Running successful online events

In a world still in the midst of a pandemic, more and more organisations are pivoting to online events. These events can be anything from a short webinar, to a multi-day events or conferences. Before you invite your customers, focus on these key areas to make your event a success.

Planning stage:

This is one of the most critical stages which will define the success or failure of your event. During this period identify your event goals and objectives. It is important to work with your stakeholders to get internal alignment on key objectives. Next step is to select your team members which will include: production, promotion and presentation teams. They should have clearly defined roles. Once you have your team, define a clear timeline, at least 6 weeks before the live date. And remember to put some buffer time with critical steps during the preparation stage. Next work out an event agenda and synopsis based on your target audience. Spend some time to understand your target audience and what problem you are trying to solve for them. During this time you should also work out your budget for the event and define your success metrics. Success metrics can vary based on the type of event. Few regular metrics are: registrations, sessions watched, surveys filled in, requesting more information, leads etc. You should also select your platform that would be most appropriate for your event. Some of the most popular platforms for virtual events are: Zoom, ON24, Hopin etc. Finally, plan out cadence meetings for the team which will help you be on track.

Presentation team:

Your presenters will need to be great communicators and enthusiastic. They need to be comfortable speaking on camera. When presenters are on camera, the attendees can put a face to the voice, allowing them to see the facial expressions and other non-verbal cues, which are important for making the connection with the speakers. Speakers should be briefed beforehand on the messaging and there should be few collaboration sessions for all the speakers to ensure that everyone is on the same page. At least a week before the live-date, there should a run-through of all the material to ensure that presentations are aligned to the overall messaging, and technology is working correctly. Another good idea to ensure a smooth presentations on live-date is to pre-record the presentations, which can help with timing and ridding of any obvious errors.

Using a moderator is another good way to enhance your event. Just like in a face-to-face event, the moderator helps in contextualising the information and keep the energy up. It is best to select someone with industry knowledge from outside the organisation to give your event an industry feel.

Promotion:

Promotion plays an important role in getting the right attendees to the event. When promoting your event, use engaging messaging with visual assets to persuade your target audience to register and attend the event. Start with setting up a landing page that clearly describes: the value proposition of the event, event schedule, speaker information (image and bio), supporting documents, and other event details. There should be an easily visible link to the registration page. Make sure your registration page is branded. Registration should cover all the necessary contact information that’s required for your sales team and CRM.

The best time to start promoting an event is about 4 weeks prior to live date. Make sure your event is featured on your website. You can also put up banners and call outs on the main landing page. Your website should be SEO optimised for the best results. Send out emails invites to your database and reminders to the registrants. Industry white papers, blogs and videos on the event topics are a fantastic way to entice your audience. Don’t forget to promote your event through: social media, partners, blogs, and industry news media.

Build an interactive experience:

The ability to network is one of key component of any face-to-face event. While it is difficult to replicate that on a virtual event, you can still encourage attendees to interact by using poll questions, chat, and Q&A during your event. Moderator and the presenters should encourage attendees to participate from the very beginning and in between the sessions to facilitate networking. These can also be a great tool for lead generation, which the sales team can follow-up after the event. So spend time developing engaging and insightful questions for your event to make it more interactive. You can also have breakout sessions, meeting rooms, and even a virtual show floor depending on the size and type of your virtual event. Games, rewards and giveaways can assist in increased attendee engagement.

Post-event follow-up:

Once your event is complete, send out a thank you/missed you email within two days of the event. Where possible you can link your event survey to this email and encourage attendees to fill it in. You should make the recording available on-demand at the earliest, once you have finalised the recorded content and taken out any obvious mistakes. With on-demand recording, you will still be able to gather more registration data and possible leads. Once the on-demand is ready, notify all who registered for your event, so that they are aware of it and can watch it if they wish to. You can also promote the on-demand recording on your social channels.

Also gather all the surveys and event reports and analyse them against your event goals, for continuous improvements and also qualify leads that were generated from the event. Organise an event debrief to go over the results and lessons learned soon after the event. Make sure management is involved during the debrief so that you can discuss the next steps. One of the key steps after this is to ensure that the sales team is following up on the leads in a timely manner, so that they have a better chance to be converted to an opportunity.

This list is certainly not exhaustive and just highlights some of key components for a successful virtual event. What else do you think plays an important role? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

How to effectively run an Account Based Marketing campaign?

Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash

What is account based marketing?

Account based marketing (ABM) is a targeted approach to marketing campaigns, where each account is considered as a market in their own right. This is a more personalised approach for B2B marketing, which is gaining increased popularity due to its ability to build lasting relationships  leading to new opportunities and a higher return on investment (ROI) compared to traditional marketing campaigns. 

ABM concept

Before committing to ABM campaigns

Before starting your ABM campaign, make sure it is the right strategy for your business, and if you are able to dedicate proper focus and resources towards it. Speak with your leadership and sales team to ascertain this. A successful ABM campaign doesn’t happen by accident, it takes commitment, planning and proper project management.

How to implement an ABM campaign?

When you implement an ABM campaign, follow the TEAM framework. You can learn more about this framework from Sangram Vajre’s LinkedIn Learning course.

TEAM Framework for ABM campaigns

Target:

First step to a successful ABM campaign is to identify the target accounts. The more focused your lists, the better will be the outcome. Remember, you will be focusing on quality and not quantity. Make sure to collaborate with the sales team, while selecting your target accounts and have regular meetings with them to ensure the list you have is still relevant.

Engage:

Once you have your list of target accounts, you need to build marketing programs that are focused on the accounts and move them through the funnel. As you are targeting a select group of customers, you are more able to personalise your content, instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach. Your content needs to speak to your target accounts and address their unique pain points. It is a coordinated, high-touch program across multiple channels, with tailored messaging for each stage of the buying process. More you are able to personalise your engagement with your accounts, the better will be its impact.

Activate:

Identify the right engagement signals, that would trigger your sales team to reach out to an account with the right message at the right time. You need to understand that every engagement is not a signal for sales to reach out. This will allow your sales team to only focus their attention on the best prospects who are further down the funnel, instead of overwhelming them with too many leads.

Measure:

ABM campaigns require a new way of measuring B2B demand funnel, to understand how you are progressing with your target accounts. This will not be measured in terms of leads, but will be measured in terms of revenue generation. You need to define your campaign KPIs with the leadership team at the beginning to ensure that your program is being measured against the correct metrics, which will help you see a clearer picture across your selected accounts.

Technology

Finally using marketing automation software (such as: Pardot, Marketo, Eloqua, Hubspot, Mailchimp etc.) can assist you significantly with your ABM campaigns. Automation makes it simpler to get the information you need and deploy ABM techniques to maximise your ROIs per account. Having the right tools will make your life much easier and save time and money while producing the results that you want. So it is critical to invest in the right tools and software for your organisation, before starting an ABM campaign.

Creating engaging content

Content is king, it is what connects a brand with its audience. As Bill Gates rightly pointed it out: 

“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting.”

So it is vital for businesses to create engaging content online and to do so on regular basis. And with online analytic tools, it is now easier than ever to determine what works for your audience and what doesn’t. 

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Engaging content is what is appealing to your audience, it generates their interest, it makes them want to interact with your brand and makes them what to learn more about your brand. Here are 4 tips for creating engaging content for your online platforms:

Know your audience:

Knowing your audience and understanding their needs is a key to creating engaging content. So if you want to improve your content marketing, you need to align with your audience. Relate to your audience, connect with their emotions, and understand what they are looking for, when creating your content.

Create buyer personas based on market research and personalise your content to target personas. Also, don’t be afraid to experiment with your content and optimise it based on your audience.

Make it visual:

Most people are visual learners (65%) and our brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. So it is no surprise that contents with relevant images, infographics, and/or videos, will get higher visibility and your audience will be more engaged. Making your post visual will result in more shares, likes and comments, compared to a post with only words.

Also, videos (74% of all internet traffic is for videos) are becoming ever more important to capture the attention of your audience. So creating a compelling visual content is more important than ever before.

Make it readable:

People usually scan web pages and only read a small percentage (about 18%) of what’s on the page. And overly complicated language can deter most users. So before publishing any content, check the readability of your content to ensure all your hard work and planning isn’t going to waste.

Clear and easy to understand content is better able to reach a larger audience. Focusing on readability increases the chances that your target audience will actually read and connect with the content you publish. For this reason, readability should be a natural part of your content management.

Add value:

When you create content for your brand, ensure that it is valuable to your audience. After all, your audience will be your potential customers.

When your customers visit your company website or social media page, they should be able to see content that would generate their interest. If it is just generic information, without any value to your customers they will not engage with you and chances of them coming back would be very slim.

Engaging content is a great tool for generating leads, so make sure you value your customers’ time and make it worthwhile for them to visit you online.

Conclusion:

Content creation and management is an on-going process. You have to keep optimising your content based on your audience. The better your connection with your audience, the more likely you will be able to understand their requirements and address them with your content. Leave a comment below, if you have any other tips for creating engaging content.