Date: Friday, March 9th, 2018
Author: Alyssa Downing
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Business Development Institute (BDI) kicked off our ABM in the Field series for 2018 in New York City on March 1st. In business since 2001, BDI has learned tried and true methods for producing successful, invitation-only, custom roadshow events for prospects. In an effort to share this knowledge with other bright minds, ABM in the Field was born to promote idea-sharing amongst marketers. ABM in the Field has been hosted across the country 6 times since 2017 and is expanding throughout 2018. For those of you who couldn’t attend, here are some highlights from the New York City event:[push h=10]
Smaller scale, personalized events are becoming more popular: A topic of discussion at this meet up was the movement away from large trade show, conference style events to more customized, targeted and private events. The no show rate of these more personalized events typically tend to be lower. Individuals are more likely to turn out for an event that they feel is tailored to them and their professional development, than a general conference style event that they can find plenty more of to attend throughout the year.
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Direct mail is not dead: Believe it or not, many of our attendees were in agreement that a great direct mail campaign can yield stunning events. You could really wow someone and make them want to reach out and learn more just from being impressed. Never underestimate the power of a creative, thoughtful, unique piece of mail made just for your audience!
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C-Suite outreach: Utilize your CXO or higher level professional’s influence to help event recruitment and build brand awareness. One of the tactics BDI personally employs and that other ABM attendees agreed to using is sending out emails on behalf of the CEO. This message has a more personal touch and attendees will be impressed. Even if your company is not well known, a personal email from the CEO may be just what it takes for your audience to reach out and learn more.
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Emphasize the experience: Companies that are smaller, tend to have less brand awareness as they fight to expand. If this is the case for you, your marketing needs to be all about the event experience. People won’t register for your event just for the brand, like they would for Fortune 500 companies, so you need to market these events in a way that resonates with your attendees as a memorable experience they won’t want to miss.
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Don’t be afraid to follow up: Following up with your registered attendees shows that you care about their absence. Throughout our marketing campaigns, BDI follows up with event reminders one week and one day before the event, confirmation calls and see you today emails. This helps reduce our no show rates and allows us to better prepare for who will turn out at the event. Other ABM attendees felt this tactic is very important as well and some companies go as far as to call attendees with an Uber code to ensure they can get there smoothly. By doing these follow ups, you are also ahead of the game on being able to pull those name badges that you know won’t show, which gives attendees a more realistic view of how many people they will meet.[push h=10]
We hope that these highlights can give you and your company something to think about the next time you are planning an event. Thank you to all of our attendees for coming out and sharing their thoughts with us, it’s always a pleasure learning from you. ABM next stop: San Francisco, April 18th![push h=20]
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