Event marketing has become increasingly important for B2B business firms. In recent months, there has been an increase in marketing spending on online events, while technology providers have built applications that bring ever-better returns to this investment from the marketing budget.

According to an analysis by our team, events proved to be an excellent marketing tactic because:

• Generates relevant interactions between teams of managers resulting in new opportunities, according to 78% of respondents
• Facilitates the conversion of indirect contacts into direct contacts, according to 65% of respondents
• By email (57%), events allow for the best initiation of opportunities (48%)

However, a challenge for marketing departments is linking strategies to generating event opportunities and measuring the success and return of this tactic.

A study by the Harvard Business Review shows that 52% of managers felt that event-based marketing had more business value than other marketing channels, but only 23% said they could calculate ROI for events.

The following are four tactics that lead to the success of an event:

1. Using mobile apps to involve participants at all stages of the event

Although most event organizers use them for on-site interaction, mobile apps can do this at all stages of its organization.

B2B companies and event organizers always discover other ways to use mobile apps before and after the event to create the best experience for event participants. Networking apps can help participants schedule 1-to-1 meetings or participate in sessions that are relevant to them.

Such mobile apps manage each participant's custom calendar and what happens during the event. Post-event application can be used for follow-up.

2. Personalisation of the content of the event according to the interests of the participants

Business people have various reasons to attend events or not, because more than ever they have a choice. This means that only by focusing on participants to align their needs with relevant content on the agenda, they may be determined to participate.

Most event companies ask: "Do we have enough content in the program for participants to come to our event? This should result in 100% attention paid to the participant's pre-event needs, leading to the creation of the best experience at the event.

Using a registration platform, organizers can successfully collect 80% of the demographics and expectations of participants.

3. Continue the experience during the event with custom follow-up

Experts noted that personalizing post-event communication can have a greater impact on participant engagement and possible conversion. An example of an effective strategy after the event is to send a personalized summary of each participant's event.

For example, you can send a newsletter that highlights the sessions they attended and allows them access to additional content based on actions in the app before and during the event.

Moreover, instead of sending a survey to participants to ask them how they liked the event, organizers could collect this data during the event via the mobile app.

4. Generating post-event opportunities

It is good not to start from the assumption that event attendees are ready to talk to sales people. This is why B2B companies focus only on starting a conversation with company representatives at the event to determine the generation of leads.

The good news is that event technology plays a very important role, as it helps us to see the participant's behaviour, to match this information with all the other knowledge we already have, and to act. It is essential to capture significant data around interactions between participants.

In conclusion

The ability to capture the true nature of the interaction and be able to act as quickly as possible on the next step determines the conversion rate. This leads to a close collaboration with the sales department to analyze the information and generate leads, based on the information received in the app from the event participants. Once you have done this, once you have set the follow up actions in CRM, the next step is to set up business meetings and start tracking their evolution.