For marketers who walk the walk

If you asked any sales director in IT and telecommunications the question: are events still effective marketing activities? I believe you would receive a variation of the same response: “I think so but I don’t know for certain, I would have to ask my marketing team.”

That’s a fair response because again, I would hazard a guess that most decisions within organisations of whether or not to run an event are based on the theory “we did it last year and it seemed to work well”, or the very similar “we have always run events, our customers expect it.”  These could be very valid reasons, especially if they create the bulk of your sales opportunities, but I challenge anyone involved in creating, managing, running or funding events to stop and ask a few simple questions before agreeing to run another event.

Questions like…
Are physical events more successful than virtual events, like webinars? When I say successful I mean with a positive return on investment for the company. Do we know the results? Have we got the metrics from previous events to give us insight? What role do these events play in the sales cycle? What has changed? Are customers, prospects, partners, vendors still coming out to events? What will the audience learn at our event? Will they actually turn up? Who is the target audience? and finally, can we actually resource this event?

In my opinion, webinars are popular with vendors because they are a recurring information resource that be accessed 24/7 on their website, but I do question how many people actually watch or listen to each and every webinar in its entirety? Whereas at a physical event, you can tell who is engaged and who is not engaged, plus your sales people should be able to focus upon building relationships with the attendees that look to be engaged. It’s a good test to see which of your sales people are natural networkers, and can actually sell. Another benefit of physical events is when customers sell to other customers or even better, to prospects; you can’t get that from a webinar.

So how do you make your events more effective?
First, think about the elements that contribute to successful marketing events. The three essential items are: venue, content and presenter. A successful event will be set in a great location, it will have character, be easily accessible and relate directly to the topic of the day. For example, if the theme is higher education, why not use a state of the art university or for architects, you would use an architecturally inspired building – it will be an immediate talking point.

Content must be current and relevant – plus, try and build in some type of exclusive content as this will answer the initial question of what will the audience learn at our event? Finally, please ensure you use tried and tested presenters; this can make or break an event. Ensure they are rehearsed and briefed not to go off script or make any inappropriate comments. Please also check all the slides to ensure they are legible and not repetitive. These three simple elements require preparation, as with any marketing activity, but the benefits will be enormous and measurable.

Making the event happen
Events can take a lot of time and resource, sometimes more than creating a direct marketing campaign. Here is a simple approach to actually making it happen. We can look at three main areas which are: planning & organising, running the event and post event.

Firstly, create a team and develop an actual plan that has dates, deadlines, budgets and areas of responsibility. Next, decide on a theme, venue and, most importantly, a date (try to avoid any holidays or anything that could harm your attendee numbers). On the day the team must all know their roles for an event to be successful, as once it starts. it cannot stop. Ensure you have the correct signage, the AV and presentations have been tested and the food and drink are suitable for the audience. Finally, post event, you may have decided to create a feedback form to hand out on the day, with an incentive for its return, or as an email the next day, either is acceptable.

This final step is the most critical to the overall success of the event and the purpose of running it in the first place: lead generation. I would advise that the team have a verbal debrief – preferably face to face, to discuss all aspects of the event. What worked well, what didn’t work and how are the leads going to be handled? Event follow up is often forgotten, as most marketers think that an event is completed once you say goodbye to the last delegate and put the final box back in the car. This is actually where the real work begins – closed loop marketing.

And finally…
One final point to consider in the marketing mix is the number of events you plan to run in a given year, and what percentage of the budget and activity plan will they take up? Is it 30%? 50%? or even 80%? Just step back and think about it for a moment so it’s clear which events are essential and generate the bulk of the business, and what contribution these events are making to your business. It may help make the decision, along with the marketing metrics, on whether or not to run the next event.

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