The following was my response to the question, "What's everyone doing about the POOR lead follow-up problem. Industry statistics indicate that LESS than 20% of leads ever get followed-up. Are YOU in that ball park?" in the Trade Show Help forum on LinkedIn:
This is an important topic! One way to increase quality of leads and eventual results (including the follow-up ratio) is to get participants to commit to a specific "next step" (best defined by sales). Too often, there is no "next step" defined and correspondingly there is no commitment by anyone for a specific follow- up.
An effective next step can be either human contact or automated interaction that moves the participant closer to a sale. For example, consider a qualified visitor at a construction show who completes a "test drive" in a heavy equipment simulator. That experience must ultimately result in a visit to a dealer, as they are the only ones who can actually sell equipment. The immediate "next step" however may be to get the prospect to sign up for the associated "concierge program" for test drive participants. This package (web based) steers the prospect to the dealer with motivating benefits in hand such as a discount, preferred financing and/or free optional equipment, etc. Getting the prospect to enter the program is the next step at the event. Tracking "goal conversions" identified with each step the prospect takes once enrolled provides the results tracking.
Whatever the next step for your business or product is should be a step in your sales cycle. Visitors who are signed up for the next step are much more certain to receive follow-up.
This is one example among many. What I have found is the concept of commitment (agreement) is central to the certainty of follow-up.
What are you thoughts on ways to improve lead quality and ensure effective follow-up? Email me edjones@constellaitoncc.com me if you would like to discuss.
Ed Jones
Subscribe To
Posts
All Comments
Showing posts with label events marketing program. Show all posts
Showing posts with label events marketing program. Show all posts
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Measurement Tip #3
To determine marketing success, you should identify and report these exhibit metrics: 1) who visited, 2) why they came, 3) what they learned and 4) what your visitors plan to do as a result of their visit.
Although many think of an exhibition as a place to put a number of products and services on display to a large number of people, the real value comes from making contact with individuals who are qualified to do business with your company. These people may be prospects, customers, suppliers or other participants in the profit equation of your business. Therefore, in order to identify and justify the value of an event marketing activity, it is essential to know and report who visited your venue and what outcomes are expected as a result of their experience. Marketing exists to create sales opportunities and to increase the probability of sale. In order to create sales opportunities, your program must target specific individuals and persuade them to act in a manner that benefits your company.
To understand the effectiveness of your marketing program it is important to know why participants came to visit and what they learned during their stay. This informs you regarding the effectiveness of your targeting and attraction campaigns and identifies the elements of the event experience that were most successful and likely to influence a visitor’s decision to act on your behalf.
The answers to the four questions listed above can be determined in a variety of ways. A common practice is to conduct live, post-visit intercept surveys. They help you understand how well you connected with your target audience. Intercept surveys provide accurate demographic profiling of visitors to your exhibit or event. This includes targeting criteria such as industry affiliation, company type, company size, individual responsibility, job title, buying readiness, and purchase intent. Post-visit intercept surveys also identify what the participants learned (if anything) and most importantly what they intend to do as a result of their visit. This data can even provide a forecast of expected sales driven from the participant’s view.
More sophisticated measures are possible using post-event survey techniques that pull from the entire event audience which includes those who visited your exhibit or event as a subset. You can identify changes in purchase intent, brand preference, brand fit and Net Promoter* scores for example. These metrics help you understand a lot more about the effectiveness of your marketing activity in creating positive change in perceptions among your target markets that result in an increased probability of sale.
Another method is to utilize technologies such as localized scanning techniques that provide real-time visitor identification and tracking of their movement. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for example, can provide real-time activity reports on session attendance, time on the show floor, and in-booth activity by product interest and for post-event analysis.
Understanding what your visitors plan to do as a result of their visit is one of the most crucial elements. A qualified lead should be committed to take a pre-determined action that sales has defined as a step in the company’s sales cycle. A tight definition of a qualified lead will provide a strong metric regarding generation of sales opportunity.
There are many metrics that are important to exhibit and event managers. As far as ROI is concerned, determining who came, the persuasiveness of their experience and their intent to act provide the clearest measures of effectiveness.
*Net Promoter Score is a registered trademark of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld
Although many think of an exhibition as a place to put a number of products and services on display to a large number of people, the real value comes from making contact with individuals who are qualified to do business with your company. These people may be prospects, customers, suppliers or other participants in the profit equation of your business. Therefore, in order to identify and justify the value of an event marketing activity, it is essential to know and report who visited your venue and what outcomes are expected as a result of their experience. Marketing exists to create sales opportunities and to increase the probability of sale. In order to create sales opportunities, your program must target specific individuals and persuade them to act in a manner that benefits your company.
To understand the effectiveness of your marketing program it is important to know why participants came to visit and what they learned during their stay. This informs you regarding the effectiveness of your targeting and attraction campaigns and identifies the elements of the event experience that were most successful and likely to influence a visitor’s decision to act on your behalf.
The answers to the four questions listed above can be determined in a variety of ways. A common practice is to conduct live, post-visit intercept surveys. They help you understand how well you connected with your target audience. Intercept surveys provide accurate demographic profiling of visitors to your exhibit or event. This includes targeting criteria such as industry affiliation, company type, company size, individual responsibility, job title, buying readiness, and purchase intent. Post-visit intercept surveys also identify what the participants learned (if anything) and most importantly what they intend to do as a result of their visit. This data can even provide a forecast of expected sales driven from the participant’s view.
More sophisticated measures are possible using post-event survey techniques that pull from the entire event audience which includes those who visited your exhibit or event as a subset. You can identify changes in purchase intent, brand preference, brand fit and Net Promoter* scores for example. These metrics help you understand a lot more about the effectiveness of your marketing activity in creating positive change in perceptions among your target markets that result in an increased probability of sale.
Another method is to utilize technologies such as localized scanning techniques that provide real-time visitor identification and tracking of their movement. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for example, can provide real-time activity reports on session attendance, time on the show floor, and in-booth activity by product interest and for post-event analysis.
Understanding what your visitors plan to do as a result of their visit is one of the most crucial elements. A qualified lead should be committed to take a pre-determined action that sales has defined as a step in the company’s sales cycle. A tight definition of a qualified lead will provide a strong metric regarding generation of sales opportunity.
There are many metrics that are important to exhibit and event managers. As far as ROI is concerned, determining who came, the persuasiveness of their experience and their intent to act provide the clearest measures of effectiveness.
*Net Promoter Score is a registered trademark of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
