Hybrid is quickly becoming the standard format for events. In fact, 73% of event planners predict that in the future, hybrid events will only grow more common as the standard.
Why? Hybrid events strike a careful balance, tapping into the convenience and global accessibility of virtual formats while retaining the irreplaceable benefits of face-to-face interaction. However, making the most of attending a hybrid event presents a fair share of challenges.
For one, the planning involved can impact execution. As a result, only 36% of marketers rate themselves as either “effective” or “highly effective” at executing hybrid events. This figure runs much lower than effectiveness ratings for the other three foremost event types (in-person, webinar, and virtual).
Effectively integrating an in-person experience with virtual attendance takes extraordinary attention to detail. Yet despite this, the benefits in terms of lead generation are significant enough to outweigh the challenges. Since the format is here to stay, it’s time to learn how to maximize your returns from a hybrid event.
Capture High-Value Leads Through Hybrid Event Marketing
Attendee engagements are the key to lead generation—and the driving force behind your event ROI. A hybrid event is an ideal opportunity to meet potential prospects, but the compressed engagement timeframe does necessitate a strategic approach.
Targeting high-value leads with your event marketing can increase your lead conversions without overbooking your experts and executives.
The goal is to schedule meetings, appointments, product demos, or sessions with your key customers and prospects. So, your marketing before the event should allow attendees to make inbound meeting requests with your experts online.
Interested attendees can initiate contact through embedded scheduling links within your blogs, social media, paid press, or email marketing channels the before the event. This way, you encourage your customers to initiate their buyer journey on their terms.
Booking Engagements
Of course, to maximize your number of engagements, you need to allow prospects to schedule their meetings and have salespeople generate outbound sales-initiated appointments. However, the way in which you implement these outreach methods will differ depending on whether the hybrid event is your own or if you’re an exhibitor.
You can use the registration list to schedule people for different sessions when it’s your own corporate event. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to invite attendees to a multitude of sessions.
As an exhibitor at a trade show, your options are more limited; therefore, the best way forward is to integrate Salesforce CRM software with event meeting scheduling software. With an integrated system, information on the potential pipeline automatically populates when a meeting is set. Not only does this added information help guide the meeting, but it also helps your expert better prepare for each lead.
Expert Insight: “The trick is to provide as many pathways and opportunities as possible for key prospects and customers to self-book and define their own buyer journey.” – Jifflenow
Bridge the Gap Between Marketing and Sales During a Hybrid Event
Your sales pipeline must be technically integrated to flourish in a hybrid environment. Otherwise, you might experience disruptions as your sales and marketing teams operate on separate software with different priorities—and, as a result, fail to align their strategies.
To solve this problem, you need a solid digital infrastructure that offers an omni-channel experience. Advanced meeting scheduling software can integrate with other essential solutions like CRMs, event registration systems, calendars, and video conferencing.
Combining these tools eliminates information gaps between your teams.
Setting Shared Goals and Solutions
Connecting your digital tools serves to bring your sales and marketing teams together. However, to further align your teams, factors like shared goals, potential challenges, and common solutions are important.
The overarching shared goal of the sales and marketing teams should be to increase the number of high-value meetings and resulting sales generated through both the in-person portions and extended virtual components of the hybrid event.
Collaborating to meet this goal is taking care of the details. Your marketing team will be generating inbound engagements through their target messaging. Meanwhile, your sales team will be creating outbound appointments.
Effectively managing both digital and in-person appointments requires booking in accordance with your leads’ attendance method—as well as that of your subject matter expert (SMEs) or executives.
A hybrid event offers increased accessibility, and your marketing team can make the most of the larger attendance. This is to your advantage, as engagements drive sales.
But to capitalize on this properly, you should build flexible solutions within your digital infrastructure. It will help your sales team manage more leads and last-minute meetings.
Formulate a Game Plan for Efficient Sales Conversions
While your hybrid event marketing plan might primarily focus on generating engagements, your sales strategies should be more concerned with converting leads to customers. After all, your ROI is a function of your sales pipeline.
It goes without saying that live event engagements—regardless of whether they’re virtual or in-person—can be used to drive sales.
In order to put this into practice, generate event engagement using automated scheduling software to enable inbound meeting requests. Then, once leads have entered your sales funnel, you should follow through after the event with ongoing targeted messaging.
You can promote expert or executive engagements to your qualified leads or let your leads choose between different 1-to-1 meeting formats: demos, presentations, or sales calls. Finally, determine what KPIs to track to optimize your sales strategies with data-based insights.
Seamlessly Connect Sales and Marketing During a Hybrid Event
When your sales and marketing teams collaborate effectively, your pipeline benefits from consistency with branding and messaging. And in a multifaceted hybrid atmosphere, working together becomes even more critical.
Technical solutions are the best way to align your teams with automated scheduling management tools, actionable data, an integrated ecosystem, and key insights.
Leverage meeting automation software to create a cohesive communication system that puts your sales and marketing teams on the same page. When your marketers and salespeople work together to generate and convert leads, your company thrives.
