Here’s how to Generate More Leads at Your Next Live Event for Engineers
Pulling off a live event takes a heavy toll on marketers – on your marketing budget, on your time, and on your stress level.
Yet the payoff, when executed well, can be big. That’s because engineers and designers who attend live conferences often take the time to fully investigate your solution.
One reason that events are able to move prospects further along their buying journey is because they bring your customers together with your Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). That interaction helps them evaluate your solution in their work context.
A marketer’s biggest challenge with hosting live events
Getting people to the event on the day is the whole point. But what about all those prospects who couldn’t make it? Maybe they couldn’t dedicate a whole day, or perhaps they didn’t have the travel budget. Wouldn’t you like to reach them too?
Your media partners can help with that.
How we extended the audience for two conferences last week
At a live conference your media partners can meet your customers and your SMEs to gather the stories that help to build your brand. Your media partners can also extend the number of people who hear about your event before, during and after.
Our team provided digital media support for the events in a few ways:
- Told stories in advance to build awareness and drive registrations
- Conducted on-site social media coverage
- Gathered video footage
- Conducted customer interviews
- Interviewed subject matter experts
- Wrote stories after the event
Extending your event in real time – an unusual idea that paid off
In some cases, your media partners can help you extend your audience in real time. Some marketers have tried livestreaming their events, but this is tough because the audience doesn’t really know exactly when they should tune in to get the content they want.
Here’s an alternative. One creative marketer suggested that we host a live webinar at the event. Frankly, I was skeptical. A webinar is, by definition, an online event. What’s to be gained by hosting it at a live conference?
It turns out she was right. There were four times as many people on the webinar as were at the convention centre – seven times if you count the people who registered but didn’t attend.
The live webinar took advantage of the fact that the speakers already had their slide decks ready and were in the same spot at the same time. By having the host and the speakers in the same room, we got a talk show sort of vibe. The audience got very engaged with tons of questions. The live webinar turned out to be a creative twist on the “live blog and twitter feeds” approach to broadcasting a live event, and it really worked.
If you have an event coming up and want to talk about how to extend it, let us know using the form below.
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