The main goal for each aspect of your 2019 marketing strategy should involve increasing your marketing-qualified leads (MQLs). Live events have proven to be a remarkably effective way of getting a high ROI while also watching your MQLs increase.
What are MQLs
MQLs are an important component of your business’s overall success. MQLs prove that you’ve created a successful sales funnel which culminates in a sale. Successful MQLs indicate that your business has created a sales funnel and marketing strategy that prizes quality over quantity.
The trajectory of successful MQLs is:
- Visiting your website and downloading free downloadable content you’ve made available
- Signing up to receive your email newsletter and/or following your social media accounts
- Taking advantage of the opportunity to sign up for your webinars
- Viewing or requesting a product/service demo
- Exploring your available inventory
- Adding a few items to their virtual shopping cart
- Completing the purchase
It’s worth noting that it can take days or even sometimes weeks to complete the trajectory.
Why Increasing MQL’s via Live Events is Important
While many business managers understand that live events are a great way to show customers how much you appreciate their support or to introduce a new product, you might not know how useful live events are when it comes to seeing a noticeable increase in your MQLs. In 2018, data collected for Bizzabo’s event marketing benchmarks and trends report indicated that 80% of the 400 business’s surveyed believed that their live events were a crucial aspect in their marketing strategy. Chief Marketer’s 2018 B2B Lead Gen Outlook report was very clear that businesses found that when it came to marketing approaches that generated the highest ROI, live events were every bit as effective as the SEO methods businesses used. Live events provide you to interact with customers, advertisers, and suppliers in a personal manner that even the most effective social media marketing can achieve.
Oddly enough, the trick to increasing MQLs at live events in 2019 it to stop thinking about your MQLs. Instead, you should focus on the most important aspect of the live event, your attendees. If you do everything you can to make them happy, the MQLs will fall into place.
When planning your next live event, your planning strategy should involve:
- Giving your live event a great hook that appeals to the consumer you want to attend
- Creating points of contact that appeal to your guests
- Coming up with a solid method for capturing lead information before, during, and after the live event
How to Use Live Events Increase MQLs
There are different things you can use to ensure that your 2019 live event increases MQLs.
Arrange for a Popular Guest Speaker
A good guest speaker who is highly recognizable in your industry is always a good idea at your live events. The great thing about guest speakers is that you can turn the live event into a mutually beneficial experience. Provide your guest speaker with an opportunity to promote their own product/services during your live event in exchange for their presence increasing the event’s overall value. A good guest speaker helps:
- You draw a much larger crowd
- Take advantage of your speaker’s database
- Potentially reach members of your target market who haven’t responded to other forms of target marketing
When choosing a guest speaker for your live event that will ultimately help increase your MQLs, look for someone who:
- Has a fairly large following
- Is connected to your niche market
- Appreciates your brand
- Has experience with speaking engagements
- Not only promotes themselves but will also help promote your live event
It never hurts to put together a pre-made marketing outline for your speakers and promoters to follow. The marketing outline generally consists of templates for both social media and email marketing campaigns, as well as dates when different event information will be announced. It’s okay to include logistical information about your business/the live event/your brand and products in the marketing outline. Make sure you get the marketing outline to your guest speakers shortly after they agree to perform at your live event. They need time to review the information and determine how to incorporate it into their own marketing schedule.
Create a Great Welcome Centre
You want to create a welcome centre for your live event that works much the same way a booth does at a trade show. In addition to providing your guests with detailed information about the live event they’re attending, the welcome centre should also have samples of the products you’re promoting, literature about the business and live event, maybe a promotional video, and a way for guests to provide you with their email information. The booth should be run by someone who is friendly, approachable, and very knowledgeable about the business and event.
During your live event, your welcome booth serves as a stunning, real-time example, of the outstanding customer service your business provides.
Create a Targeted Audience
You don’t want to create a live event and hope people show up. In order to use your live event to increase MQLs in 2019, you must get the ball rolling by extending a personal invitation to a few key attendees. Ideally, these targeted guests should be huge fans of your business, be adept at social media marketing, and thrilled by the invitation. You want the targeted guests to encourage people to come to your live event, to be outgoing about how much they love your business while they’re at the live event, and to share their experiences on social media following the event.
Take Advantage of Lead Scanners
Lead scanners don’t get talked about much, but they’re an important part of using live events to increase MQLs in 2019. The scanners are designed to collect a great deal of data about attendees in a short period of time, including:
- Each attendee’s name
- The company they are connected to and the title they hold at the company
- The attendee’s contact details
The scanners are designed so you can customize the information they collect. Ideally, when you use them, you should have a much better picture of the type of person your event appealed to and be able to use the information to not only make your next live event even more successful but also make your target marketing even more effective.
Learn More About How Live Events Can Increase Your MQLs
Enjoyed this article? Click through to learn more about ‘How to Measure your Event ROI in 2019‘.
Contact the Event Company and request a consultation to learn how we can make your next live event a marketing success story!
