“How many new leads did we get?” That question ends up determining event success for many companies. While events can be effective for generating leads, the number of names added to your database shouldn’t be the primary goal for your event strategy. Events present a perfect opportunity to get your sales and customer success reps in front of their top prospects and customers. The main focus of a strong event strategy should be on pipeline acceleration.
Why Pipeline Acceleration over Lead Generation?
Sponsoring a conference can be a great way to get brand exposure and get some new names into your database. That said, looking at your event strategy as nothing more than a way to generate leads is misguided. If you are only looking for a new list of contacts for your Sales Development team to go after, there are many ways to accomplish that goal without leaving the office.
When your event strategy is focused on lead generation alone, you might think: “We don’t have many west coast leads or customers. Let’s get out there and sponsor an industry event in San Francisco to build west coast pipeline.” You could come up with a worse strategy for generating west coast leads, but your events will be much more valuable if you make accelerating pipeline your top priority.
When events are used for accelerating pipeline, you might think: “We are having a lot of success in the Northeast. Let’s hold a small, targeted event in New York to bring together our best customers and our top prospects in to accelerate pipeline.” Focusing on your existing prospects and customers instead of brand new leads allows you to take advantage of in-person interactions to move ahead deals. The focus on moving opportunities forward will also give you a better ROI on your event strategy.
Leveraging Customer Advocacy
Getting your prospects face-to-face with your most satisfied customers is best way to move past objections and move opportunities to the next stage. Happy customers are far more convincing than your best sales pitch. The key to using events for pipeline acceleration is to get prospects and customers in the same place, engaging with each other and your brand.
To bring customers and prospects together with events, you have two options. The first is to find conferences or trade shows that many of your customers and prospects attend. The second is to host your own small, targeted field events for customers and prospects. You can combine the two by sponsoring a conference and holding a mini event like a dinner or happy hour around the conference.
No matter what type of event you choose, the focus should be on getting your happiest customers in a room with your top prospects. Those “prospects” can also include customers on the fence for a renewal or upsell. Make sure the format allows for open, honest conversation between your customer advocates and prospects. When events bring prospects and customers together in the right way, they serve as a powerful catalyst to move deals forward.
Shifting Your Event Focus
The first step in this shift to pipeline acceleration as the main event goal is to get sales more involved with events. The next step is determining what events you should host or sponsor that will help you accelerate pipeline. Have your sales and customer success reps ask their top contacts what conferences and trade shows they attend to find the best conferences to sponsor. Analyze your database to find cities with a high concentration of engaged prospects and happy customers.
Once you determine where and when to bring your best customers and prospects together at an event, you need to develop a strategy for engagement. Start by reaching out to your customer advocates to make sure you get them on board with attending your event and talking about your product to prospects. Sales and marketing should collaborate on the invite and promotion strategy. Develop a detailed plan for the team that will be on-site at the event. Make sure they have a an easy way to record on-site notes to make follow-up personal and effective.
Making these changes toward a pipeline acceleration focused event strategy will help you hold events that engage and convert at a much higher rate. That doesn’t mean you should forget about lead generation completely. You’ll find that when your events center around thought leadership that engages your best customers and hottest prospects, leads in your target market will want to be there.
