10 Ways to Drive In-person Attendance of your Next B2B Event
The pandemic changed a lot of things for us. We moved from physical shopping to online shopping, on-premise working to work from home, physical meetings to virtual conferences, and the list of long. We started living in a virtual world.
Three years after the pandemic, we can say that our original normal world is making a comeback. While the impact of digitization and virtuality has become an integral part of our lives, we still want to experience things through our spatial senses. We want to meet our fellows and colleagues, we want to go to a physical market to shop for our necessities, and we want to enjoy those in-person corporate and social meetings.
That puts an onus on the committees and associations organizing B2B in-person events. In today’s business landscape, organizing successful in-person events requires careful planning and thoughtful execution. The event organizers, the host organization, and the speakers must do everything in their control to make the event a successful one. from the right venue, entertainment, and activities to the choice of advertising techniques, everything will impact attendance on the final day of the event.
However, even after getting all the elements in place, we did not get the desired attendance for the event.
Let us walk you through some strategies that will help.
1. Boosting in-person event performance with pre-event marketing
When you are organizing a B2B in-person event, you are trying to engage with decision-makers with the mindset of doing business. As you will be targeting the thought leaders in the B2B space, you have an immense opportunity to put yourself and your business into the limelight. Let us tell you how your pre-event marketing helps.
2. Sponsor strategic thought leadership content
In a majority of cases, B2B decision-makers do not merely purchase solutions. Rather they transact with vendors whose values and visions align with theirs. To establish that vision, you should make use of thought leadership content. When done well, the content inspires confidence among key decision influencers.
3. Boost brand awareness before the event
The current B2B landscape offers a big opportunity for brand marketing. Creativity is paramount when it comes to promoting B2B and brand campaigns are the most proven way to tap into your audience’s imagination to strengthen the emotional connection to your brand.
4. Utilize paid and organic marketing strategies
While you are organizing an in-person B2B event, you can leverage digital paid and organic marketing strategies to promote the event. The organic and paid marketing strategies along with print marketing techniques will help you build rapport and excitement for the upcoming event.
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5. Keeping the audience engaged during the event
Once the pre-event marketing strategies are implemented well, it is time for B2B decision-makers will reach out to find out if the craze generated for the event is worthwhile. Let us tell you how to keep the excitement alive during the event.
6. Set up a user-friendly registration process
First things first, you should have a very simple registration process. Leverage the power of digital entries where the audience does not need to fill out manual forms. Make the registration and name entries as simple as possible.
7. Offer them an engaging agenda
B2B thought leaders who intend to attend the event would want to know the exact agenda of the event. Ensure that they get the right piece of information and interactively present the agenda.
8. Utilize social media channels to drive engagement
You are conducting the event offline, but you can still leverage the features of digital media to increase the craze in the market. For example, you can go live from your social media account and encourage more B2B audiences to join the event virtually.
9. Reach out to Influencers
You can also reach out to social media influencers to promote your event. They are experts at promoting things on digital media. While your event is happening offline, they can still play an essential role in creating a buzz around your event.
10. Offer value-added services
As the event comes to an end and the audience returns home, you should offer them some value-added services to keep the spark alive. Reach out to them later and ask them to share their feedback. In return, you can offer them discounts and goodies to keep them engaged with your organization.
Wrapping Up
We hope our tips will go a long way in boosting the success of your in-person event. Use as many tactics as you can and maximize the attendance of your in-person B2B event. This piece of information will come in handy while organizing any B2B events in the future.
A well-organized in-person event has the power to bring clients together that nothing else can.
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