Activating leads from an event can be a critical way to gain new customers, boost revenue, and increase attendance at your next event. If you’re collecting data during your events, you’ll have plenty of information to help you understand if it was successful, what worked well, and what might need improving.
So how can you effectively leverage leads post-event? Keep reading for a few tips on how to activate leads to understand your ROI, improve your event strategy, and ultimately increase sales.
Collect Data Purposefully
Before we focus on post-event activation, it’s important to start with the data you’re going to collect. After all, you can’t measure anything accurately if you haven’t collected the right data. You may also want to work with your marketing or sales team to ensure you’re asking the right questions and collecting information that will best serve them after the event.
Information that you can collect includes data from before, during, and after the event.
- Pre-event data includes things like names, emails, and organizations from registration forms, as well as interests and preferences for content and format. This type of data can be collected in the form of pre-event polls and surveys.
- Data collected during an event can include real-time feedback on content and structure as well as information about attendance or audience engagement for specific sessions, providing you with critical information about what’s resonating with your audience.
- Lastly, there’s post-event information. This is typically feedback on the event, what was done well, what could be done better, and if attendees would come back for future events. This information is most commonly collected using surveys, polls, and feedback forms. This can also be an opportunity to get attendees to sign up for your newsletter or email lists to stay apprised of your business’s latest updates.
Review the Data
Now that you have the right data, it’s time to review and assess what you have. All of this data, if analyzed properly, can give you a clear picture of your audience, their demographics, interests, and preferences, all of which will be critical in post-event lead activation. You’ll be armed with the right information to engage with them in an effective and compelling way, and convert them into new customers (or keep current ones).
This data can also help you better understand your event’s ROI and whether or not you met your desired goals. With a platform like InGo, you can leverage the data you collect with referral marketing to understand how to design more effective events and drive more attendance and engagement. People are 90% more likely to trust and buy from a brand recommended by a friend so it stands to reason that the same concept applies to attending events. Here at InGo, we’ve simplified this process into one easy platform where your speakers, sponsors, and attendees can quickly share that they’re attending your event.
While reviewing your data, consider tagging and filtering the information to make it easier to find, manipulate, and segment it later. For example, people who signed in to your event through Facebook or Twitter could be tagged as “Facebook” or “Twitter.”
Activating Leads
There are many ways you can nurture your leads after an event, and they don’t all involve a hard sell – here are just a few:
- Use InGo to leverage brand ambassadors. When you use InGo to empower your speakers, sponsors, and attendees to encourage others to come to your event, you know who you can count on to help with lead activation. InGo allows them to quickly post to their networks about how great your event was and how they can stay connected with your brand.
- Send thanks. Sending a simple “thank you” email to your attendees can go a long way in keeping them connected with you weeks or months after the event. This could even encourage them to sign up for your email list or buy your products.
- Offer exclusive content. Everyone loves to feel that they’re getting something that others aren’t. You can leverage this by offering content only available to people who attended the event. This could be a promotional coupon, invite to a special follow-up event, or a free trial of your new product. This will keep attendees engaged with your brand and keep you top of mind.
- Work with your internal teams. Coordinate with marketing and sales colleagues to brainstorm effective ways to reach out to prospective leads. Based on their insights, combined with the data you have, you can choose tactics that will be most effective in engaging your leads. This could include an email inviting them to see a demo of your latest product or asking them to sign up for your newsletter.
Conclusion
Activating your leads post-event can be an effective tactic in generating more sales, keeping your audience engaged with your brand, and boosting attendance at your next event. Make sure you start by collecting and understanding the right data and follow it up by using InGo, collaborating with internal teams, and staying engaged with attendees. Following these tips can help you easily and quickly activate your leads and make good use of your data.
If you’re interested to see how InGo can help with your post-event activation needs, reach out to schedule a demo. Enable your current attendees to influence others to attend your event using the #1 tool for community referral marketing and easily understand your event’s ROI.
