Events are a perfect opportunity to complete the awareness cycle in the marketing funnel. While the upper marketing funnel is done over the web, you can further move prospects towards being customers with an event that can give them a chance to see and try your products up close.

Let’s take a look at some pointers to make sure your events really justify what you spend on them.

Make Your Events Stand Out

Events have taken the brunt of the marketing budget cuts these past years. Companies have chosen webinars for most events, so face to face events have become a sought after affair for brands and customers to interact.

1. Interaction is your main goal. Events are more than just an activity where you can discuss your products and services with customers you’ve chosen from a database. If that is the case, you lose more and don’t meet your ROI. Make the most of your time and your prospects by creating an opportunity to talk with them. If you don’t want to rent furniture to set up a space for discussion, you can opt for popup stands that you can set up as a stand-by area. Ask your speakers or sales teams to frequent the area so prospects know that this is a place where they can talk to subject matter experts.

Remember that customers and prospects can attend your speakers’ talk, but you personally need to talk to as many of them to find out whether the talk has helped them come to a decision. Your talks will most likely be about your products, but to dig deep, you will need a one to one interaction. 

2. Be visually appealing. Corporate events are the most boring events, admit it. Change this stereotype of business events by creating visually unforgettable first impressions. From the time they sign up for the event until D-Day, be visually inviting. Ensure your banner printers do the work that they are meant to – make your brand messaging resonate to the audience. Business products are usually about people, so it is a perfect occasion to play around with the concept of people with pictures using your product.
3. Ensure an end-to-end event plan. The biggest mistake marketers make is stopping at the event to connect with their customers. Event marketing does not stop on the event day. Follow through is one of the most important steps to finding out whether your event was successful or not. When planning, include a step where you can follow up with the attendees.
4. Hype to connect before D-Day. Events take careful planning and marketing is done way before the event day. Don’t lose momentum and ensure that your event will be remembered not just on the day itself but leading up to the event, and after it has ended. Use social media to continue the conversation.