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  • 1.  Huddle of the Week #15: Digital Marketing in 2021

    Posted 01-11-2021 11:14

    Hello, Community members! Can you believe it is the second week of January, already? It seems like time is going to fly by again.

    For last week's huddle discussion, we asked how you are approaching your 2021 event programs with the environment we face today. Most seem to be planning virtual events, and many are planning hybrid events with a pivot to virtual ready as back-up. It is great to see these strategic thoughts behind all of your plans.

    Looking out to the rest of 2021, our industry is approaching matters in a whole new way. We learned a lot from 2020, and likely your marketing messaging is different than ever before. Therefore, for this week's huddle, we want to hear from both planner and supplier audiences on how you are approaching your 2021 digital marketing:

    • What is the #1 game changer in marketing for planners & suppliers while restarting the business in 2021?
    • How is your marketing going to differ for virtual events compared to hybrid/in-person?

    Please share any ideas, experiences, and successes below. As always, we encourage you to ask questions to other users based on their responses, too. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! #HuddleoftheWeek #VoiceIt


    #BiddingonGroupBusiness
    #ManagingVirtualEvents
    #PromotingYourEvent

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    Danni Czark
    Senior Associate, Online Community Marketing
    Cvent
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  • 2.  RE: Huddle of the Week #15: Digital Marketing in 2021

    Community MVP
    Posted 01-13-2021 15:38
    In a recent conversation with the main stakeholder for my annual Partner training event, my stakeholder said, "I don't want to do too much virtual otherwise no one will show up."

    Um...

    I emphasized that we have to decide WHO is our target audience for "showing up" in person at an onsite event. Business Owners? YES! How about lead salespeople, those that fill the coffers with revenue? Almost definitely. What about main presales technical reps who assist sales in demos that win business? Probably. 

    Let's face it, insisting everyone "show up" onsite live-in-person has never worked before. Travel and hotel rooms are expensive, even when my event is free and we feed them (all except for 1 dinner over 3 full days of the event). Businesses simply cannot afford to send "everybody," and while they are in classes and networking all day, they are not getting their work done (though they are learning valuable insights and making potentially revenue-generating connections).

    I suggested shortening our program to focus on revenue generating sessions for business leaders and salespeople and those few lead presales technical people. That's our highest ROI (and attendees', too).

    I want a BIG virtual component for everyone else who never gets to attend these events: marketing, most of the presales technical reps, and the operations gurus who actually put the orders in and do all the paperwork and mundane (and often legally complicated) mundane tasks to make the orders actually happen and serve customers.  

    If pivoting to virtual has taught me anything, it is that we can have a strong set of virtual content to include people that before were EXCLUDED from the event. 

    So when it comes to digital marketing, if my plan above is accepted by my key stakeholder, we'll emphasize FOMO to business leaders and lead sales and presales tech reps for the onsite-in-person event, and we'll market the inclusivity and time- and cost-savings to the rest of the audience. We should also have at least one roundtable for each of the Virtual Groups and have specific virtual-attendee-only games and prizes. 


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    Brenda Ainsburg
    Channel Program Manager
    brenda.ainsburg@siemens.com
    Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
    United States
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