7 Steps to Boost B2B Event Marketing ROI and Leverage Lead Generation

Author: Mike Connolly

As businesses compete to connect with customers in a ‘buyer-powered’ world, marketers have to use every touch point to converse, engage and build trust with prospective customers. While the need to have an online presence is obvious for every business, nothing builds a connection with your market than a B2B event.

B2B events are a great way to network, build a connection with customers and engage prospects in your industry. The ROI of event marketing will vary based on role you play in event marketing, whether as a host, sponsor, participant or attendee.

We will begin with the important aspects of event marketing, from an organizer’s point of view.

1. Start early, stay organized and plan ahead – Hosting, sponsoring or attending business events involves meticulous planning and execution should begin at least 16 weeks before the event.

2. Build your contact database of attendees – Find out who is attending your event. Identify the buying stage of your contact list to provide relevant material that will pique their interest. If you feel the database you have is not the relevant target market you wish to focus on, source a database of relevant contacts from a reliable, third party data provider.

Additional Read: 6 Steps to Boost B2B Lead Generation Strategies

3. Be detail oriented in planning – The devil is definitely in the details. Document plans and make checklists to ensure plans are implemented. Event planning tools like Mind Maps and Gantt Charts are good to use in order plan processes, monitor progress and ensure all tasks are accomplished and monitored.

4. Don’t plan B2B events for the sake of it – It’s no point planning a B2B event just because you can, or because you have the budgets for it, or because you need to find prospects. There should be a compelling reason such as a launch of product or service, or promoting a cause relevant in the industry. Not that your event should only revolve around what you offer. It should provide value addition to your target audience, to address their challenges and provide solutions.

5. Focus on pre-event marketing too – make sure you promote your event. You could even host a series of smaller events to build interest. Communicate to your contact list through channels – email marketing, telemarketing, direct mail marketing, social media, SEO – PPC ads, etc.

Here’s an example of an email campaign we sent out to our customers. As a market leader in providing data-driven marketing solutions, we attend global business events and conferences to reach prospects, connect with them and engage them. We would love our customers to gain exposure as well. It’s an offer for a Conference Pass to the LeadsCon B2B Summit in New York. You could get a pass too before 30^th July.

6. Plan lead capture methods – business events are one of the best ways to obtain business intelligence and contact information of leads. However, methods to get this information should be a fair exchange. Sharing of informative and educative content is good value addition to offer. Thought leadership sessions, workshops, seminars or knowledge exchange discussions are a good way to provide better engagement and gain higher quality leads who are actually interested in your brand.

Additional Read: Personalization: The key to B2B lead generation success

7. Decide on how to measure effectiveness of your B2B event – Identify the factors that will determine your ROI. For instance, if you are launching a new product, the ROI will most likely be purchases made; if you are sharing information on a new innovative concept, the ROI will most likely be in terms of support such as social media traction, engagement in discussion groups, etc. Take into consideration your customers’ behavior and buying cycles, in order to estimate after how long after the event, do the results need to materialize.

Whether you are hosting, sponsoring, participating or attending a B2B event, stay tuned to this upcoming series of blog posts. It will serve as a guide to help you gain ROI through B2B event marketing and leverage lead generation.

Until then, here’s a sneak peek into our phase-wise roadmap to market your event…