Lead generation from B2B marketing events remained a top priority and a major source of revenue for businesses in 2019. It isn’t something too surprising. With more and more martec tools out there now to help companies get higher conversions from events, B2B events will continue to gather steam in 2020.
Events are an excellent source of data and provide ample opportunity to collect relevant information about prospects and customers. B2B events provide an ideal ground for lead generation where businesses can meet prospective clients, nurture warm leads and improve loyalty with existing clients.
If you’re in the B2B marketplace, it isn’t uncommon for leads to move slowly through the funnel. You need persistence, but more importantly, you need the right technology to nurture your leads.
How do you do that? We’ll be looking at 7 key tactics to help you.
1. Choose the Right Event
It all starts here. Certain events are better suited for networking than others. It’s important to know what your goal is. If your goal is to generate event leads, focus on events that offer the right environment to do that.
Choosing right will bring in new prospects for your business and help you gather valuable contacts, which is of course the goal here.
2. Do Your Prospecting
If you’re hosting or sponsoring, make sure you’ve informed your prospects about your booth. This will help them locate you easily. A pre-event email campaign, promotional ads, PR or other forms of communication can help you bolster your branding. More importantly, it’ll help you prospect more accurately by tracking engagement from the campaigns you’ve run.
If you’re going to the event as an attendee, start prospecting well ahead of the day of the event. So when you’re at the event venue, you should know who you’re going to want to meet. You can browse through the attendees’ list if it’s available, or just follow up with the prospects you’ve already set up meetings with and find a spot to meet by setting up time on the calendar.
Ultimately, narrow down your list to your qualified prospects and focus on them. Meeting and greeting everybody will not maximize your leads; focus on the prospects that are most qualified and suitable.
Must Read: 10 Proven Tactics to Generate Leads from Conferences
Must Read: 10 Proven Tactics to Generate Leads from Conferences
3. Invest In Paid Ads
Organic channels alone won’t get you the far reaching exposure that paid forms of adverts can bring especially in a short span of time. Events are seasonal affairs and paid ads go a long way in bolstering your promotional campaigns. You can use social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook, to generate paid social leads running targeted ads.
Another great way to gather leads is through one-click forms, and this paid advertisement goes beyond organic posts. Instagram and Twitter let businesses purchase in-stream ads which, along with regular posts, point directly to a signup page.
It’s always best to spread your paid ads budget across streams that best serve the purpose. Do your research and invest accordingly.
4. Use Influencer Marketing
Influencers can help you to spread the word and promote your business, gathering valuable leads for your business ahead of the event for you to pursue. And so establishing connections with key influencers in the industry can prove to be a powerful brand promotion strategy.
Pick your influencers based on your objectives. Try to get a diverse mix of key influencers as that will spread your message across the geographic and demographic groups that you want your brand to get exposed to.
5. Build an Email List
You can send automated or personally drafted targeted emails to your leads and offer unique promotional discounts ahead of the event to incentive your prospects.
It is very important to keep your email list clean and updated to get high conversions. Solidify your email marketing strategy and revamp the existing system if that’s what it takes to focus on the specific event. It also helps you personalize your content according to your targeted prospects and the event’s theme.
6. Try Promotional Billboards
This depends on a lot of factors such as what business you're in, what the event is, where it is, the scale of the event and more. However, the goal remains the same, no matter what vertical market you're in.
You can put up your company's billboard for promoting certain new features, or your brand in general. It is a sound technique for B2B businesses and helps you to gain attention from a strategically chosen target audience. Offline marketing can augment your digital efforts in more than one way.
7. Always Focus on Your Event-ROI
A carefully constructed event strategy will help you to secure the maximum ROI for your business. The best way to get the maximum event-ROI is to, of course, follow up with all the leads you've gathered right after the event so you can close more deals.
To do that, you need to make sure you are capturing your event leads instantly and accurately. You can use the ScanBizCards business card reader app for capturing your event leads.
If you’re hosting the event, the app doubles as an event badge scanner and can help you capture contacts from conference badges. It even appends missing contact info such as email, phone company address and LinkedIn URL wherever it’s available.
Concluding words...
These tips will help you to generate more qualified leads from your events. It’s important to always keep measuring your performance so you can focus on what works best.
Comments
Post a Comment