The world of business-to-business marketing events has changed a lot in recent times. And whilst you’ve probably mastered how to host a physical B2B event, the virtual equivalent may pose a fresh challenge.
Online hosting has many advantages, however. prospects have become used to attending web-based meetings and conferences and appreciate the efficiency. Also, running an event online allows you to expand your audience for the first time by targeting people outside your local area. A B2B event is your chance to provide value and show potential clients how you differentiate in the market.
What are the objectives?
Before committing to host, you need to determine your objectives and goals so they can steer the event planning process. Now is the time to get thinking.
What industry challenges do you want to address, and how is your proposed solution unique?
Do you have a curated target market in mind, and if so, what is your follow-up process?
Getting the tone right can take time and practice. Are you confident that your B2B event doesn’t resemble a sales pitch?
Converting leads into clients can be challenging, often due to a lack of time, resources, and skillset. You may consider hiring a specialist or outsourcing the process to a lead generation agency to work on your behalf. Nonetheless, implementing the following steps will help you to find market-ready opportunities, improve your conversion rate, and grow your revenue through online events.
Answer the pain points
Running an event can be a time-consuming process. To be effective, you must first establish your reason for organising an online B2B event. Do your market research, devise a solid strategy, and make sure you can visualise your goals and understand how the event will help you fulfil them.
Next up, identify what specific problems your prospective clients face, whether financial, productivity, process or support struggles. Consider how you can demonstrate that your business has the ultimate solution. You need to show prospects that you can find innovative ways to help them maximise sales opportunities and guarantee results.
Make the event efficient
When your audience is busy executives used to fast, consumable content, the last thing you want to do is give them event fatigue. Ensure that your online event run time is under one hour, keep your language concise, and convey what industry challenges you are addressing.
Hosting an event is your chance to nurture your leads. Demonstrate that you grasp their needs and pain points and how to resolve them successfully. Every word, therefore, needs to be value-adding, timely, relevant and compelling.
Don’t sell but provide solutions
Behind every impactful B2B online event is a well-thought-through client engagement strategy. Prospects need to know that you understand their business and can see a necessity for your product or solution.
In reality, you’re not creating a sales pitch but a buying situation. Only after you’ve been on a prospects’ needs journey can you showcase your solutions and demonstrate their effectiveness. By providing value and proving that you care about your prospects’ challenges, you’ll be perceived not as a vendor but as a partner with which to form lasting business relationships.
Ensure you have a curated target list
Before organising an event, you need to review which target market would best benefit from your business solution. Once you’ve thought through your options, create a curated list to invite. You can now develop and tailor your marketing strategy for your B2B online event to the needs of a select audience.
By pinpointing a favoured market for your products, you establish qualified leads and significantly increase your chances of turning prospects into eventual clients.
Follow-up with participants
Whilst it may initially feel anticlimactic, you should fill the period after your B2B event with strategic activity. Your goal is to move your leads to the next step in the sales funnel.
Ensure you send a follow-up email with a link to the event recording within 24 hours while your prospects are still thinking over the proposed solutions. Keep your email concise, and round up with a clear call to action. Despite ongoing technological advances, follow-up by phone remains the most effective method to connect with prospects. So, use your email to schedule a conversation. Lastly, consider how you can offer value. Think about offering a free demo or exclusive access to premium content.
After another week, you can send a second follow-up email to the prospects who didn’t respond to your CTA to remind them how you can help their business.
How Lead Express can help
Organising a solid B2B virtual or physical event that guarantees results takes time and effort. Whilst it’s not impossible to pull off, there is much to assess before, during, and after the event. Without proper planning and a clear strategy, which require a significant time investment, resources and hard graft to execute, you won’t create a networking and sales success. Depending on your circumstances, consider contacting an agency specialising in lead acquisition for business events.
As Australia’s most recognised lead generation company, Lead Express has successfully assisted and managed hundreds of business events for many clients. From data curation, outbound invitation content creation, consultative advice, providing feedback on presentations, and taking care of the post-event activity, we ensure that you see the best possible results for your business.
Let us help you ensure your web-based B2Bm and/or physical event is a moment that will enable you to prove that you’re an authority in the industry. At Lead Express, your budget comes with a guarantee. Before any engagement, we will mutually agree on attendance KPIs and commit to securing the right audience plus the desired number of event participants. In the rare circumstance that we don’t deliver on attendance results mutually agreed, we’ll give a pro-rata refund for any shortfall. We pride ourselves on fairness and transparency.
So, don’t host another event without consulting with us about our bespoke attendance program. Reach out to us today for a free consultation to discuss your next business event requirements. We are all about eliminating risk and delivering optimal results. Let’s turn your virtual B2B event into something that takes your business to the next level together.
