The Role of Events in a B2B Marketing Strategy

The success of your B2B inbound marketing strategy relies on a steady supply of content that interests your clients. Event marketing helps you build relationships with your clients and generates content you can use for months to come. Not sure if the hassle of coordinating an event is worth it? Consider these benefits.

Increased Exposure for Your Business

Holding an event is an excellent way to increase name recognition and strengthen brand awareness. Any event that encourages interaction between you and your prospective clients improves the likelihood that they’ll think of your business first when they’re ready to make a buying decision. Events can include:

Conferences
Trade shows
Seminars
Lunch or dinner events
Training sessions
Webinars
Product launches or demonstrations

Better Value for Customers

Two in five consumers believe that companies are helpful but don’t do anything extra to keep their business, according to a 2011 American Express customer service research study. An event offers the perfect opportunity to provide additional value for your customers and increase your bottom line.

In fact, U.S. participants in the American Express study were willing to pay 13 more for excellent service. When your event includes information that your clients can use to make their lives easier, you’ll both benefit.

Natural Sales Generator

Since every attendee at your event is a prospective client, there’s no better way to generate sales leads than by holding a seminar, demonstration or product launch. During casual conversations with clients, you’ll learn about their requirements and pain points. You can use this information to create personal follow-up communications after the event and develop content that will resonate with your prospects.

Improved Brand Awareness with Digital Technology

When you make your event the place to be, chances are it just might trend on social media. Best of all, you won’t have to spend a dime for this invaluable promotion opportunity. Take advantage of the latest digital technology by:

Establishing official social media hashtags for your event.
Offering prizes and incentives to attendees who share the event on social media.
Providing free WiFi during the event to make it easy for attendees to post updates.
Sharing “sneak peek” videos with potential attendees to ramp up enthusiasm for the event.
Taking advantage of geolocation capabilities during the event. For example, invite attendees to check in on Foursquare and offer badges that offer free drinks or other freebies.
Live Tweeting your event and share photos. Share Tweets from attendees on your official Twitter account.
Embedding live event video on your website, blog, Twitter and Facebook.

Excellent Content Generation Opportunities

Events provide a wealth of content that can help you attract and keep clients. Keep customers interested in your product or service with:

Blog posts: Most events generate enough material for multiple blog posts, ranging from an overview of the day to event highlights to information about the products or services discussed.
White papers: Share the most important messages from your event in a free white paper.
Tweets and Facebook and LinkedIn posts: Include wisdom from speakers, announce winners of contests and thank clients for attending.
Videos: Video of the event can be transformed into a webinar, and short pieces of video can be added to your website, blog or YouTube channel.
Articles: Whether your event attracts journalists or you write an article for a news or business website, articles increase brand exposure.
Follow-up emails: Remind clients of the things they learned during the event and ask them to contact you if they have questions.

No matter where clients are in the sales pipeline, event marketing can helping you close deals and keep brand awareness strong. Why not give it a try?