Experience Issues #16: how do events and ABM work together?
Event data to inform your ABM strategy, own vs 3rd party events, and more!
Hello!
Following Friday's fun post by the great Declan Mulkeen, I want to kick off this edition by saying “The greatest misconception about ABM is that it’s all about throwing a fancy dinner for your prospects”.
Just like ABM is not “just showing ads”, it’s not “just throwing events hoping the prospect will sign that contract”. Though, I must admit, events is how I got to tap into the ABM stuff in the first place. And how I got to improve the results of my event campaigns - by focusing on the biggest accounts our sales team was after at that time.
It was not a properly orchestrated movement or a defined strategy, but it worked. And it gave me a taste of what the post-event ROI report could look like when the # of leads generated was not a target anymore. Since then, I’ve been digging more and more into Account Based Experiences, failing, succeeding, and learning, and what I want to say is:
Key takeaway: both ABM and events strategies can be successful without one another. Yet a synergy of both is what makes that ROI skyrocket.
Start with the WHY
My passion for events aside, why do I strongly believe in this?
For the following three reasons:
Events are a single tactic with the potential to capture the attention (and heart!) of your Target Account for long enough to make an impact on its own
Focusing on Target Accounts engagement rather than anything else increases your chances for positive ROI from events X times
The versatility of event formats makes it a highly adaptable tactic that can be used across different stages of the account journey, as well as generate tons of additional touchpoints via other channels.
Yet, it’s totally ok if you make a conscious decision not to invest in events as a part of your ABM efforts. However, what I don’t understand is when these two functions live siloed under the roof of one organization and do not support and inform each other’s programs.
Using event data to inform ABM strategies
So if you are in events, and would like to either cooperate with your ABM counterpart, where do you start?
By tapping into data! We are lucky in the events department to have tons of data points at our fingertips that not only tell a story of how good the event was, but also what your Target Accounts care about.
Few ideas on what to look at:
What type of events do your target accounts flock to? Is it webinars? Live or on-demand? Is it in-person small events owned by a brand or large-scale industry conferences?
Who attends the events? Is it a manager or director level? Is it VP or even the C-level? Do you reach your decision makers or rather the influencers?
What do your target accounts care about most when it comes to the topics/formats? Do they listen only or are they proactively sharing their thoughts on stage or among the audience?
Where do they tune in from? Precious details on where people really are located rather than where the HQ is.
Are there any segments that are clearly enjoying events as a medium? What are the common denominators among them? Is it industry, job title, or even a buying stage they are at?
By looking at this data, you can design event experiences focused on maximizing the impact of the ABM campaigns and show how your activities contribute to closing business with the highest-paying accounts.
Moreover, some of this data can help define what the overall ABM efforts should focus on. Maybe you will see a lot of engagement from your potential decision-makers in a particular region when a particular topic is brought up - a whole campaign could be designed based on this data.
Now, when I am busy lucky to oversee both ABM (ABX in my case) and events, I look at the event programs entirely through the account-based lens and see ABX as the strategy, and events as one of my strongest tactics in the toolbox.
Own or 3rd Party?
If you ask me, I believe own events are more impactful when it comes to ABM. You have full control of the narrative and have the luxury of designing the experience down to the smallest detail. However, own events come (quite literally) with the price.
Of course, it depends on the scale of the event you want to throw, and the overarching approach to events at your company. So, in case you are doing 3rd party sponsorships, and would like to bring it under the ABM umbrella, here are my personal best practices to consider:
Quality over Quantity: both with the number of events and numbers at the events. The smaller size will give you more face time with desired prospects, and the lower frequency will give you enough time for proper follow-up strategies
Set rules and stick to them. I say min. 30% of the audience must be from your Target Accounts to consider the event for participation. If it's less - it won't give you results at scale. Maybe you still want to send 1 person to the event to connect with that one account - but it's a different story!
Focus. If this event is an ABM play, don't invest in "spray & pray" methods - be laser-focused on getting in front of your targets in ways that will be interesting to them. Not in the way your CEO wants the booth to look.
Virtual or in-person?
If I was given only one option to choose for the rest of my life - in-person (both for own and 3rd party). As more impactful in terms of relationship-building and attention-grasping.
However, there is unique value in running your own virtual events as a part of ABM strategy. Virtual events, webinars, live podcast recordings, and their on-demand views provide you with:
Data points. We already covered some of it above, but diving deeper in the engagement data such as messages in the chat, questions asked or poll answers selected can tell a lot about your target accounts.
Consistent engagement with your target accounts, at a much lower cost than in-person. I am talking not only about the virtual wine tasting or a barista class. One of my favorite things to do is invite target accounts to speak - a much lower time commitment than an in-person event on their side, yet plenty of face time and building a special bond with them for you.
Content to repurpose and use across other channels. Creating webinars around the topics that are needed from the ABM content perspective, and then serving it as a recording on-demand and turning into ebooks, blog posts, infographics, social media content…you get the idea!
By the way, a great blog post from Meisha Bochicchio at Goldcast about using virtual events in ABM strategy - brings a bit more structure and gives a few useful stats in favor of virtual if you ever need to make a business case internally.
Experience Highlights
On Oct 12th I will be speaking about strategically adding events to your ABM mix at the Revenue Marketing Festival. But my session is definitely not the only one to join there! Sara Pion and Katie Rowland are two female marketing leaders I look up to and highly recommend listening to what they have to say.
On a “linkedin” note, I recommend checking out this old, but good post by Breezy Beaumont on how to use events if you are an ABM manager. Great tips in the post, and in the comments!
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There is a lot to uncover when it comes to events and ABM, and I will be coming back to this topic once in a while. Let me know if there is anything specific you would like to me to cover!
And in two weeks time, I will be back with more thoughts about event marketing and the issues that we face.
Have a great week ahead!
Best,
Aleksandra