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Three ways we help event companies grow their revenue
As the last post covered the importance of building and nurturing a tight community of individuals who have already realised the value of your brand, it seems only natural to follow up with an explanation, from our perspective, of just why this is so important and how to utilise it to its greatest potential.
Perhaps the first question is, why should you listen to us? We believe that having worked on over 300 events over the past three years puts us in a great (and unique) position to understand just which promotion strategies work best for different types of events, and indeed, different types of customers.
Our main expertise still lies in delegate sales, which we have carried out for the past three years and have since added event sponsorship sales delivery (providing warm leads or appointments) and brand community development, both of which we have been providing for just over 12 months. Having worked on so many and such a large variety of events, from large international conferences and award ceremonies to small, bespoke private dinner meetings of a more clandestine nature, we’ve noticed that each event attracts a different type of attendee, each with their own nuances and characteristics.
There are many different channels and tools at the disposal of the modern event organiser in order to attract their desired audience. Most use a combination of traditional methods such as printed marketing materials and telephone communication alongside new channels such as social media and email automation and tracking tools. Many companies who use this multi-channel approach find that, while the modern techniques are useful in sourcing and better understanding their target customers, they tend to rely on the more traditional and trusted techniques such as telephone and email to nurture and close the sale.
We feel that this is due to a combination of the new methods not being used creatively enough to realise their full potential; usually due to lack of time spent on these strategies (when compared with others) and the fact that business people simply like to speak to real person before making a purchase - far more than in consumer sales it would seem, anyway. Another clear factor to consider is last year’s introduction of GDPR; meaning companies enjoy far less freedom over who they can contact and how they promote their event by email.
Many business leaders still view community building as a luxury rather than a necessity, something that while nice to have, won’t create much value in the long term. This is perhaps due to many directly linking communities to technology or tools, namely social media and (due to the introduction of GDPR) email groups. The typically low conversion rates of these channels can instantly put people off even trying to develop their own communities past their email subscription lists.
While it’s true that social media groups and email mailing lists are components of community building, they are merely platforms to help you to develop, communicate with, and nurture these groups alongside a strategy using more traditional methods. It’s become clear to us that the tools currently available will never replace the need for a skilled salesperson, who can provide the clear benefits of the product to a customer while applying them to their individual needs. Therefore, the best way to build and develop a strong community is to use more traditional methods to first contact and build value in the brand, and then use the most relevant modern channels to keep the audience engaged with evergreen content and inclusive conversation.
When working on sales campaigns, we use the tools available to promote our customer’s brands which, when performed alongside a full telesales campaign gives us the results our customers require. These tools are fundamental in understanding the industry demographic we’re targeting and gives us the insight into their current challenges as to how to best approach them. It is also vital to completely map the ecosystem from the outset to not miss any potential targets and to exploit tools that give you the insight into how to approach them as efficiently as possible.
As such, we always keep an eye open for the latest tools or platforms available to help us to reach our goals, whether the outcome be paying event delegates, subscription members, potential speakers, VIP guests, or potential sponsors.
Our three areas of service:
Delegate sales
We continue to provide delegate sales services for several international brands, from large exhibitions to award shows, product launches to conferences. We can help you to efficiently target and acquire any industry audience that you would like to attend your event.
Sponsorship delivery support
Every event’s main revenue stream comes from sponsorship so it’s no surprise that it’s seen as the lifeblood to any business. Sponsorship sales is difficult as it requires a complete knowledge of the delegate needs so that they can be effectively matched against the vendor solutions. A sponsorship sales person would need to know every relevant technology vendor in the region, as well as all emerging technologies about to enter the market to truly maximise any event’s revenue potential. They would also need to contact and introduce themselves and the brand to give themselves a chance of securing interest and creating enough value to bring a new sponsor on board. This is no small ask, given the huge numbers of both technology vendors and events in the market.
We explore and map the vendor ecosystem for highlighted event streams, getting in touch and introducing them to the brand and event, highlighting the event USPs and the opportunities available to them. We then connect these warm leads directly with your sponsorship salesperson who can follow up and close them on the most suitable sponsorship package.
Community development
Every event should have a community of customers who enjoy attending on a repeated basis and can act as brand advocates. Not only can you rely on these individuals to naturally promote your brand through word-of-mouth, but also be utilised (if properly engaged) to help you grow exponentially.
While most event organisers will email previous event attendees' regular newsletters, surveys, whitepapers and offers at regular intervals, these rarely keep people fully engaged with your brand – to the point that the customer needs to be fully sold to again before committing to the following event. This is because while some individuals enjoy regularly using different platforms, such as social media, to communicate and engage with their professional network, others prefer more traditional channels such as phone or email.
We explore and map the delegate ecosystem for highlighted event streams or industries, getting in touch and introducing them to the brand, event, membership, subscription and highlighting the benefits and opportunities available to them.
This gives your brand a group of advocates who have a certain sense of familiarity with the brand and each other. This gives a sense of ‘being part of something’ or ‘belonging’ that will hugely increase brand loyalty with both delegates and sponsors.
We are currently providing these three services (specifically designed to help event companies grow) to help create a close relationship between our clients and their potential customers, generating pipelines of warm leads for both delegate and sponsorship sales.
Contact us today to find out how we’re helping our customers to grow their events to their maximum potential.
