B2B Marketing Blog

Ricardo Molina

Recent Posts by Ricardo Molina:

Social media marketing for events, in 140 characters or less


Social media and event marketing are not natural bedfellows time or culture wise, even though social media marketing for events can be one of the most effective channels. That’s because event marketers are used to doing a marketing task and crossing it off their list. Social media isn’t like that unfortunately - it's an ongoing effort requiring the marketer to be “present” over the full campaign. Event marketers also tend to lean towards old school, with outbound “broadcast styles of communication (which is our mission to change!)

Topics: B2B Social Media Event Marketing

Cracking the code: Content marketing for events

Event marketers are some of the busiest people in the whole world. Forget taking a lunch break, they barely have time to breathe a lot of the time. One of the most common questions I get asked is “how do I find time to create content?”

Here we crack the event marketing content code and unlock the time you need to create killer event marketing content, without being in the office until midnight:

Topics: Content Marketing Event Marketing

How to build an event marketing team that'll deliver amazing results

So much of event marketing comes down to the people doing it. It's a huge job, requiring serious intellect, commercial acumen and a diverse set of skills. In fact, event marketing is so unique, those that click with it as a job often remain in the industry their whole careers, addicted to the pace and variety of the work.

Building a great event marketing team takes more than just an assembly of talented marketers. You need the right blend of skills and attitudes to create a winning dynamic. Understanding where you are now, where you want to be and how to get there is useful for any marketing leader, but it'll be especially useful for those attending our Accelerator Labs workshops as it'll provide valuable background context for the exercises within each workshop, providing insight on how you'll implement all the great ideas, latest strategies and proven techniques you'll learn. 

Topics: B2B Marketing Event Marketing

Your 5 most important inbound marketing insights

Inbound marketing is without doubt the future for event marketing as a discipline. Audiences are fed up with a torrent of selling emails and they are getting much more discerning in turning off the flow when it suits them.

Successful inbound marketing allows you to maintain a positive relationship between your prospect and event brand at every stage of the buying process, but you need to understand the rules so as not to make mistakes and turn them off forever. Here are our 5 most important inbound marketing insights to consider...   

Topics: Event Marketing Inbound Marketing

5 Tips on performing a B2B marketing MOT on your business


Whether events are all or just part of what your organisation offers, performing a marketing MOT on the business as a whole is a good way to get a real feel for where you are at the moment and therefore how far you'll need to come to become a future proof, digitally savvy marketing team. It can also help you identify the strengths you can capitalise on, as well as areas where you can make some quick wins in terms of improvements.

Performing a B2B marketing MOT on your business in advance of undertaking any new marketing initiative will give you a proper 360 view of the current state of play. This in turn will put you in the best possible position to make an effective plan to move your organisation forward. Organisations that attend our accelerator labs find this excercise particularly valuable before they actually attend the workshops.

Topics: B2B Marketing Event Marketing

10 things you need to know before marketing your first event

So, you’re marketing your first event. Congratulations! But, it’s a bit "first day of school" scary huh? That’s understandable. It’s a big undertaking for any organisation and a big risk, although the payoffs can be even bigger. Which is why you’re doing it right?

We’ve put together a checklist of the 10 things you absolutely have to know before you start promoting that first event, to help you avoid any of the really obvious slip-ups. We also run an awesome event marketing workshop if you want to delve deeper and kick off your first event with a solid plan, so onto the list:

Topics: Event Marketing

A digital events business. Do you run one? 7 smart habits of a digitally savvy events company

 

Do you think your events company is digitally smart? Have you kept up with the evolution of digital? Or do you just want to find out what "getting" digital means? Whatever your reason for reading, you’ve made the right move. Events companies can’t afford to fall behind the curve with digital. After all, the events we produce are supposed to show our delegates what the latest and future trends look like in their industry, it’s only natural that they expect our event marketing to follow that pattern.

We love Stephen Covey’s book “7 habits of highly effective people” and often get asked if there’s an equivalent “7 habits” for event folk. So, here they are, our 7 top healthy habits for the digitally savvy events company:

Topics: B2B Marketing Marketing Trends Event Marketing Conference Marketing

5 top questions a CEO should ask their event marketing team

You’ve got a half an hour catch up with your event marketing team. You need to make the most of your time. So what should you ask to make sure your team are on the right track?

Topics: Event Marketing

Does marketing own the customer journey? If not then who?

Recently I received a request from B2B Marketing to fill in a survey and it was titled "Does marketing own the customer journey?" It was a provocative header (I'm a marketing geek if you didn't notice) that made me take action, fill in the survey and then write this post.

My strong view and answer to this question is:

Absolutely! Marketing definitely owns the customer journey. If they don't, they're just not doing their job.

Topics: B2B Marketing Marketing Trends

Engaging an event audience online and offline


I took part in a panel discussion at Event Tech Live with Anthony Dunn of i2i Events Group, Neil Robertson-Ravo of Top Right Group, Ade Allenby of Reed Exhibitions; and Tamar Beck from Gleanin. It was a great session (probably the best one I've participated so far) that sparked lots of interesting views. It was mostly focused on how you engage an event audience online and offline, and what kind of tools you need to do it. 

Topics: B2B Marketing Event Marketing Conference Marketing B2B communities

5 Tips to amplify event content on social media for social media virgins

Good quality content is hard to come by in the event industry – it takes time, resource and your boss’ backing to put together something worth sharing.

And creating the content isn’t even necessarily the hard part; it’s what you do with it after that counts, and makes all the effort seem worth it. If you don’t know how to get your content into the hands (and screens) of the right people you won’t see any return on your investment.

Here’s what you absolutely must do to amplify your event content – and using social media is the fastest, most effective way of doing it.

Topics: B2B Social Media Event Marketing Conference Marketing

35 hashtags in the events industry every marketing professional should use

This list has been reviewed on 1 April 2017

This is our definitive list of hashtags every events industry professional must follow without fault.

Twitter is not only a tool that you will use to broadcast and say a lot of things about yourself, your company or your event. It is a tool to simply stay informed about your industry and getting interesting tips and content that you can literally use to do your job better.

This is the list I personally follow on twitter and since a lot of you asked me about this, here it is.

Topics: B2B Marketing B2B Social Media Event Marketing Conference Marketing

PPC could be a waste of your event marketing budget. If you are doing it like this that is

I know that in the events industry we are encouraged to take advantage of all marketing tools at our disposal, and try new things to drive registrations and build awareness of our events. But it’s important to realise that not all channels hold the same value. To me PPC (pay per click) marketing is the perfect example of this – and I would go as far as saying that using PPC to promote your event can be a complete waste of money if you do not approach it right.

Topics: Marketing Ideas Event Marketing Conference Marketing

The NON-Definitive List of Good Event Website Designs

Some time ago we wrote a post looking at the main problems with conference and event websites. We shared our views on what we think is wrong with many of them, as event websites, especially conference websites are particularly lacking inspiration.  

Topics: B2B Websites Event Marketing Conference Marketing

Getting event marketing right and getting it wrong [Interview]

I recently took part in a podcast for Event Industry News to delve into what event marketers are getting right, and where they’re going wrong. The “Talking events” session was hosted by Event Industry News contributor James Dickson, and I was joined by Adam Parry, Event Industry News editor and organiser of Event Tech Live. You can check out the podcast in full at the bottom of this post , but just in case you don’t get a chance to, I’ve summarised the key points from our discussion below or go straight to the video if you prefer.

Topics: Content Marketing B2B Social Media Event Marketing Conference Marketing

Why it’s not a good idea to hire a clever graduate to run your inbound marketing

From talking to organisations looking to get into the inbound marketing or content marketing game, it seems clear to me that many are considering what appears to be the easy option – hiring a recent graduate to manage their entire program, and kick-start this step change.

Topics: Event Marketing Conference Marketing Inbound Marketing

Essential content tools for event professionals

As we all know, content is such a powerful way of communicating with your customers and more importantly pulling in new audiences for events. Content is a key part of any B2B marketing strategy now especially as the focus is shifting towards online communities. Once visitors come to your website you want them to stay and take a look around - but it's getting them to your site in the first place that's the challenge. How will you cut through the online noise and get your audience to take the botheration of coming to your website? It's all about relevant and timely content! Often companies stop in their tracks when they think of content - the cost, the time. But now there are so many content marketing tools you can tap into that don't cost the earth and are quick and easy to use. So there really is no excuse to get started.
Topics: Marketing Tools B2B Content Marketing Content Marketing Event Marketing

18 unbeatable ways to promote your event on social media

Email always comes out on top when event marketers are asked about their preferred or most effective marketing channels. But social media is catching up fast, and the only reason I believe it to be positioned in second place is that event marketers simply don’t know how to make the most of it. Here are our top mantras and musts for promoting your event on social media. Use this as an quick reference checklist for you and your team. 

 

Topics: B2B Social Media Event Marketing Conference Marketing

Event marketers - now is the time to ask for a pay rise

If there was ever a good time for you to ask for a raise in salary, it’s now. It can be so easy to simply wait until your yearly review rolls around - and even then you may not make a strong enough case for your pay rise, but if you don’t ask then you don’t get. Sometimes the first step is just knowing your worth.

Topics: Event Marketing Conference Marketing

Top Recruitment Agencies Specialising in B2B Events and Conferences

The B2B events industry is booming, that is a fact. Most companies want to grow their events, their portfolios, launch new divisions, etc. and that only means one thing. You need to team to do this and you need to recruit.

In the same wavelength, I have never heard of any events professional saying they are 100% happy with their salary and the job they are doing (if you are one of them please get in touch as you deserve a mention, I am serious). That only means that your only options are: Stay doing what you are doing or check what is happening in the market and explore your options.

Recruiting for a new role or finding a new job is a challenge from whichever angle you look at it. But whenever there is a challenge there is always a solution, and here is my list of top recruitment agencies that have a particular speciality for recruiting event professionals with experience in events and conferences.

Topics: Event Marketing Conference Marketing