During this period of uncertainty, many event marketers are wondering how they best make use of this time. Trade shows have been postponed, virtualised and in some cases cancelled.
The thing to remember right now is that this will all come to an end. We will come out the other side ready to dive headfirst into our next events.
And what is waiting for us at the end of the year? Perhaps the busiest events calendar on record. Not only do you have events already booked, but now there’s the additional management of all those postponed events, rescheduled for the same time. Phew.
So, how do we spend this intermediate time? Customers are telling us that this time is all about planning and optimizing every inch of the event marketing strategy.
To help with your planning at this time, we’ve put together some thoughts about how integrating your MarTech platforms will cue up your path to success.
Take the time to work on optimizing your events processes
Look at how you currently capture leads at your events. How are you transferring those leads from either paper sheets, badge scanners or mobile apps? Exhibitors have been using the same lead capture methods for years. There are traditionally two scenarios:
- You send your event reps off to the trade show with stacks of paper lead sheets that they physically handwrite and send back to your team in the office to get in contact with.
- You arm your event reps with rented badge scanners or a one-off mobile event app, and they scan every individual that walks onto your stand; resulting in data that’s lacking in context and not good practice within current data guidelines.
Both of these processes require manual efforts, especially when processing lead data after your event. And that’s a drain on your time – whilst delaying the delivery of follow-up activities with your leads. Whether it’s spending hours typing up those leads from paper forms or importing a list of names and email addresses. You deserve better.
Master event lead management with smart integrations
One idea worth thinking about over the next few months is how you master lead collection at your events in a timely and effective way. Our customers have found that this is best achieved by utilising their own dedicated event lead management solution.
By taking ownership over the entire process, not only are you in complete control every step of the way, but you set your team up for success – and of course your customers too, they receive only the best, personalized experience from your business. By integrating your event activities with your marketing automation platforms, you’ll get an automatic flow of leads straight into your systems and ready to go – even triggering the delivery of great customer experiences. Everyone wins.
Keep your events connected with your marketing technology platform
We’re really excited to announce our brand-new integration with Pardot. For customers using Pardot as their marketing automation platform of choice, you can now send leads straight into your prospect lists and - as with all our native integrations - benefit from functionalities like authentication and field mapping. Not only is manual data input eliminated, but follow-up emails can be built ahead of time in Pardot and sent out automatically during and post event.
Andy Higgs, VP of Event Products, had this to say about our latest integration:
“We are delighted to be able to deliver new and valuable functionality which will help event marketers set themselves up, ready for what is looking like could be a very busy second half of the year for events as they play catch-up with event-sourced leads. Our brand-new integration with Pardot will benefit existing and new customers who rely on it for their marketing automation activity during and after events. With this, users will be able to remove the manual work of moving leads from Integrate Events into their Pardot instance and get on with their follow-up activities instantly. We’re really happy that Pardot users can now benefit from the efficiency rewards that our existing native integrations with Eloqua, Salesforce, Hubspot, Microsoft Dynamics already provide.”
How do I get started?
If you'd like to talk about integrating your events with Pardot - or any of our other supported marketing automation platforms - speak to our team today.
