How to use martech to maximize your virtual event success

Welcome to Part Two of our series on how to maximize the impact of your virtual event using your existing martech stack. This time, I’m looking at what comes after you’ve integrated your marketing automation and virtual events platforms. And how you can use the two to ensure your virtual event is a success.

Missed Part One? Catch up on why you should connect your virtual events platform to your existing martech.

Ready to delve further? Let’s go.

So, you’ve set up the integration, built your email campaigns and nurture pathways, prepped your sales and you’re ready to invite potential attendees. Now what?

Well, let’s look at how you can use that integration and match it with other tools you may have in your marketing technology stack.

Create your target list

If you’re like many enterprise-level B2B organisations today, ABM (Account Based Marketing) is playing a big role in your current strategy. You’ve aligned with your sales colleagues and are using data to define that all-important initial target list. It’s now filled with organizations containing your ideal attendees.

So far so good. But how do you get them to your event?

The good news is your MAP to CRM integration gives you the tools to segment your audience. This allows you to use granular, targeted messaging that will resonate with each segment. In this way, you can create customized target lists breaking down your target accounts by vertical industry, open opportunities, existing products or other criteria.

Making it personal will help ensure virtual event success

In addition, you can use field merges and dynamic content in your MAP to create personalized invitations. As a result, you should see improved engagement rates and hopefully drive higher event attendance.

What if you don’t have all the right contacts in your CRM or MAP? Well, if your sales teams have access to LinkedIn Sales Navigator, have them use Buyer Circle functionality. This will help them build out the right contacts and to connect with them via InMail. They will then be more easily able to promote your event via regular LinkedIn updates. You can help colleagues do this using employee advocacy tools. These allow you to provide ready-made messages that sales teams and other members of the organization can share with their network. In fact, each user can edit the messages they send, creating a more personal touch. In our case, we’ve found that HR, marketing and sales colleagues are our best advocates.

Throughout all this promotion you’ll continue to drive prospective attendees through that seamless registration process you created by integrating your marketing automation and virtual events platforms.

Increase your reach within those target accounts

By now, you should have those registrations rolling in. And you’ve increased the word-of-mouth too. But there’s still more that you can do to ensure your virtual event success. For example, account-based advertising technology lets you increase your reach into your target accounts. If you have someone from a key account register for your event, don’t stop there. Put their domain into your ad tech and serve supporting messages to all your potential buyers and influencers within that account. Got other key accounts not opening your emails? Put them into a different tactic within your ABM advertising platform and promote to them that way too.

Support your sign-ups with additional content

With those contacts who have registered, don’t just wait for them to show up on the day. Add them to your LinkedIn Matched Audiences and offer additional content to support your key messages around the event. Thanks to the integration with your CRM and/or MAP you can create a seamless pre-event customer experience. In addition, you can even provide top-notch intelligence for sales teams to use in their post-event follow-ups.

Maximize your virtual event success with post-event promotion

Speaking of follow ups, you can use post-event data to do just that. The integration of your Virtual Events platform to your MAP now means you can also segment your audiences by engagement levels. You can thus continue using the channels discussed here to make your event an on-demand success.

This will ensure good use of your valuable content well into the future. It also means you’re making your budget work harder to ensure your virtual event is as successful as possible.

Get it right, and you’ll soon discover that virtual events really can be the marketing gift that keeps on giving.

More information regarding our virtual events solutions can be found here.