Between being buried in numbers and making revenue forecasts, CMOs are among the busiest people in a company. They constantly track top-line revenue and the company’s performance. Additionally, they are responsible for strategies that affect the company’s short term and long term growth objectives. As a subset of their marketing strategy, events are a whole different facet altogether. In this blog, we run you through a statistical look at some of the things your CMO cares about at events.
Quality lead generation
At events, generating leads is among the most important objectives that a CMO cares about. The lead generation process primarily deals with acquiring customers through all the noise of a crowded market and create a sustainable demand for the product. In the trade show context, the number of leads collected at an event is indicative of what the top of the sales funnel looks like. Moreover, an effective lead generation process gives sales the opportunity to drive more deals to closure and lets the event marketing team keep track of their revenue contribution at events.
The bottom of the funnel
An effective lead generation process feeds the bottom of the funnel. Conversely, leads are nothing more than contacts if they are not converted. Therefore, what matter more is the percentage of leads from the lead generation process that has converted to business opportunities.
At events, the sales funnel may be crowded at the top with funnel being flooded with leads. But as these leads progress through the sales funnel, a large number of them are waded out because of various reasons. As a CMO, one of the primary aims is to identify these reasons and tweak aspects of the marketing strategy to reduce the number of leads slipping through the cracks and increase efforts to reel in leads that are more relevant to the brand. One of the ways to do this is by creating a value proposition that addresses a customer’s pain point and by backing it with a data-centric pitch.
Event marketing budgets
Sales advancement is not only about how fast you can close the deal but also how much you can achieve with what you have. Here is where the event marketing budget comes in. As a CMO, a lot of attention needs to be given to allocating event marketing budgets. While 83% of marketers are heavily invested in event marketing, 63% of CMOs believe that the decision to participate at an event needs to be based on past performance. This means that the decision to attend the next event relies just as much on the sales performance built at the event as revenue growth. So when coming up with the event marketing budget, CMOs need to pit investments against what they absolutely need and what they consider a luxury and take crucial decisions on what can be accommodated.
Event ROI
Events are a massive investment. CMOs believe that analyzing ROI gives them a clear picture of the effectiveness of the sales teams at events. The stat above should provide a clearer picture of how massive an investment it is. With such massive investments, come the returns.
A research by EMI and Mosaic claims that 75% of the companies that possessed event marketing budgets ranging between $50M and 100M expect a return of 5:1. This indicates that there is a massive need to revisit event strategy and find new ways to maximize event ROI. Essentially, CMOs care about how much they can shrink the budget to only what needs to be used and generating as much revenue out of that investment.
Getting closer to customers
In the present scenario, buyers control the purchase process. They bypass numerous stages of the buyer’s journey through the internet and social media. This means that marketers need to take an extra effort to understanding customer personalities and cater to their needs. Moreover, according to a study by Marketing Charts, 64% of CMOs believe that events are crucial to creating business opportunities and initiating relationships with customers.
In order to resonate with customers, event marketing strategies need to be tailor-made to close the gap with customers and showcase brand value. This, in turn, helps increase conversions at events and build a close-knit network of brand advocates.
Insights and metrics
This means that there is a gap in how meeting and attendance data is collected and interpreted. Not only are metrics and KPIs important to measure how successful an event campaign is, but also helps capture and record data that can prove helpful in the nurturing, follow-up, and conversion process.
Going back to Guidebook’s research, 60% of event planners felt that employing a meeting management software enhances attendee engagement. This reinforces the belief that meeting management software are the next step to take in enhancing the event experience for both attendees and exhibitors. Additionally, deploying a meeting management software eases the scheduling process and has a positive impact on event ROI.
CMOs spend an enormous amount of time and effort to get things right at the event. In the event marketing industry, it is crucial that CMOs structure their strategies around a customer-centric model. Further, by aligning their events and sales teams towards common objectives, they can seamlessly transition customers through the stages of the sales cycle.
