As the toolbox for marketeers is expanding rapidly, the choices regarding participant data storage become more and more important. What should be the master database for participant data? Which tools should be used for different types of event communication? This blog presents how you can make smart decisions in terms of marketing tools, by defining how your events are positioned in your customer journey.
The key to efficient and functional event marketing communication is to be aware of the role of your events in the customer journey. Do your events consist of established customers or contacts in the first stages of their customer journey? Do you use your marketing automation tools just to communicate to leads and prospects, or do you also use it for customer communication?
Let’s picture an ideal situation: You have a CRM, a marketing automation tool and an event marketing tool. You can implement integrations between each of the tools. Additionally, you’re using Google Analytics or similar analytics tools. You use your marketing automation system for inbound marketing and customer communication. You organise events for leads and customers. The deciding factors in the choice of data storage and communication tools are the goals of the communication and the actual use of event participant data. Different goals and types of data lead to different scenarios.
The following examples are a good starting point, if you’re in the process of organising your marketing efforts.
Events as lead generators
If you organise events in order to create awareness and generate leads, you most probably use online advertising to get registrations. In this case you might consider the following setup:
- Analytics integrated with an event marketing tool: measure and evaluate channel and campaign efficiency through conversion figures.
- An event marketing tool integrated with a marketing automation: automatically create marketing qualified leads from participants. With the appropriate consent you can automatically add the participants to relevant workflows.
Events as interest accelerators
Events can be used to maintain and grow the interest of existing leads. In this case the leads are already part of your marketing workflows and used to receiving content from you. Harness this to get the most out of your events:
- Send invitations as part of your content marketing campaigns.
- Integrate your event marketing tool with your marketing automation tool in order to automatically update contact properties, create marketing lists and update lead scoring.
- Send event-specific, detailed event communication from your event marketing tool in order not to update unnecessary and redundant data in your marketing automation platform.
Events for sales qualified leads or mixed events
Events can be directed at different audiences simultaneously. You might attract participants with online advertising, marketing campaigns and direct invitations to contacts in your CRM. In these cases, managing data flows and specific interests of different functions can be tricky. Here’s one way to navigate the issue:
- Integrate your event marketing tool with your CRM and your marketing automation platform.
- Update invitees from your CRM as campaign members, upload them to your event marketing tool and handle the invitation process from there. This way you can best control, how the customer or prospect data is updated.
- Handle MQL communication as detailed above."
