This is a long post and has tips / methods / videos / interviews all revolving around the Digital Pivot for Events.

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You've heard us say before that automation isn't just for marketing teams - automation is something that applies to the whole organisation and honestly we seriously believe that if there's one function within B2B businesses that will benefit the most it's got to be sales!

Selling delegate places and sponsorship packages in this day and age, doesn't necessarily require a lot of phone calling, but instead a lot of desk research, hours on end checking LinkedIn for contacts and for the more experienced sales pro, hours checking social networks and communities hunting for the right conversations to participate in to connect with "interested and engaged" individuals.

We have met hundreds of marketing teams and sales teams over the years, and these are the tools that some of the best sales individuals use ( understandably they don't want anyone else to know about their ammunition!) 

We want to empower B2B event sales teams to become much more efficient and hit their targets by using tools and tech that they can start using immediately.

If your organisation wants to compete against new and exciting events that are constantly coming up in your sector and want to preserve your market share, or even compete against already established organisation, the events team will need to evolve and keep evolving into a really strong and resilient team of superheroes.

This post was updated on September 15th, 2020

We all love measuring our results and every team will have a set of event marketing KPIs that they live and die by. If you’re still measuring your activities the old way and moving towards marketing the new inbound way, you’re not going to have the info you need to make smart decisions.

By the way, we have decided to refer to a virtual, hybrid or physical event just as "events", while there are defined differences in the delivery and format of each, they way you approach their marketing is generally the same.

Your event has been launched, everyone is excited, you have received plenty of interest and registrations have started to come through. GREAT.

BUT, at some point registrations slow down and suddenly 3 weeks have gone by and you have received NO registrations at all!

You hit the PANIC button, and everyone gets concerned.

What to do?

B2B event marketing is a vast topic, spanning from how to get people to attend events, how to get them to buy from your B2B brand when you sponsor or organise an event and how to secure sponsorship for your own B2B event. It's a topic that interests event organisers, event marketers and B2B brand marketers in equal measure.

Let's be honest, event marketing can be very formulaic and innovation within the industry doesn't come in abundance. When I was asked by the PPA to do a session on innovation in events it was a great opportunity to talk about some of the guys who I feel are pushing the boundaries and adding a fresh angle to events and how we approach them. So here goes... 

1. Money 20/20: The power of video

With 40,000+ youtube hits to date this definitely generated a stir ... and in an industry that is traditionally seen as "conventional" and a bit "stiff" this was a very bold and almost risky tactic. Granted, it's not to everyone's taste but it lends itself to a great viral and memorable campaign. Hard to know what the results were in terms of uplift in sales but surely achieved a digital footprint in terms of branding and awareness. They used sponsors, vendors and staff in the video which is a great way to get buy-in and excitement for the concept and ultimately the event. Credit to these guys for doing something different! 

In our latest edition of B2B Inbound Marketing Stories, we spoke with Kelvin Newman, founder of BrightonSEO, the UK's largest SEO conference and MD of Rough Agenda, one of the new breed of B2B events companies shaking up the conference scene. In the interview, Kelvin reveals the secret sauce behind selling out his event in just 60 seconds and shares some pointers on how larger, traditional events businesses can incorporate a start up mentality to steer them to revenue success.

Watch the full interview, or pick up the key highlights below...

Whether you know it or not, like it or not, having a successful event or a series of successful events in the same or similar topic, is the basis of a community - it's all about the gathering of people that share a common interest. So what better way to engage with your community than through great content.

The events sector has a big advantage compared to most industries, in that you have experts at your fingertips - whether that's your production team, stakeholders, speakers or advisors. That allows access to knowledge, thought leadership and future shaping ideas with "relative" ease. 

A topic that always sparks discussion amongst B2B event and conference organisers - and that's what we came together to chat about at the recent Eventhuddle event. I was also joined by legends Kevin Jackson, Kelvin Newman, Scott Hope and Lindsey Fish.

We all like to think we’ve got the best marketing knowledge available, but when time is tight, how do you choose what to read?  So our team spent the time you don’t have, reading through all the latest marketing reports and shortlisting the best of the best. The result? Our list of the must-read event marketing reports to come out of 2016 (so far at least!). The only condition of entry to the list is that the report must be freely available. For those who are super pushed for time, we’ve also selected a couple of key nuggets from each that you can benefit from even if you haven’t had time to read the reports.

With declining delegate revenues and events still feeling the pinch of a new business ethic, shaped by recent economic austerity, landing the big kahuna event sponsorship deals is more important than ever before. But with companies wanting more for less and keeping a tight hold on the purse strings, how can you increase the value of event sponsorship?