes to content ie blogging, social media, online campaigns the leads slowly come in, generally in accordance with how much time and money we are willing to spend. However, if we are not running event sessions then we could be missing out on the biggest opportunity to generate quality leads.
Content and digital marketing supports event marketing “before and after” the event.
When I said Content is Queen – I mean we still need to produce quality content with a lead generating and nurturing process. This will be a powerful tool to back up your event strategy. We still need to generate great case studies, quizzes, handbooks and/or other content to support your workshop or event session. Content, social media and PPC advertising will help us create awareness of the workshop we are running and fill up the seats. And after the event, content, social media and email marketing will help us nurture the leads by providing the more detailed information they might be seeking after the event.
Event Marketing
Organising an event session of some sort whether it be a breakfast, lunch, cocktail hour or workshop can be a daunting task at first. We need to know our audience, what will attract them to come to the event, what is going to convince them that they made the right decision to come on the day, how can they walk away thinking we are the “bees knees” and remembering our brand and offering? All these questions need to be addressed plus how are we going to seamlessly deliver the content at the event. Once we have worked through the planning and the implementation, we learn from it each time and after conducting event after event, testing this- testing that, we find the perfect formula that works and converts.
If you are keen to learn more, there are lots of books on Event Marketing on Amazon plus there are many event organisers to help you conduct your event, one that I am happy to mention is: Vanessa Campbell from Vanessa Campbell Consulting. It’s awesome when we can rely on someone to work out all the logistics and deliver on the day giving us time to focus on the content.
Before we call our event organiser, we need to have a detailed event brief and budget that is aligned to our overall lead generation strategy. Here is a fairly straightforward one I found online – EXAMPLE OF BRIEF TEMPLATE
I would love to hear more about your experience with lead generation through Event Marketing.
Great article – very informative and engaging!