Written by Jasmine Sandler – Founder and CEO Agent-cy Online Marketing

To not prioritize B2B event marketing is to essentially not attend the event itself. Whether you are representing an organization, or simply yourself as your own Personal Brand, events can be as daunting as they are important.

The upside is that you can exponentially increase your audience, qualified contacts for business and achieve a real ROI if you take the necessary time to correctly market the event, pre, during and post.

In my work as a Social Media Marketer and Personal Branding specialist for Executives, I have created and delivered an event-social formula that is driven towards measurable results.

From that, I am giving you my main elements that will help your B2B event marketing flourish.

1. PRE-GAME: Set Those Digital Marketing Goals

Know every single tidbit possible relating to the event and set your goals accordingly. For example, researching the speaker list will unveil their focal areas. It would then behoove you to develop a target number of tweets/shares that pertain to those same areas. Engage the speakers, and if they re-engage, politely ask their interest in meeting at the conference. Rinse, wash, repeat this process for those you see using the conference hashtag. Also, develop promotional material such as e-mail templates and Instagram promo images.

2. Understand the Ripple Effect of Proper B2B Event Marketing

Due to a wild ripple effect, the biggest benefit is the sheer opportunity to speak or present at other events. Think about what that does for exposure – doubling, tripling, quadrupling it in no time all because you put the necessary effort in to marketing. Success begets success. Other positive results from this B2B mindfulness would be influencer engagement, more quality leads, and more registrants to your corresponding workshop, speech, or of course service! In a word, visibility becomes your best friend.

3. Ensure Social Media Engagement success before, during, and after the event.

In addition to a deep expansion of the angles covered in #1, I provide to clients an all-encompassing engagement through all viable platforms: Facebook , LinkedIn, Instagram. Twitter, G+ and YouTube. Keen monitoring occurs throughout the entire day(s) of the event, while the time after it ends is dedicated to content evaluation, contact organizing, and promotional follow-ups. This is of course the broadest of overviews, but hopefully an insight in to what should really go in to adequate social media marketing for B2B event ROI. In general, there should be a solid 6 weeks of action surrounding the event. If you have an engagement or event investment coming up and need my help in preparing social media success, feel free to contact me to discuss.

4. Have the Tools and Resources Needed to Deliver an ROI from B2B Event Marketing and Social Media

In this online landscape that is constantly expanding, gone are the days when one person alone could maximize event marketing. You need a team, and that team needs to be obsessive. Within Social, you need to be sure your follows (and hopefully followers) are rich in both quantity and quality. Your content, whether it be in one of the major platforms or in e-mail, needs to reflect the quality of your workshop/service/product. Oh, and goodness, have a system to truly track progress. Metrics and analytics behind how your Social is doing are much more concrete than having a good feeling.

This means everything to enabling social media monitoring tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, or others to properly assigning event goals to your Google Analytics funnels on your website.

Success Story: Spark Solutions for Growth

Pertaining to Thought-Leadership and Social Brand Growth

Rachel Braun Scherl , an Executive Personal Branding client of mine, is exhibit A of the power that exists in event marketing. Having honed her branding focus, she has ascended to CEO of Spark Solutions for Growth, a marketing consulting firm in the Female Health industry. She is fervently sought after as a keynote speaker on all things female business building, featured at events from start-up conferences to university seminars. She is a regular contributor for Huffington Post and Inc magazine. Enjoy just a small sample of what Rachel has to offer, and how she offers it.

Despite the astronomical growth in importance of online presence and social media marketing, in-person conferences and events still occur and are just as important. There isn’t really a substitute for pressing the flesh, but the online factor has the unique ability to accentuate it if properly embraced. Maintain your personality and brand throughout all content and interaction, be diligent, and your ROI will thank you. Or you’ll thank it. Or, both.

I have been running a Social Media – Online PR agency for many years and have worked with my clients through events of all shapes and sizes (restaurant launches, speaking engagement, exhibiting – you name it!) and would be thrilled to support your ROI at your next event. I am just a phone call away! Reach me at www.jasminesandler.com