Event marketing guide and checklist to drive the right results

Most advisors have attempted to use events to drive growth. Some teams have cracked the code of a successful event, many have not.

If done effectively events can be an important part of your client service model, driving deeper engagement that builds advocates and referrals. They can also be part of your new client growth strategy, as a way to generate new leads and move prospects through your sales pipeline.

If they miss the mark, events can be a big waste of money and time.

Over the years, I’ve seen events succeed and fail. Below are steps to effectively use event marketing to drive engagement and growth.

1. Have a clear objective

Is this a client appreciation or prospecting event? If both, what’s the primary objective? What is the ideal outcome? Be specific and measure effectiveness as part of post-event feedback.

2. Identify ideal attendees

Be clear about who you are targeting and build your content, promotion and delivery around this group.

3. Choose a relevant topic

The topic should be of great interest to your ideal attendees. Provide a unique perspective or exclusive value. Don’t waste your time and money on generic topics that leave attendees unmoved. Resist the urge to make it about you, it’s about the attendees. You want them to leave feeling like they received value and want more.

4. Be clear about why someone should attend, what is in it for them

What challenge or fear are you addressing? What will they gain? How may it impact their lives? Incorporate the why into the title of the event, invitation and deliverables. (And deliver on your promise.)

5. Choose an accessible format and venue

Let your objective and audience guide the format and venue.

Hosting a webinar or virtual event is the most cost-effective and scalable approach but only as far as you can get attendees to join.

Digital events are on the rise. If you aren’t already using a tool such as Zoom, On24 or GoToMeeting now is the time to start testing these platforms. If you are planning to host a virtual event make sure you have the right technology in place to support the number of attendees and type of event (i.e. interactive, in platform surveying, ability to have breakout groups, etc.).

When using technology, testing is critical to prevent issues for the host and attendees. Inevitably problems do arise even for the most prepared. Make sure you have someone in charge of technology ready and able to problem-solve. Also, have a resource to help attendees who have issues. Make it easy for attendees to access your technology by putting links in calendar tags, provide instructions or tips in advance as part of your reminder and if possible always record your events in case someone can't get on.

If you record events you can provide them on-demand as part of your follow-up and use them as part of future marketing efforts. Media-rich content such as video is a powerful marketing tool. You may need to edit the file before sharing it. As always, make sure there are no compliance issues with sharing the content post-event.

6. Promote, promote, promote and send a reminder

Give yourself plenty of time to promote the event. Target the clients or prospects you want to attend. In the weeks leading up to the event, use it as a call to action (CTA) on your website, client communications and promote via social media. Especially for ideal targets, those people that you really want to attend, put in the extra effort to make sure they are aware of the event and benefits.

If you’re hosting a webinar or digital event send a reminder a day and an hour before. If it’s in-person send a reminder a day or two before.

No matter what you do there will be no shows. It’s not you, it’s just the nature of life and events. Track who attended and who was a no-show.

7. Keep the message simple, leave them wanting more and provide the next step

If you’re hosting a cooking class, host a cooking class, it’s not the time to talk about the markets. If your topic is a technical, investment or planning topic keep your audience in mind and simplify the lessons, and takeaways. Key points should be understandable enough that attendees can walk away and be able to reiterate them. Stories go a long way.

Deliver attendees what you promised but not everything you have. The goal is to get engagement after the event not just during the event. Attendance is an important signal of engagement. If they are a client you are working to move them to advocate. If they are a prospect you’re working to move them to client.

Always provide the next step, especially when you have a captive audience. Tying it to their fears and needs will make the next step urgent and valuable. Aligning it with your prospect or client journey makes it impactful to your business and helps you convert more business.

For example, you may leave them with a simple assignment to complete in the next week. Ask that they follow up with your team with the answer to your question and use their answer to provide additional and personalized value. Make sure they know they can only receive the tool or output if they follow up with an answer.

8. Gather feedback

Either at the event or as part of the follow-up ask for feedback. Limit your survey to no more than three questions to increase your response rate. You can always follow up with individuals for more in-depth feedback. A tool such as SurveyMonkey or Google Forms make it easy for respondents and for you to capture and analyze the data. Especially if you do a lot of events, systematically capturing feedback allows you to benchmark and compare events.

If someone really loved the event leverage that momentum. This could be an opportunity to ask an introduction to share what they loved about the event with a like-minded acquaintance or get them to take the final steps to become a client.

9. Follow-up quickly and systematically

Follow up within 24-hours if possible. By managing your attendees in your CRM or an excel worksheet you can quickly generate an email and call list segmented by attendees, no-shows and non-attendees.

Have a follow-up plan and be clear about who owns what. Follow-up templates can be created in advance. Personalize emails with their name and event specifics such as the next step you provided. Include a custom message if appropriate.

Again, the goal is engagement towards the ideal next step of advocate or client. Make it easy for them to take that next step in your follow-up by making it a CTA. A CTA could be to, schedule a meeting or submit their assignment. Make sure the links are trackable and there are no dead ends. If you have more than one CTA make it clear, which is the primary. Don’t have more than two CTAs.

Using an online scheduler such as Calendly makes it easy for attendees to commit to a follow-up meeting.

10. Measure return on investment (ROI)

Back to step 1, what was your goal, how’d you do?

In addition to your key objective, there are many things you can measure, standard event metrics include registration and attendance rates, cost per attendee and cost per lead. Conversion rate, how many attendees progressed in your pipeline or became a client 30 days following the event?

If I was investing in events I’d be most focused on follow up, which is the greatest driver of outcomes. What % of attendees (clients and leads) booked a meeting 30-days following the event?

Set event and follow-up goals, and share expectations with your team so you can all align around the ideal outcomes.

Events marketing is a powerful way to engage interest, deepen relationships and drive action. When done well events can be an effective growth investment. Use this event checklist to help set yourself up for success and host an event that drives the right results.