List updated: August 2016

Almost every time I speak to event industry leaders about reinvigorating their event marketing, the topic of online communities comes up, followed by the question: how are the big players in events driving online engagement with their communities?

In challenging economic times, the B2B events experience must consist of a whole lot more than a good excuse to escape the office. We know that delegate budgets are being squeezed and employees have little time to spare, and in the context of this environment, it is likely that mediocre events will fail.

It’s not news that delegate sales are declining. In fact, I think it’s safe to say, that for B2B event marketers it’s one of our biggest headaches. But, don’t worry, this is not a ‘woe is me’ blog it’s all about adopting some PMA (positive mental attitude) and focusing on the benefits of face-to-face. Let’s take the bull by the horns and address the delegate sales squeeze…

In a recent blog post we discussed the importance of inbound content for B2B event marketers. Of all the many strands of online content marketers have at their disposal, video is perhaps the most compelling and engaging. It is also a firm favourite amongst B2B audiences.

The conference and events industry are scratching their heads about what they can do to drive delegate attendance, conference ticket sales and in general how they can achieve sexier marketing.

As discussed in the first blog in this series, contemporary customers are looking for more than a purely transactional relationship with your brand – they want to interact with you. It's true. Part of that relies on creating interesting and consistent content for your audience to engage with (blogs, videos, interviews, ebooks, photos) but, as an extension to your inbound marketing for events, it also involves building a community. Establishing a community will help retain customer loyalty amongst the glut of event marketing competitors all clamouring for attention, as well as attract the "right" kind of new customer. A community is a two-way conversation. A living, breathing thing that's interactive and social. Ok so there will always be some bystanders in the crowd that just watch and listen - but many will also participate and share, which is where the community weapon really plays out.   

As event marketers we all know that B2B lead generation is an expensive and time-consuming business. Those ye olde ‘push’ tactics simply don’t yield the volume of quality leads we’re all desperately hunting.

The events and conference industry has kicked off to a nice buoyant start this year and we're seeing lots of enthusiasm and commitment for change. We set out to identify the most talked about key trends, predictions and insights that have the conference and events industry buzzing and will most likely impact your business in the not too distant future (if not already!). 

What is currently happening in the conference and events industry? 

Where are we heading?

Well, like any other fast-growing and successful industry, this is always the topic of conversation when we meet with industry folk or overhear the banter at conference industry events. Every director of a conference, event or exhibition company is asking these questions and it's clear that anyone not thinking ahead will surely be left behind. As successful as the events industry is, nobody can afford to be complacent especially in this entrepreneurial, digital era. 

So we have partnered with CatchTalk.TV (formerly known as Xavy) to bring you precisely that. The most talked about predictions for the conferences and events industry in the near future.

How many times have you filled in a survey and never received the "promised report"?

Some organisations don't ever seem to follow up and make the end user (me and you) feel used and abused. All smiles, bells and whistles when they need me but once they get what they want, then they forget me.

Last week I received a couple of requests to fill in a questionnaire from two well known organisations. The surveys in question were actually very interesting and just before I was disposing myself to answer the questionnaires, I came to realise that "I have filled in questionnaires for these guys before and have never received anything!". Never got the discount, never got told who actually won the free ticket to their conference, not even a thank you message. But worst of all... I never got to see the results of the report! Did it actually materialise? Or was it just a cover for internal intelligence gathering with no intention of sharing?

Before you embark on surveying your customers, followers, leads and your own prospect databases be sure to consider these 7 things you must really do when conducting b2b online surveys.

Recently we've been running a series of marketing audits for various conference companies and to be honest have been surprised to see that a lot of B2B email practices from 15 years ago are still being used today.

2 for 1, discount, early bird, free, offer, save, exclusive, last chance, still time…these words are the back bone of so much event marketing copy. Some of them were probably in the list of “powerful” words you were issued with when you started marketing.

Arising from our previous post New Rules For Subject Lines in B2B Email Marketing where we looked at some of the key trends affecting email performance that emerged from the 2013 Adestra Subject Line Analysis Report: “Keywords for killer subject lines”, we found a lot of good information that it gave us room to focus on the sub-set of the results that particularly affects you - B2B event marketing and B2B publishing.

Social media is no longer new and its lifespan and place in the world is no longer hotly contested, one question that does continue to come up time and time again though is the ROI of social media activities, especially for B2B lead generation. In short, does it really work?

Time out of the office is great to rest and have a good old read of all the things you didn't get around to - a taste of my festive break! As a bit of a marketing geek I love to catch up on what's out there on the web and for me one of the best reports from last year was the Adestra Subject Line Analysis Report: “Keywords for killer subject lines”

Last week we attended the much awaited Funnel event by Econsultancy - it's a pretty exciting gathering in a marketers calendar and if you're serious about your job and like us, a bit of a marketing geek, then this is an event to indulge in.  While we got value out of attending, I have to say previous years have been better - nonetheless it was great being there, seeing some familar faces and meeting new ones.  

I came across an interesting post recently about how Marketo got 10,000 registered visitors to their largest virtual event which being about events obviously sparked my interest and got me writing. 

All of you know that having a website is essential for all your B2B marketing activities, but sometimes you have to ask yourself, “Is my website working hard enough for me?” And often the answer is no.

In our recently published ebook we analyse data from 4,000 businesses and we find out exactly what businesses need to do to increase B2B lead generation. In this particular post we highlight part of that research that look at two of the most important factors for driving website B2B lead generation.

Most people using Facebook for B2B don’t realise that 80% or more of their fans never see their posts. This shocking statistic has been around for just over a year now but when we read the new Facebook research produced by Marketo, published this month, "Contagious Content for Facebook: What people share on facebook and why they share it" we decided the time was ripe to do an article on how to beat it.