The event industry hit a snag during Covid-19, but the resurgence of in-person events brings new event marketing opportunities that can deliver unprecedented opportunities and results to those who are quick to pounce on them.
As it is well known by now, Covid-19 has caused quite a riot within most industry sectors. There is little doubt that the event sector was hit hard by the pandemic. Live events, face-to-face networking and in-situ exhibitions drew to a halt. Lockdowns, remote meetings, travel restrictions and social distancing defied the very principle of events: to converge people in one place.
However, over two years have passed since the first lockdown. After having their flexibility and agility truly put to the test, planners are starting to see the light after an influx of mass cancellations and impediments when it came to organizing events.
Now that many restrictions have been lifted, people are looking to re-connect in person. However, questions are being raised on whether the resurgence of the event industry will be a boom, a gradual and steady increase or a slow burning recovery. What is clear is that the industry is bouncing back and regaining traction. There are fewer cancellations, and more attendance than in the last two years, and engagement marketing has stepped back into the fray as a valuable strategic policy in most marketing departments.
However, the landscape is different than in 2019, and event planners have had to learn to adapt to change. With the rise of hybrid models, new technologies and different work environments triggered by the pandemic and the great resignation, the industry may have changed, but events, conferences and tradeshows are still key to business strategies.
People still need to interact with each other beyond their laptop screens and the queues to type in their questions. Virtual events may be here to stay, but they have not overtaken or replaced the need for face-to-face interactions. It has, however, made people aware of the importance of selecting their events wisely.
Budgets have been altered during the pandemic. Money that was reserved for travel and events has been relocated to other departments and projects such as digital transformation and adaptation to remote environments.
Nevertheless, in-person events are crucial for any marketing mix as they help businesses connect personally with their audience and directly learn what they need and want in order to provide a better service.
However, with the relocation of budgets being shifted back to event marketing, there is increased quantitative and qualitative scrutiny on which events will reap the best results and on measuring the ROI of these investments to ensure that event marketing strategies are sturdy.
Event marketers need to be smarter with their money
Given the growing revival of event marketing, companies are now starting to plan their event marketing strategies for next year. 81% of brands believe their event budgets will match or exceed their pre-pandemic budget. This means that CMOs are receiving new budget allocations of which event marketing will be exclaiming for a larger cut of the year´s marketing budget.
Budgets are not allocated gratuitously, and event marketers will need to justify investments and expenses with results. The premise is clear, people want to go to in-person events, but marketing teams need to optimize their planning if they want their events to be successful.
It isn’t just the numbers that count. Today, quality is superseding quantity when it comes to event attendance, and exhibitors are relishing the opportunity of spending more time with quality prospects than merely counting the numbers of attendees.
So, how can event marketers be smarter with their money to drive home positive ROIs and meet qualitative objectives at a time where attendances may be lower than in the past, but the opportunities to connect are very much open? As with many things, technology can provide the solution.
Leverage technology to choose the best events for your business
Technology like Vendelux’s can help event marketers find events that will deliver the best results to their business and skip the ones that are less likely to provide a substantial ROI. How is this done? With event intelligence.
Event marketers can source the best events and attendees that are most likely to deliver their desired ROI. That way, planners reduce the risk of investing money into researching, planning and attending events, only to find that hardly any prospects attend and that the investment is ultimately a dud. Event intelligence removes the guessing element in choosing the right event for your business.
B2B marketing strategies are ultimately focused on building leads, and marketers must try to discover the most they can about their target customers to reach out to them. This is easier said than done, as the right information is not always easily accessible, hence the importance of meeting this ideal customer face-to-face, as it is one of the best ways to generate more leads.
Event marketers must take a data-driven approach to event-based marketing. This passes by picking the right events to attend or sponsor and to show the ROI, as this will help unlock additional budgets for the following year. Data-driven event marketing starts by calculating how many prospects make an event worth attending. This process may have been arduous in the past, but today it doesn’t even require spreadsheets or manual work as solutions like Vendelux can automate the whole process.
There are multiple opportunities – just find the right events and the right audience
2023 will not only reopen doors for businesses to access a myriad of events, it will equip them with the best tools to find the highest quality potential leads from the best events.
The upcoming year will bring multiple opportunities for businesses to generate their leads and create new connections in the resurging live-event sector. Companies who want to stay ahead of the curve must leverage the tools that are available to facilitate the search for quality contacts and target audiences for events.
Vendelux makes it easy for companies to find which events their target audiences are attending. With an extensive database of over 30k B2B events worldwide, a search on Vendelux can provide detailed information about who will be going to or sponsoring a specific event. This way, it is easy to find new prospects and reach out to them before the event starts.
Not only that, even if marketers are unsure what event to search for, Marketers will also be able to carry out reverse engineering and research on platforms like Vendelux, by searching by attendee names, uploading lists of contact by connecting their CRM to analyze leads and accounts and add matches to their prospect lists. By using Vendelux Fusion, marketers can forecast which events their prospects are most likely to be at in the future, so they can start making those data-driven decisions early on.
Even if businesses are hosting their own event, Vendelux can help them find the right speakers and subsequently attract a higher-quality audience. A quick search on Vendelux is all a marketer needs to discover who out of their target market might be interested in speaking or sponsoring an event, whether it’s in-person, hybrid or online.
The research capabilities at hand will not only make searching for the right events and targets easier in 2023; it will also make it more efficient and deliver the optimal ROIs that can justify and reinforce budgets and deliver leads that can drive business revenues.
Vendelux is an event intelligence platform built to give B2B event marketers every bit of information they need to attend the right events for their goals. Search and filter up to 30,000 events worldwide, and get information on not only the event, price and sponsorship information, but also details on each attendee. Sound too good to be true? See it for yourself.
