Picture this: You’re getting the final touches ready for your small networking event. Your event is fully stocked with promotional materials and branded takeaways. Your staff is briefed on how to spark conversations with potential customers and keep them engaged.
Then the event begins. Within minutes, your event is filled with members of your target audience, and you’re generating and engaging great leads. You’re creating relationships — as well as quite the buzz around your company and product.
But it’s just a picture. And the opportunity to connect authentically in-person hit a drastic halt last year. It left marketers wondering how the heck to handle field events through a computer screen.
It also made a lot of us question if field marketing still matters.
The answer is yes. It’s still in style and still very much effective. We just need to shift gears a bit to appeal to customers today.
But how can we foster intimate interactions and stand out from our competitors virtually through our field events?
Luckily, we’ve got the answers you’ve been wanting. Here’s how you can spice up your field marketing strategy and why it matters more now than ever before.
It doesn’t get more intimate than inviting someone you kind of know into your living room, kitchen, or backyard. Even if you don’t realize it, this is very much like inviting prospects into your meeting room (virtual or not).
But it’s the first step to truly getting to know someone, your prospective customers included. And spicing up your field marketing strategy starts with getting to know your audience.
What challenges are they facing now? What are they trying to achieve? Why should they spend their precious time with you?
Once you answer those questions, the rest should fall into place.
Think of it like you were a digital advertisement. For example, I get a lot of emails from Bath & Body Works about new scented candles. And even though I really don’t need another one, at least one always ends up in my cart. Based on my past behavior and my demographics, they know exactly what I want from them: the sweet scent of Japanese cherry blossoms filling my home.
This concept works for virtual field marketing too. It’s, again, simply about knowing who you’re trying to reach. Here are some ideas to personalize your field events and quickly add heat to your field marketing strategy:
Spicing up your field marketing strategy doesn’t mean elaborate, large, or long events. We’re thinking quite the opposite. While being virtual does let marketers reach more people, that doesn’t mean it’s always the right choice.
Smaller, shorter, and more intimate field events are becoming the new way to enhance your marketing strategy.
In fact, 93% of event attendees believe that virtual events should not be longer than an hour, with 55% of them believing that virtual events should be 30 minutes or less.
Smaller and shorter events are an opportunity to establish organic connections with your audience (yes, even virtually), because these experiences let you work even more closely with your attendees.
Here are some of our favorite experiences that will surely kick your competition to the curb by creating one-of-a-kind field event experiences.
Making connections through a screen isn’t always easy, but it’s here to stay. That’s why doubling down on your virtual marketing strategy is the right move. Field marketing is more adaptable now than ever before because you ultimately have the opportunity to match the exact needs of your target audience.
Field events are crucial for establishing your brand. Not only does it allow your audience to experience your brand first-hand, but if executed correctly, it registers your brand in the top of mind of customers.
