Event Marketing 2019 - Regalix · 2019-10-24 · nurture their audience.6 Your content plan roll-out should begin well before the actual event and continue well after it. Pre-event

The CMO Guide

Event Marketing 2019

www.regalix.com

April 2019

2 The CMO Guide to Event Marketing 2019

Introduction

The recently concluded Super Bowl LII was a technological marvel of truly immersive live streaming and in-person experiences, with 115 cameras providing a 360° view of the action, 8K cameras for hi-definition, drones, technology innovations like an AR-assisted 3D view of the venue and more.1 Live events have certainly come a long way since the early years.

It’s no surprise, then, that most organizations still consider events to be the single most effective marketing channel for their business. In a recent survey done by Bizzabo, 41% of respondents said that out of 10 channels, including content and email marketing, they considered live events to be the most critical marketing channel in helping them achieve business outcomes. This is an increase of 32% since the last survey in 2017. Further, a majority of the respondents (85%) indicated that events are essential to their marketing strategy.2 According to a Gartner CMO report, it’s one of the top four spending areas, ahead of social media, customer intelligence and email marketing.

From conferences and product launches to trade shows and virtual meetings, events are an integral component of the modern marketer’s arsenal of tools. According to Forrester Research, events comprise 24% of the B2B marketing budget,3 which is a fairly significant portion of the marketing mix. Events provide businesses with unique opportunities to raise brand awareness, generate leads, build equity with customers and partners, upsell, cross-sell, generate demand and more — all under one banner. Done right, live events could potentially deliver returns for years.

The importance of events in a digital world

The tremendous impact that digital has had on our daily lives is more significant now than ever before. The way we communicate, meet new people, conduct business, bank or buy groceries have all been forever transformed by technology. Yet, in-person events continue to thrive in this glorious digital world. That’s due, in part, to the fact that we are more than the sum of our digital alter egos. In-person and live events help us form connections, look into one another’s eyes, listen to body language, build relationships, develop trust, conduct business and learn from one another. Businesses often accomplish more in a day’s work when people meet than they do with months of emailing or messaging.

Those businesses that are most successful typically spend 1.7x the average marketing budget on live events.10

The CMO Guide to Event Marketing 2019 3

Figure-1

he ene ts that events a ord sinesses toda

Generate leads 83%

72%

72%

57%

46%

32%

Customer engagement

Build brand

Product educationand training

Drive demand

Customer upsell

Event program goals

Source: Marketo4

However, even as B2B marketers cite events as essential to their marketing strategy, organizations are struggling to leverage their significant investments post-event. Many don’t follow up on their leads. Moreover, with an increasing number of events being held every year, companies are also failing to set themselves apart from their competition. Events are high-stake endeavors that require large investments. Done right, they provide businesses with a captive audience and a platform of great engagement potential. So, how does a business ensure success in its event marketing initiative?

Best practices

Here are some best practices to help you maximize the reach and effectiveness of your events and get the most out of your investments:

Define objectives

Before planning an event, it’s important to think about what your event goals and objectives are. Ask yourself why you want to host this event or participate in that tradeshow, and whether it fits into your overall business strategy. Then give your answers a tangible shape or form. Setting measurable goals would provide the impetus needed to identify action items that would help you achieve the desired goals. This also ensures that you have the objective criteria to rate the overall effectiveness of your participation post the event.


Set the database in order

Once the objectives are in place, the next order of business is to clearly define the audience you want to target. Ensure that your contact database is up to date and scrubbed clean of duplicate and spurious data, that it’s segmented according to your audience strategy, linked to your CRM and other systems, and GDPR compliant.5

High-quality attendee data is important for you to deliver meaningful experiences to your audience, ensure their participation and to meet your objectives.

Create a consistent and compelling message

When considering the right message to adopt, it is essential to place attendees and their needs at the center of the messaging plan. Attendees are looking to learn and expand their viewpoints. They didn’t sign up to hear a sales pitch. Spend time thinking about the agenda and how you can weave threads that will create value to your listeners. Think about how your company can add value to conversations. It’s important to be consistent; attendees are more likely to believe a message that they receive consistently.

Detail your content plan

Content is the biggest net you can use to draw attendees to your business. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 61% of B2B marketers use in-person events to nurture their audience.6 Your content plan roll-out should begin well before the actual event and continue well after it.

Pre-event

Promotion needs to start early enough to create buzz. Teasers, countdowns, snazzy invitations, agenda descriptions, videos from past events, presentations, videos of speakers, and more, all serve to capture attention and interest and drive registration.

Picture this:

Social media, and in particular, Facebook, offers marketers the ability to promote their events effectively. Totally Thames, the river celebration that takes place in September every year, employs a split-promotion strategy. To better engage their target audience, the organizers decided to split the festival into micro-events and promote each of them separately. This ensured that there would be something for everyone.


Figure-2

otall hames promotes micro events on their ace oo pa e

Source: GEVME7

Drip Marketing

Drip marketing is a popular email marketing strategy. It involves gradually introducing content and information to take your attendees on a journey with you. It is about building interest slowly but persuasively, rather than being too in-your-face. This can be supported by other activities such as focused social media campaigns, or it can be integrated with a platform that helps you distribute tailored emails to your attendees based on their personal preferences.

At the event

Maintaining engagement during the event requires an entirely different strategy than generating interest before the event. In addition to presentations for sessions and content related to the event agenda, pulling in user-generated content should be an integral part of your strategy. Quotations, video clips of attendees, tweets and social media posts help ensure that attendees remain engaged. Think about presenting complementary content that helps position your business as being at the forefront of your industry. It is also important to have content that will help potential customers move along the marketing funnel. White papers, eBooks, buying guides, fact sheets and case studies help build relevance.


Post-event

Most businesses don’t have a communication plan to follow through with after the event. It’s critical to keep the conversation going with the attendees by providing them with more valuable content, such as a summary of the proceedings from the event, customized content based on conversations you’ve had with them, an invite to a follow-up event or webinar, or a special offer or promotion that they might be interested in. What works best is shareable content. Attendees want to engage with your content by either sharing it or recreating it in the form of user-generated content. Social media plays a vital role in popularizing this type of content.

Picture this:

Salesforce publishes recordings of all their conference sessions on their website, enabling attendees to watch them again.

Some companies also encourage people to contribute to the conversations that began during the event, via comments, discussion threads and more. This helps form communities that remain active long after the event has ended.

Figure-3

Source: Salesforce uses video content from their Dreamforce Conference effectively.8


Picture this:

Charity: Water does a great job of sending out reminder emails to people who’ve pledged to support their cause, including a short video reminding them of the event.

Figure-4

Source: Charity: Water sends informative ‘thank you’ emails that remind attendees to honor their

commitments.9


Figure-5

diences can access all the important content rom orld 2018 on the e site

VMworld, VMware’s prestigious annual global conference on virtualization and cloud computing, held in Las Vegas last year, drew more than 22,000 customers, channel partners and executives from around the world. From multiple workshop tracks and keynote sessions to racing drones and shooting virtual hoops, the conference wove multiple threads of education, shared learning, community building and entertainment. Once everyone got home, the company shared pictures and video replays of key sessions to help attendees relive their time at VMworld, the conference that never ends.

Source: VMware11

84% of business leadership — VPs and C-suite — feel that in-person events are critical to their company’s success.12


Go digital

According to research by Frost & Sullivan, the event-management software industry is worth $28 billion. In 2016 alone, over $50 million was invested in modern event- management solutions. Studies show that event technology adoption can increase attendance by 20%, increase productivity by 27% and decrease costs by as much as 30%.

There are many ways that various technologies can impact events, some of which will be discussed in the upcoming section of this paper. However, it is important that marketers employ technology to gather insights, improve attendee experience, and monitor and track results. In order to achieve this, businesses need a detailed digital strategy that covers all aspects of the event.

For businesses that conduct many events in a year, an event software could prove to be a good investment. On average, businesses that use event software are 24% more likely to prove event ROI than those that don’t.

Pre-event:

One of the benefits of using technology at this stage is that it enables you to create excellent brand communication that is far more effective and cost efficient than possible with traditional channels. Develop a list of potential people you’d like to meet at the event, then reach out to introduce yourself. Use social media to learn more about the individuals and make arrangements to connect prior to the event. If you’re sponsoring an industry tradeshow or seminar, use common event hashtags, repost articles and information about the event, and share your enthusiasm for participating.

Figure-6

Channels and their impacts on event promotion

Social mediaEmail marketingWord of mouthDirect prospecting emailsDirect mail

Num

ber o

f res

pons

es

19.9%17.9%

13.9%13.2%

11.3%

8.6%6.0%

4.0% 2.6% 2.6%

Which channel or tactic has been the most effective for promoting in-person events?

Display advertising or retargetingCompany websiteMobile appBlogMicrosite

Source: The Event Marketing Benchmark Report: Spring 201713


At the event:

From deploying facial recognition for easy registration to creating an event app or using virtual reality for life-like demonstrations, digital tech can help you deliver a superior experience to the attendees.

Figure-7

o event technolo ies stac p hen it comes to achievin siness o tcomes

Rank the following event-related technologies in order of importance to achieving a successful outcome for your events

3830

1827 27

11

Event automation/management

2631

12

2828 26

Registration management

3226 22 19 20

32

Lead capture

2622

3828 26

11

Event and session check-in

10

272328 25

38

Session polling and surveys

231 18

1322

60

Mobile app

AVERAGE RANKING (HIGHEST TO LOWEST)

Event automation/management - 3.05Registration management - 3.23Event and session check-in - 3.28

Lead capture - 3.43Session polling and surveys - 3.83

Mobile app - 4.17

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th

Source: The Event Marketing Benchmark Report: Spring 201714

Post-event:

While 88% of marketers are using social media to promote event awareness, only 54% use it for post-event engagement.15 Keep the discussion going by posting quotes from featured speakers, stats, photos and key takeaways from the event, which attendees would be interested in. Make it accessible across all devices.


Use gamification

Gamification helps increase engagement with the audience. Studies have shown that gamified experiences educate faster than passive reading. Gamification ideas implemented at a product launch, for instance, can accelerate the process of product learning to a pace greater than that of a presentation.

To make the gamification process work, businesses need to personalize it in a way that is meaningful to their audience. Building your game’s content, challenges and flow around your objectives and audience profile will ensure your game feels like an integrated part of the whole event experience.16

We can use event gamification to drive the behavior of participants, thereby helping achieve the desired event outcome. Besides gamifying portions of the actual event, marketers can also explore the possibility of introducing gamification into their event apps.

Gamified activities can be sources of customer data that cannot be found anywhere else. They can provide valuable insights about each customer, their intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, passions, thought processes and more. Every time a customer participates in a challenge, businesses learn a little more about them. These insights, when combined, paint a better picture of the customer’s motivations, habits and value systems. Personalized communication, offers and incentives are just a step away from here.17

Measure success

Most events track the number of attendees, ticket sales, leads created and other such metrics. However, as Stacey Danheiser, co-author of ‘Value-ology’ writes, if there’s one question that adequately measures the success of an event, it is this — “Were the event objectives met for the participants?”18 You should get in the habit of looking at your events from this standpoint. Then, dive into whether the speakers were effective, whether attendees found the event a good use of their time and whether the message was on target.

Pursue leads

One area that often gets neglected in event marketing is the need to follow up on leads. It’s important to design a robust follow-up program for post-event engagement, which covers both marketing and sales priorities. Inside sales can also play a critical role here to further qualify individuals who engaged with you at an event.


Analytics

Big data and analytics have made it possible to merge multiple streams of data for insights on speakers, attendees, sponsors and potential attendees. From CRM systems, social media, publicly available information and website and email analytics, businesses know much more about their target audiences than ever before. All of this allows for personalized event experiences and messaging, which is reported to increase engagement and satisfaction rates. Another way that analytics has transformed the event industry is through its ability to listen to social chattering and determine the concerns of audiences and what they most talk about. This helps event organizers put together presentations and sessions on topics that currently interest their audience.

Picture this:

Bournemouth 7s is the UK’s largest sports and music festival that attracts over 30,000 people. In the past, the team would simply throw a couple of ideas together and test them out to see which would stick. Today, the team uses sophisticated technology that gives them the data they need to make informed, strategic, sound decisions. For example, the organizers now have access to data that tells them how many people have entered the venue, at what time and when they leave. This helps in managing security and venue facilities. They also have access to data that tells them how people found out about the festival, which social media campaigns are producing results, what methods people are using to purchase their tickets and what the peak buying times and months are. This will help the team determine future advertising and promotion spends.19

Artificial intelligence (AI)

AI has had a tremendous impact on every industry, and that includes events. Its most significant contribution is streamlining operations and making businesses more efficient. AI enables personalization at scale and provides customer service through AI-enabled chatbots. AI’s matchmaking engine can parse through data from social media profiles and provide recommendations to attendees regarding people they should meet, conferences and workshop sessions they should attend and more. AI-enabled intelligence systems also give businesses the ability to filter their contact database by interest — based on email open rates, click through links, website pages visited and more — so they can invite people to relevant events. Deep learning can also analyze sensory data to measure footfall and develop patterns to make predictions for logistical arrangements that are needed at venues.


Drones

Drones are extremely popular at live events. They are especially useful to get camera angles and shots that are otherwise impossible or extremely expensive to get. Drones are also being increasingly used to ensure event safety.

Live streaming

Live streaming is only getting better as technology advances. Event organizers are immediately able to host thousands more attendees without straining budgets or facilities. Many social media channels have introduced live streaming functionalities, such as Facebook Live, which means guests can broadcast events themselves, adding more opportunities for sharing.

Picture this:

In May 2016, Google I/O held a keynote presentation wherein the company showcased its plans for the year. They provided a live stream of the opening address on the Google I/O website and on YouTube; this included a 360° video feed as well, which enabled remote viewers to feel as though they were part of the audience.

Figure-8

Source: Image 7 – Google I/O 201620


Augmented & Virtual Reality (AR/VR)

These technologies form the line at which our physical and virtual worlds collide. While both AR and VR hold enormous potential, they are still in nascent stages and have much that need to be ironed out. Both technologies are mostly mobile-focused at the moment, as it provides a low-barrier entry to adoption; however, there are other applications as well. In the event world, AR and VR provide businesses with the ability to hold virtual events for remote spectators, providing an immersive experience that is almost as good as being there. AR and VR can be used to project remotely located presenters onto a stage, impressive designs onto a flat surface like a building in projection mapping, and more. Event planners also use AR and VR to visualize the venue and how it will work on the day of the event. AR can be used at large conferences to provide attendees with maps, so that they can get to their next session without getting lost.

Picture this:

The recently concluded Super Bowl LI is more than a sporting event; it’s an event that defines the standards of immersive experiences. This year was no different. For the first time, the Super Bowl included a VR broadcast. Fox and VR partner, LiveLike, featured over 20 VR replays, using multiple cameras that the viewer could switch between. This immersive experience, along with 360° video, provided remote viewers with an experience that was almost like they were right there, if not better.

5G and remote events

Smartphone company Ericsson predicts that 1.5 billion 5G subscriptions21 will be active by the year 2025. This and other technologies are moving us toward a time when businesses can plan virtual events that don’t require attendees to be physically present. These virtual meetings are already taking place, but many of them feature recorded videos in playback mode. With greater internet speeds and computing power, live events in virtual mode are a certainty in our future.

Facial recognition

Increasing interest in biometric identification has changed authentication mechanisms in our banking systems, mobile phones and even events. Facial recognition technology has increased security at live events and also enabled faster check-ins when entering the venue. Both paper tickets and e-tickets require the user to perform an action in order to be authenticated, which doesn’t always go as


smoothly as expected. Facial recognition removes the need for user action entirely, thereby making the process of authentication an effortless and seamless one. Event organizers can even use facial recognition to run attendees against known criminal databases to ensure that security is maintained.

Looking aheadEvents have been invaluable to businesses when it comes to forming in-person connections. That is not likely to change in the future. However, as technology plays catch up, the way we conduct live events will certainly evolve.

Organizations that use multiple event software solutions find it twice as hard to demonstrate event ROI, compared to those with a single integrated solution.22


References:1 https://www.sporttechie.com/super-bowl-lii-technology-patriots-eagles/

2 Bizzabo’s Event Marketing 2019 Benchmarks and Trends Report

3 https://blog.bizzabo.com/event-marketing-guide

4 https://www.marketo.com/event-marketing/

5 https://www.realbuzzregistrations.com/definitive-guide-gdpr-events-industry/

6 https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2019_B2B_Research_Final.pdf

7 https://www.gevme.com/blog/5-best-creative-examples-facebook-event-advertising-event-pro-motion-strategy/

8 https://blog.bizzabo.com/event-marketing-guide

9 https://www.eventbrite.com/blog/event-email-examples-ds00/

10 https://welcome.bizzabo.com/event-marketing-2019

11 https://blogs.vmware.com/vmworld/


13 https://img03.en25.com/Web/certain/%7B5a1ffe98-8027-43d4-814e-fdb0e9f5597f%7D_2017-event-marketing-benchmark-report.pdf

14 https://img03.en25.com/Web/certain/%7B5a1ffe98-8027-43d4-814e-fdb0e9f5597f%7D_2017-event-marketing-benchmark-report.pdf

15 https://blog.bizzabo.com/event-marketing-statistics

16 https://www.ibtmworld.com/__novadocuments/384118?v=636397063375500000

17 https://www.regalix.com/insights/using-gamification-to-drive-customer-engagement/

18 https://www.business2community.com/b2b-marketing/6-must-haves-b2b-event-marketing-suc-cess-01876974

19 https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/blog/case-studies/better-data-better-festivals-ds0d/

20 https://youtu.be/lFm4s50PnmY

21 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-smartphone-subscriptions-idUSKBN13A0SS


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Event Marketing 2019 - Regalix · 2019-10-24 · nurture their audience.6 Your content plan roll-out should begin well before the actual event and continue well after it. Pre-event