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The Universe of Events

Chapter 008

← Ch. 7 : On-Site Best Practices
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Ch. 9 : Data and Technology →
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Chapter 008

The Post-Event Strategy

It's not over... yet.

First off, take a deep breath. You made it! The hard(est) part is over.

 

But the post-event is (arguably) THE most important part of your event program. You get to build off the buzz of your event, and have the opportunity to really nurture your guests down the funnel. Sounds fun, right?


The best part? Throughout your follow-ups, you’ll start to see who’s the most engaged, and who you should prioritize your time for that next step – whether it’s to book a meeting or invite them to a future VIP event.

 

Friendly reminder: don’t save your post-event strategy for the last minute. Start thinking about it early on (will your designer need to create a post-event page, or another email? Does your Sales team know they’ll need to follow-up with their prospects?) so that after your event, you can jump right into executing your strategy.

• Why are you throwing an event?
• Who is your audience?
• What do you need to meet your goals?
• How will you measure your success?

We’ll be answering all of these questions later on, but let’s start with your event goal.

post event communications strategy

Post-Event Communications

Every post-event strategy will look different from the next (first and foremost, depending on what the goal of your event is), but we believe that there are certain elements every successful post-event strategy should include. These can be mix and matched, or supplemented with anything else your company does after your events.


Here are some ways you can follow-up with your guests:

1. Send a thank you email

Your guests took time out of their busy schedules to come to your event, so the least you can do is take the time to say thank you (it’s also a great excuse to connect with them again). Send a simple follow-up email right after the event — you’ll be surprised how far this small gesture goes.

thank you email example

Did you know:

For every day you don’t follow-up after an event, you’ll see about a 20% drop off in engagement. Eek. Our CEO has got you covered with his 6-step “Pulse” follow-up plan to help drive engagement post-event.

2. Send a “sorry we missed you” email to no-shows

Don’t limit your follow-ups to just the people who attended your event. Reach out the people who planned to be there but didn’t end up making it, let them know you missed them, and then show them everything they missed 😉. Send them the post-event page, and any other relevant content from the event.

3. Create a post-event page

Let your guests relive the entire experience (or see what they missed) with a post-event page — simply edit and add to the event landing page you already created. Make sure you showcase every part: the speakers, the food and drinks, the entertainment, the award winners, etc. Here are some different things you can include:

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Sizzle reel or recap video

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Photos and/or a photobooth gallery

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Music playlist

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A gallery of tweets from the event hashtag

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Presentation slides or any other event content

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Fun stats about the event

post event page example

See this live post-event example from our Cloud Wine event in 2018

Want to create a post-event page as awesome as this one? Here's how to create a post-event page in Splash.

They're an elite group of event marketers who are continually iterating, experimenting, and testing their events to maximize the most event ROI. See what six attributes they share.

Promote it on your social channels, and share it with anyone who attended (or anyone who didn’t).

4. Ask them to fill out a post-event survey

Send a post-event survey to your guests and ask for feedback on the event: what worked, what didn’t, what their favorite part was, etc. That way, you can make your next event even better.

post event survey


Incentivize a post-event survey

It’s not always easy to get your guests to fill out a post-event survey, so it doesn’t hurt to throw in a perk (like a discount code, free product sample, or enter-to-win for VIP tickets for your next event).

5. Have your sales or customer teams personally follow-up

If your event’s goal was to drive sales or customer engagement, get your Sales or Customer teams to reach out (over the phone or via email) personally to guests after the event — whether it’s with a relevant piece of content or a “what did you think of the event?”


While it may feel very against a salesperson’s DNA, remind them that depending on how far along the prospect is in the buyer’s journey, it’s always better to provide helpful, non-salesy information.

If you threw a larger event and need to prioritize who to reach out to, start with those who:

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Opened the invite early

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Attended the event

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Anecdotally seemed really engaged

If you’re nurturing leads after a trade show or partner event, make sure to keep in the mind that they might’ve forgotten they stopped by your booth (so, make sure your team doesn't go straight into the sales pitch).

Avoid spamming! 

Inbox fatigue is real. Make sure your sales and customer teams are aware of your post-event strategy and who you’re sending it to, so they aren’t doubling up efforts.

6. Share relevant content

An effective way to engage with your guests is to send any content that aligns with the event. Even if you don’t have anything on hand, you should plan to create content (before or after the event), that you can eventually use as a nice touchpoint down the road.


Additionally: if there was any content presented or mentioned during the event (decks, videos, etc.), your guests might appreciate having that in their inbox, too.


7. Send them an invitation to another event

Got another event coming up that’s similar to the one they already attended? This is a great opportunity to build off of the momentum from this latest event, and get people excited for your next one.

Need a refresher on how to send emails in Splash? Check out our interactive course of our Email Sender feature*.

Need a refresher on how to send emails in Splash? Check out our interactive course of our Email Sender feature*.

*You need to sign up for a Mindflash account to take the course

Test everything, track everything 

It’s important to understand what works and what doesn’t, especially when you’re blasting your audience with a lot of emails. Make sure to look into your historical email data to see what has worked in the past and what hasn’t.

It’s important to understand what works and what doesn’t, especially when you’re blasting your audience with a lot of emails. Make sure to look into your historical email data to see what has worked in the past and what hasn’t.

long term lead nurture strategy

Long-Term Lead Nurture Strategy

Depending on your business, and how long your sales cycle is, nurturing your leads after an event is crucial (sometimes it takes 20+ touchpoints for your prospect to buy). While this is not a comprehensive nurture strategy, we've put together things to think about when building a longer term strategy.

•

Segment, segment, segment. However you organize your lists or manage your leads, think about the most effective way to target the right people.

•

Consider the buyer’s journey. Remember the sales and marketing funnel we talked about in Chapter 1? Make sure that every communication you send aligns directly to each stage.

•

Have the technology in place to automate it. Ideally, when someone checks in to your event, or their badge is scanned, they are automatically placed on a list and put into a nurture. Make sure your event technology is integrated with your Marketing Automation Platform.

•

Align the sales and marketing teams. Make sure you sync up with them to not only have them input or clean up their data for better nurturing, but also to ensure you’re not doubling up outreach.

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Monitor, measure, and test it. Keep a close eye on how your nurture strategy is performing, so you can iterate or swap out content.

Depending on your business, and how long your sales cycle is, nurturing your leads after an event is crucial (after all, it could take 20+ touchpoints for your prospect to buy). While this is not a comprehensive nurture strategy, we've put together things to think about when building a longer term strategy.

Sponsoring: usually this means you’re paying another organizer, company, or organization to participate in their event. This could come in many forms (e.g. a booth, an experience or service (espresso machine at an industry conference), sponsored session or speaker slot, a satellite party or VIP dinner).

•

What do you get out of it? Brand exposure to a whole new audience.

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What are the benefits? Compared to hosting events, you’re not responsible for the hardest parts of an event (venue, speakers, scheduling, logistics - ah!) - which means less manpower at a lower price point.

•

What are the disadvantages? You’re losing control over the branding, guest list, and entire experience. Which means, generally you have to be smarter and work harder for a better ROI.

Hosting: When you host an event, you have full control over the entire event experience: promotions, branding, content, and guest list. This means you are responsible for everything — driving attendance, finding the venue, scheduling speakers, booking talent or food vendors, managing the guest list and event pages, branding swag, and more. Woof.

•

What do you get out of it? Here’s the great thing: when you host an event, you can tailor it to whatever your goal is. Are you looking for in-store sales? Are you recruiting? Want to increase customer engagement? Looking to promote a product? All of the above.

•

What are the benefits? With more control over your event, you can choose your messaging and target segments of your audience.

•

What are the disadvantages? More $$$ and manpower. But, there are several ways to offset these costs like offering partnerships or sponsorships, or hiring an outside event production agency.

Data can make-or-break your entire event strategy. In the next chapter, we dig into the how and what of collecting event data.

Curious about what the most popular event types are for sponsored vs hosted events? According to 739 global enterprises:

Title of Chart Goes Here!

Hosted

One-Day Conference (54%)

Product Trainings (46%)

Business Partners (45%)

Sponsored

Industry Trade Shows (54%)

One-Day Conference (43%)

Business Partners (41%)

Expert Take: "99% of the time I say "no" to sponsoring an event"

While most companies doing a mix of both sponsoring and hosting events, more and more companies are shifting to take more control of their events. According to a recent study (HBR-AS), four in 10 enterprise companies plan to spend more on hosting events in the year ahead, while only three in 10 plan to spend more on sponsoring events.

"

“99% of the time I say ‘no’ to sponsoring a general
event. I’d rather invest our budget on an event where I
can control the content.


Som Puangladda, VP of Global Marketing at GumGum

Even if your company does decide to sponsor an event, it’s always best practice to go beyond the booth and throw your own satellite event.

Your guests took time out of their busy schedules to come to your event, so the least you can do is take the time to say thank you (it’s also a great execute to connect with them again). Send a simple follow-up email right after the event — you’ll be surprised how far this small gesture goes

While events are considered best at accelerating sales cycles and fostering customer engagement, events can touch every single stage of the marketing funnel.

 

Before you can choose what kind of event you should throw and for whom, it’s helpful to understand the marketing funnel and where events fit in.

 

The basic stages of the marketing funnel (these stages can change depending on your business type):

Awareness

The buyer becomes aware of the problem or pain points.

Example: the buyer hears about your product at a tradeshow booth

Interest

The buyer starts looking for the solution.

Example: the buyer attends an educational seminar about your industry

Consideration

The buyer starts evaluating or demo-ing products or services.

Example: the buyer attends a VIP dinner of your top customers and top prospects

Purchase

the buyer converts or buys your product.

Example: the buyer attends a user conference around your product

Post-Purchase:

The buyer expects great customer service and product experience.

Example: the buyer watches a customer webinar about new features

Advocacy

the buyer becomes a champion of your product (and expands use or promotes to their community).

Example: the buyer joins a user group

Awareness

The buyer becomes aware of the problem or pain points.

E.g. events, like tradeshows or sponsored events, that focus on lead generation or brand awareness

Awareness:

This is a pretty simplistic view of the funnel. In reality, and depending on your business, sales cycle, and industry, a buyer can go through several stages and touchpoints that aren’t necessarily linear. Nonetheless, this should help you understand that (1) events can be effective at every stage of the buyer’s journey, and (2) you need to be smart about how to use them.


Friendly reminder: your events shouldn’t be the ONLY thing your guests are interacting with. Make sure you’re working with your greater marketing team or organization to understand where you come in.


Common Goals of Events


We like to believe that events have a lot of benefits (we’re biased!). But here are some of the more common reasons companies throw events (plus common event types for each).

• Awareness: the buyer becomes aware of the problem or pain points. 

E.g. events, like tradeshows or sponsored events, that focus on lead generation or brand awareness
• Interest: the buyer starts looking for the solution.

E.g. educational seminars or product workshops
• What do you need to meet your goals?
• How will you measure your success?



Community-Building

From professional networks to new friendships, events naturally connect people. Every guest is a potential Twitter fan, newsletter subscriber, product user, website visitor, or customer. Use your events to bring people together around a cause, a brand, a new product, or just a time to meet and mingle with new faces.

Common event types: community meetups, user groups, happy hour/cocktail party

Brand Awareness

Events are a great way to get your brand’s name out there (and associate it with a memorable experience). If you’re looking for the press’ attention, make sure you invite the media (and/or influencers in your industry) to ensure you’ll be seen, heard, and noticed within the community.

Common event types: hosted conference, sponsored event, partner event, influencer meet and greets

Sales

Events give you the opportunity to connect with prospects in-person, and also let you to create the ideal environment (whether it be a lively and interactive experience, or a more professional setting). Whether you have a 90-day sales cycle or are looking to drive more in-store sales from a retail event, in-person events can benefit every stage of the sales process.

Common event types: VIP dinner, in-store event, satellite event at industry conference, happy hour/cocktail party, webinar

Customer Engagement

Your customers are your number one priority, but how often do you get to actually spend time with them in-person? For some businesses, retention is often more of a focus than getting new customers. Your event goal might simply be to drive engagement with the people who are already using your product, receiving your services, or following your brand (for example, an exclusive event for a retailer’s loyalist members).

Common event types: VIP dinner, user conference, webinar, roadshow/field event

Education

Many people turn to events to expand their knowledge and connect with other professionals in the industry. If your company focuses on a certain profession or has a deep understanding of a particular topic, you can establish yourself as a thought leader and bring people together through panels, workshops, and other educational events.

Common event types: hosted conference, webinar, product training, satellite event at industry conference

Recruiting

Bringing people together to meet and mingle is a tried and true way to connect companies with potential employees. Job fairs and networking events are the classic recruiting styles, but even industry conferences have become a breeding ground for talent looking for their next role, and brands have found success throwing VIP events specifically targeted to top talent.

Common event types: happy hour/cocktail party, educational seminar, sponsored event

Partnerships

Depending on your business type (usually publishers or ad sales), your target prospect is a new business or channel partnership, advertiser, or a press contact. For this use case, events are great for growing your professional networks.

Common event types: satellite event at industry conference, sponsored event, happy hour/cocktail party

Rallying Around a Cause

Events and fundraising have gone hand-in-hand for centuries. Many companies can find a charity that meshes well with their mission, making it possible to have an impact on both a worthy cause and a business objective.

Common event types: happy hour/cocktail party, partner event, community meetup

Lead Generation / Net-New Names

While this isn’t the most common or effective way to use events, you may be looking to drive net-new leads from your events. These are people who are brand new to your database. Sponsoring large industry events or partnering up with another brand are two great ways to expand your audience network.

Common event types: hosted conference, satellite event at industry conference, partner event, sponsored event, tradeshow booth

Once you’ve solidified your goal, you’ll be able to choose the event type that’s best for your business, your audience, and your goals.


Did you know that certain event types work best for certain industries? See the most popular event types for your industry here.

It’s important to understand what works and what doesn’t, especially when you’re blasting your audience with a lot of emails. Make sure to look into your historical email data to see what has worked in the past and what hasn’t.

Salesforce is a great example of this with their Trailblazer community — made up of approximately three million of its users. They have organized themselves into more than 840 groups in 80+ countries, and Salesforce organizes and supports in-person events for them to share ideas, network, discuss real-world examples, talk through shared interests, and more.

Salesforce is a great example of this with their Trailblazer community — made up of approximately three million of its users. They have organized themselves into more than 840 groups in 80+ countries, and Salesforce organizes and supports in-person events for them to share ideas, network, discuss real-world examples, talk through shared interests, and more.

Be very wary of spamming your guests. Make sure your sales and customer teams are aware of your post-event strategy and who you’re sending it to, so they aren’t doubling up efforts.

Salesforce is a great example of this with their Trailblazer community — made up of approximately three million of its users. They have organized themselves into more than 840 groups in 80+ countries, and Salesforce organizes and supports in-person events for them to share ideas, network, discuss real-world examples, talk through shared interests, and more.

Need a refresher on how to send emails in Splash? Check out our interactive course of our Email Sender feature*.

*You need to sign up for a Mindflash account to take the course

Salesforce is a great example of this with their Trailblazer community — made up of approximately three million of its users. They have organized themselves into more than 840 groups in 80+ countries, and Salesforce organizes and supports in-person events for them to share ideas, network, discuss real-world examples, talk through shared interests, and more.

Pro Tip: 

Start thinking about your post-event tactics early on (will your designer need to create a post-event page, or another email? Does your Sales team know they’ll need to follow-up with their prospects?) so that after your event, you can jump right into executing your strategy.

Salesforce is a great example of this with their Trailblazer community — made up of approximately three million of its users. They have organized themselves into more than 840 groups in 80+ countries, and Salesforce organizes and supports in-person events for them to share ideas, network, discuss real-world examples, talk through shared interests, and more.

How to Build a Great Mission Statement

If determining your event’s goal is step #1, think of developing your event value proposition a very crucial step #2. This is essentially your mission statement — aka what your guests are going to get out of your event.


By building a clear value proposition you’ll not only have a better understanding of your event’s purpose, but you’ll also be better able to express this value in your pre-event promotions, which helps drive more registrations.


Want to learn how to create a great one? Check out this video from our CEO Ben, who breaks down his go-to strategy for building an event value proposition here. 


Real World Example:

We like to think of an event’s goal as its superpower. Discover your event’s superpower, plus how to leverage it to maximize your entire event program.

Real World Example:

Avoid spamming!

Inbox fatigue is real. Make sure your sales and customer teams are aware of your post-event strategy and who you’re sending it to, so they aren’t doubling up efforts.

Real World Example:

Incentivize a post-event survey

It’s not always easy to get your guests to fill out a post-event survey, so it doesn’t hurt to throw in a perk (like a discount code, free product sample, or enter-to-win for VIP tickets for your next event).

Real World Example:

Did you know:

For every day you don’t follow-up after an event, you’ll see about a 20% drop off in engagement. Eek. Our CEO has got you covered with his 6-step “Pulse” follow-up plan to help drive engagement post-event.

Real World Example:

Want to create a post-event page as awesome as this one ☞ ? Here's how to create a post-event page in Splash.

Real World Example:


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Jump to another chapter:
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01 : Your Event Strategy
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02 : The Guest List
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03 : Managing Your Team
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04 : Event Production
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05 : Building the Event Page
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06 : Promoting Your Event
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07 : On-Site Best Practices
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08 : The Post-Event Strategy
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09 : Data and Technology
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10 : Measurement and ROI
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Post-event surveys, automated follow-ups, and all the data that comes with it. We got you.

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