The “event” in event marketing is all about active, rather than passive, touchpoints, according to Michelle Nicole McNabb, the owner and director of events at Washington, DC-based Emenee Marketing ‘n’ Events. McNabb has made a career out of marketing specifically for business-to-business events (her firm has solely done so since 2016), and said that the focus “opened my career opportunities beyond logistics and event planning.”
Vendelux sat down with McNabb for an insider’s look at her strategies for marketing a B2B event where, as opposed to a business-to-consumer event, it’s not only about the “end user”—the attending customer—but also the corporation behind them that will ultimately approve whether or not to be involved.
For starters, McNabb specified that B2B events are often about so much more than moving an attendee through a sales funnel—which may be what a B2C to-do like a retail pop-up or activation is all about. Conferences, trade shows, webinars and VIP dinners, for example, “often prioritize connections, thought leadership, education, and lead generation,” per McNabb. And yet, “B2B events in their nature tend to require some sort of justification of ROI,” she said.
Sure, that justification can be difficult when “B2B events require in-depth industry knowledge” while “delivering highly relevant content, encouraging networking opportunities and ensuring that the event contributes to business growth and alignment,” McNabb said.
To simplify things, it’s about more than defining the “I” in ROI. For McNabb, that “I” is more of a ranking of what she calls her “7 C’s of event ROI:”
- Customer Experience & Journey
- Credibility & Build Reputation & Brand
- Cash Flow & Closed Deals
- Collaboration with Contributors & Partners
- Community Connection
- Campaigns to Create Buzz & Awareness
- Convert to Conversation
“Both B2B and B2C want these goals from my experience, but the importance and significance of how to achieve them is what varies,” McNabb said, noting that the order of priority is what matters in order to be able to design and measure an event campaign accordingly.
Many B2B events, for instance, prioritize “thought leadership as a cornerstone [for] establishing credibility,” McNabb said. As an event marketer, it can come easy to entice attendees with an impressive keynote speaker through email marketing, LinkedIn, advisory boards and industry publications—McNabb’s most-used marketing channels—but don’t think you can do it all. Lean on a “designated program or content manager […] that can help create and curate topics and vet presenters,” McNabb said. Assist as the event marketer by “staying up to date on industry publications, experts and even sending pre-event surveys to help to determine topics of interest.”
Once key objectives are decided upon, don’t be afraid of tapping artificial intelligence—especially when dealing with B2B events that cater to hundreds, if not thousands, of attendees from all over the world. Consider AI in “data-driven personalization, AI matchmaking, content creation and integrations,” McNabb suggested.
And perhaps more importantly, don’t forget that “event marketing isn’t only about the host or organizer of the event, but maximizing third-party events and converting the audience into first-party data,” McNabb dished. Not sure how to tap into a tentpole event? “Incorporate incentives, micro events, hosted-buyer, aligned road-show, immersive activations and VIP experiences,” per McNabb. “Although these aren’t new or innovative, I’ve seen a significant shift over the past decade to incorporate a mix of activation and format types to build an effective event marketing plan.”
Whichever type of B2B experience a planner is considering, personalization is key—and no, McNabb isn’t referring to an attendee’s name on a placecard. Rather,
“personalization starts with segmentation of the audiences [as well as] cleaning up and scrubbing a company’s CRM system and aligning it with its pipeline systems, communication platforms and client on-boarding and account management.”
By honing in on an audience, an event marketer will have a much easier time “curating appropriate messaging on various criteria,” McNabb said. From there, “collaborating across departments helps to target the audience’s needs and expectations of the event before, during and after,” she added, noting that teams can work together to “draft semi-personalized templates” that can fit within the context of various experiences and audiences.
An example of how this can be done, per McNabb: “Support the outreach team (could be sales, BDRs [Business Development Representatives], account executives, SDRs [Sales Development Representatives], etc.) with activity reports and prioritize follow up on individuals that have taken specific actions or expressed interest.
“Having a clear customer journey is more than how to attract the audience—it’s having appropriate call to actions to convert [interest] into conversation and provide deliverables and marketing collateral before, during and after the event. In B2B, sometimes this includes material that needs to be passed onto multiple stakeholders and adjusting the messaging accordingly.”
And when a B2B event comes to an end, “we talk about brand awareness and recognition, but it’s worth emphasizing brand reputation is critical,” McNabb said. “Rather than ‘brand awareness,’ I’d like to see a shift in acknowledging the importance of brand reputation and helping companies align what they believe how they are showing up and how they are perceived,” McNab concluded.
