Events & conferences have been a staple for most B2B companies as a strategy to broaden market outreach especially when it’s a new market for them. I have noticed that most companies come out of these events with:
- A database of prospective buyers (collected through exchanging visiting cards)
- Maximize meetings at event and setup subsequent follow ups
- Awareness creation around products/ services
- A better rapport with prospects
I also observed that the budgets allocated for attending such corporate/industry events come from a corporate communication/ branding budgets; however there has always been a mixed feedback from the sales & marketing heads when the events are measured from a ROI or sales pipeline point of view.
There are multiple aspects that sales & marketing heads think about before putting money into sponsoring a booth at an international corporate event. I have seen that one of the key reasons is that decision makers do not necessarily attend with an intention to buy or a requirement they are looking to address. Also even if they are looking at buying more often than not they are not the only ones that control decision making.
So whenever we are speaking with prospects on running their events calendars invariably the question of measuring ROI comes up and there are multiple lines of thought. I am a big advocate of focusing on the process first but also understand that results play a critical part in defining the success of engagements. One of the key roles that a demand generation team plays is to ensure that you have reached out to maximum attendees and setup as many agenda based discussions for your sales teams at these events which becomes the key metric to measure (Number of agenda based discussions/ meetings setup).
The heart of this strategy is being able to get the list of attendees well in advance; i.e., at least 3-5 weeks pre event. A combination of touch points then need to be established through email, telephone calls, etc and it really does not make sense setting up a meeting for your sales team unless you have probed & positioned. Your sales team is better off meeting 6-8 prospects that really want to discuss a solution rather than meet up 30.
Also a best practice that I follow is to get cell phone numbers and send out meeting invites on mail to ensure that my sales manager is on their calendar.
Saket Kulkarni| Sales Enablement| QEDbaton
Follow me on twitter: saketkulk
The post My two bits about an events strategy! appeared first on The Hunting Grounds.
