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Putting together an industry event is a delicate balancing act. You need the right program for content, flawless execution to ensure participants remain engaged, and the correct marketing strategies to land the event in front of the right audience.
This article focuses on how demand generation strategies can be used to improve B2B event marketing.
Demand gen is a specific approach that focuses on leveraging buzz and awareness to drive desire for a product or service. In a post-COVID climate, businesses are clamoring to meet customers and associates face-to-face, and B2B event marketing has become a saturated industry.
Demand generation provides a holistic approach that spans multiple marketing departments. It’s a common and relevant goal of demand generation marketing, to avoid working in a silo and instead, weave together diverse marketing efforts. That way, companies can engage and convert potential customers effectively.
Here’s how businesses can leverage demand generation strategies to stand out:
Remember that content is still king
One of the best ways to showcase what your event is about and what participants can expect is through content marketing. This is a critical aspect of demand generation and is key to attracting customers.
An excellent content plan provides information to potential customers while improving brand awareness. With tailored content and distribution, B2B event marketers can target content to audience behaviors and interests, which improves the quality of leads generated and improves the overall conversion rate. Some key success factors include:
Aligning content with the prospect’s pain points;
Targeting ideal customers and defining the audience;
Defining the purpose of the content created;
Choosing the type of reaction elicited from the content;
Scheduling when and where it’ll be published;
Defining how it will be promoted.
Leverage lead scoring for sponsors and partners
Hosting a major B2B event is hardly ever done in isolation, and provides a unique opportunity for a business to draw in its closest allies and friends. B2B events enable hosts to offer unique branding and marketing opportunities in the form of sponsorships, speaking slots, and branded stands and activations. Finding the right partners, sponsors, speakers, and exhibitors can add enormous value for event attendees.
It’s also an opportunity that newer players in the industry would be open to capitalizing on. Scoring leads for this particular exercise relies heavily on demand generation activity, and is imperative to qualifying strong leads.
A lead-scoring strategy can help event marketers qualify leads who are more likely to pay sponsorship fees. This can help you identify which leads you need to prioritize.
A lead-scoring strategy uses a point system to evaluate a prospect’s online and offline behavior in relation to your company’s products or services. Once a lead has scored a predetermined number of points, they are passed to sales.
Here are some key considerations for a robust lead-scoring strategy and points-based system:
Demographics and firmographics;
Budget authority;
Interest and engagement;
Behavioral factors;
Social media activity.
The benefit of account-based marketing
Large-scale B2B events can be financially exhaustive, and businesses need to maximize face-to-face opportunities to ensure the right people and customers are in the room. Account-based marketing is a great strategy that focuses on smaller groups or individual accounts, particularly high-profile or large accounts that could generate lucrative revenue.
This personalized marketing and sales tactic drives engagement among high-value accounts and sets the right tone for initiating a business relationship.
An effective account-based marketing strategy requires quality data to build a list of qualified target accounts. With this approach, there needs to be greater harmony between marketing and sales teams, who need to collaborate by targeting these accounts with personalized content and tailored messages.
Account-based marketing enables B2B marketing teams to get closer to decision-makers and optimize their proximity to extend invites and prime contacts on what the event is about. Having potential business partners at B2B events is crucial to maximizing the return on investment.
Invest in your social media channels
For general event attendees, social media is still one of the best ways to share information. The unparalleled reach and versatility. In the context of demand generation, this requires a focused approach that captures the interests and pain points of the target audience.
Best practice suggests distributing content across a variety of channels and engaging with prospective attendees. This allows event marketing teams to extract valuable insights, which can, in turn, be used to enrich the event experience, program, and offerings.
These insights are integral to driving demand.
Improve your email marketing efforts
Another tool in the arsenal of a B2B marketer focused on events is email marketing. Email marketing is a significant data source that enables an optimized approach to demand generation. This requires an evaluation and audit of campaign performance based on criteria like open rates, spam complaints, unsubscribe rates, and more.
Improving email marketing efforts to drive ticket sales ahead of a B2B event includes:
Providing engaging and informative content in the lead-up to the event (e.g., answer FAQs and what to expect);
Evaluating email frequency to avoid spam complaints and fatigue ahead of the event;
Personalizing content for each recipient;
Segmenting the email list to target attendees, VIPs, speakers, exhibitors, etc.
Using responsive templates that provide a consistent user experience across devices.
Building authority via B2B event marketing
Putting together a B2B event — whether it’s a trade show, a conference, a supplier event, or a networking event — is an enormous feat. In a post-COVID era, customers are looking for opportunities to engage face-to-face, and these events are excellent opportunities to connect with partners and raise awareness for a brand. According to Forbes, 70% of marketers say that live events are crucial when it comes to companies’ marketing success.
However, size isn’t everything. To implement a B2B event, it’s not necessary to host the largest events. Smaller events can offer more intimacy and an opportunity to forge strong business relationships. Hosting a B2B event is vital to help businesses gain trust and build brand loyalty.
Conclusion
In an increasingly competitive B2B event landscape, demand generation strategies play a vital role in ensuring your event captures the right audience’s attention and delivers real business value. By leveraging content marketing, lead scoring, account-based marketing, social media engagement, and email marketing, businesses can create a cohesive and effective approach to event promotion.
These strategies not only drive attendance but also foster meaningful connections, enhance brand authority, and maximize ROI. As the events space continues to evolve, integrating demand generation into your event marketing efforts will help your business stand out, attract the right participants, and build lasting partnerships.
