MTQ #3 - Events SZN is here 🎇
In this edition of MTQ, we discuss best practices for hosting virtual events that drive attendance, B2B insights from a featured guest, and dive into why we made a corporate TikTok account.
Welcome back to Making The Quarter. 😎
As in-person events are starting to be scheduled, tech companies are following suit in planning their upcoming event calendar. Conferences and trade shows will include virtual components to create a hybrid experience for the attendees. Not only do hybrid experiences reach more people around the world, but they address the uncertainty some may have with in-person events. 🌎
It’s safe to say that virtual events are here to stay and B2B companies need to be well-versed in hosting events that stand out from the pack in 2021 and beyond.
That’s why we put together a playbook to help you plan virtual events that will drive registration through the roof and delight your attendees. 📈
How to Get 1,000 people to Register for Your Next Virtual Event 🤩
We recently had 1,000 people RSVP for our B2B Block Party. How did we do it without any paid advertising? Here’s how. 👇🏼
Step 1: Traditional webinars aren’t enough—create an experience people want to attend. Most B2B professionals live their day-to-day in the digital world. If you want to get hundreds of live attendees together at once, it’s imperative that your event has a unique value add to encourage people to take time out of their busy day.
Step 2: Build the promotional plan out well in advance. Have you ever heard the saying, “Write the ad before you build the product”? While this may not be a best practice for product marketers, it does have validity in this context. Kicking off promotion months in advance helps get the word out early and builds awareness. Tactics to drive registration should include email marketing, social media posts, affiliate marketing, influencer promo, and incentive marketing using event kits—an event-themed package guaranteed to delight your registrants and result in a higher attendance rate.
Step 3: Get full buy-in from your team. If you want to get 1k registrations to your event, your entire organization (especially sales) will have to become a part of the marketing team. Create some hype in your #general Slack channels or run an internal contest to see who can drive the most registration.
Step 4: Create a sense of urgency to register. This can be accomplished in multiple ways: provide an event kit to the first X number of registrants, post funny promo videos (we used TikTok for our B2B Block Party, see our example below), host a giveaway, or incentivize social sharing by rewarding participants with WFH gift baskets. Creating FOMO (fear of missing out) drives urgency to register and can motivate registrants to spread the word to other potential attendees.
Step 5: Strategize, execute, and iterate. Improve upon the channels or messaging that’s driving the most registration and continue to test new ideas. If it makes sense for your brand, incorporate humor into your promotional content. Comedy is naturally viral, especially for B2B content, and can help you drive more organic impressions to your event landing page.
Step 6: Encourage social sharing. This can be especially impactful with physical event kits. Try including a QR code on your physical event kit to share on social or run a giveaway for each attendee who shares pictures of their box. Social awareness is a great way to drive registration within the last few weeks leading up to your event, especially when you have early attendees posting promotional efforts for you.
Step 7: Create a reason to attend—make it memorable. Your prospects are on their computers all day. Give your attendees something they can't miss that makes it worth adding another hour in front of the computer. Two easy ways to boost attendance:
Live giveaways (announce the winner at end of the event)
Positioning your event as a VIP experience to create a sense of exclusivity
Celebrity debuts, live cold brew tasting experiences, comedy shows, or trivia challenges are all examples of events that spur FOMO and require attendance to absorb the full experience.
Summary: Virtual events in 2021 that generate 1k+ attendees must be unique, exciting, and extend beyond the digital world. For more resources on how to host events that drive hundreds of live attendees, read our eBook and check out our blog post about how we trojan-horsed a major product release into a virtual comedy show that drove 1,200 sign-ups.
eBook: A Marketer’s Guide to Organizing Events that Don’t Suck
Blog: How to Get 1,000 People to Sign-up for Your First (Virtual) Product Launch
Can B2B Companies Succeed on TikTok? 🤳🏼
Note: This section was inspired by Jason Bradwell from the B2B Bite in his article featuring 13 B2B companies who are killing it on TikTok.
Before we get into things, you decide.
Poll: Is there an opportunity for B2B companies on TikTok?
TikTok enables people to create and share the most entertaining form of content: video. The app makes it easy for users to upload and edit their own footage into short videos—some of which have gone internationally viral and racked up millions of views.
TikTok videos are optimized for the viewer. In fact, “30% of TikTok users in the U.S. said they watch less TV, streaming and other video content since joining TikTok.”
Another benefit is the app makes it easy to share videos externally. Marketers can create highly entertaining, relevant content and then share to platforms with a B2B audience, such as Twitter and LinkedIn.
However, users don’t typically log into TikTok to buy software. In fact, even on LinkedIn, most people are scrolling for entertaining and inspirational content. The same can be said for B2B buyers—they aren’t on social media with intent to buy, they’re on social media to digest enjoyable content.
This means B2B companies should look at social platforms such as Instagram and TikTok as an awareness play. The more audience you gain, the more brand awareness you create. In addition, there’s massive potential to go viral, making it enticing for brands looking to grow their community.
The bottom line: TikTok should at least be considered by marketing teams due to the engaging element of the content. It’s about brand awareness, but it’s also a platform that B2B companies can leverage to distribute content that people want to consume. If you need further inspiration, this article from Wistia contains some more insights as to why B2B brands should consider having a presence on TikTok.
Here’s the corporate TikTok account we recently made at Postal.
Back to the Office? Some Ideas to Impress and Entertain 🥳
Some companies are maintaining work-from-home policies, but many have started the back-to-the-office migration.
Poll: Where are you working?
🔘 WFH
🔘 Back in the office
🔘 50/50 split
🔘 Another hybrid model
Regardless of where you are stationed, we have some ideas that you should either try out for yourself or suggest to HR:
🍦 Ideas for the office:
Have an ice cream party delivered to the office
Pick a day of the week to wear Hawaiian shirts or summertime attire
Game night—grab an old school Nintendo or other device and host an office gaming tournament (Nintendo baseball is our favorite at Postal HQ)
Partake in a charitable event that gives back or support the local community
🍷 Ideas for working remotely:
Zoom happy hour with a Kahoot trivia challenge
Remote MTV cribs colleague edition
A virtual cocktail making class for your team
Send event kits and host a virtual wine tasting
🧘🏽♀️ Ideas for hybrid teams:
Scavenger hunt (with virtual and in-office objects)
Yoga class (partially virtual, partially in-person, or both)
Team painting outing or class
Improv comedy event—put some team members on the spot or hire a company such as The Second City for a live comedy show
B2B Spotlight: Adrienne Barnes 🔦
We’re excited to share insights from a new B2B professional every month.
This month we’re featuring Adrienne Barnes, the founder of Best Buyer Persona. She helps B2B SaaS companies develop a better understanding of their buyers and users’ challenges, JTBD, pain points, and buyer journey. Her 4-pronged approach to research reveals deep insights that can be used across the business to inform growth and strategy.
Adrienne helps other B2B professionals implement this framework to achieve goals such as increasing traffic, boosting conversions, and reducing churn.
1. Why are establishing buyer personas so important, especially in the B2B industry?
“Buyer personas are the foundation of all marketing, customer support, product development, and sales. When you have a strong persona, you have a better understanding of the commonalities between your customers. This understanding helps:
Salespeople sell with more empathy and focus
Marketers create a message that resonates
Customer support offer help and guidance with more empathy
Product development to build future products or features that are needed and necessary to their core audience.”
2. How have you seen persona building evolving within the industry?
“I think a lot of people in marketing have come to realize that buyer personas have become a ‘check the box’ practice—something that’s put on a checklist of must-do’s, but then never gets referenced or used. That’s why I say ‘buyer personas suck, but they don’t have to!’ We have access to quality data, and I believe the industry is shifting toward building better buyer personas based on that data.”
3. What’s the most simplified way to describe your process for defining a buyer persona?
“I allow the buyers/users to define the buyer persona. During the research process, which consists of 1:1 interviews, a survey, social listening, and digital intelligence analysis, we learn a lot of information about the buyers. We have an understanding of their pain points, aspirations, frustrations, challenges, relationships, rituals, and routines, and most importantly, we learn what ‘job’ they’ve hired the product/service to do for them and the benefits they receive from achieving that job.
In many cases, the job to be done is a great way to segment audiences—it provides a stronger segmentation than demographic data and allows the focus of the persona to be on the pain point of your buyers, not their age, gender, or job title.”
4. What’s the #1 challenge B2B marketers are facing right now?
“I think it’s the same challenge they’re always facing—‘How do we reach our audience in a way that resonates?’ Now, audiences are divided into even smaller segments than we’ve seen in the past. You have people in your audience who are buyers, champions, users, influencers, community members, power users, etc. These smaller niche audiences require different marketing efforts, different information, and have slightly different journey’s to achieve their ‘job’.”
5. What are your favorite channels to reach new potential buyers?
“I’ve always been a fan of organic content marketing. It’s still a relevant way to connect with all the niche segments within your audience, and when done consistently is effective at educating, engaging, and reaching potential buyers.”
Thank you for all the great insights, Adrienne! 🔥
Who should we feature next? Do you have a colleague or friend who is crushing it right now and can provide some words of wisdom? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Lastly—enjoy this coffee on us to get you through the remainder of the summer. ☕️
Until next time. ✌🏼