It’s a competitive marketplace out there if you’re trying to sell a product or service. There are currently over 5.1 million private businesses operating in the United Kingdom, a 59% increase from 2000 according to Statista.
With those types of numbers, what that means is that your company needs to use every tool at its disposal to get its voice heard. It’s about getting your brand out there but more importantly, getting it in front of the right people – those looking for a product or service like yours.
That’s where events like Turing Fest come in, especially since we can now leave our homes and offices and meet people face-to-face! Let’s look at how an event like TF can help boost brand awareness and turn interest into sales.
Why are events a great sales tool?
Events are amazing places to promote a brand or product range as they offer the opportunity to connect with people in a real way. Rather than relying on an advert or website, events allow you to have first-hand interaction and show the personality, mission, and ethos behind a brand.
The key is to choose the right event with the right audience. For example, Turing Fest brings together people working in tech startups, scaleups, and enterprise teams at different stages of their careers from Founders & C-suite to entry-level.
The benefits of using event marketing as part of your sales strategy are:
- Collect customer data
- Generate leads
- Increase brand value
- Promote a product or service
- Make new connections
- Learn more about your industry
- Boost customer experience – engagement, retention and satisfaction
“FanDuel has a long history of attending TuringFest; it’s an opportunity for us to engage with the thriving tech community, learn from others and build our employer brand awareness. We look forward to returning next year!” Kenneth Millar, Director of Technical Programme Management at FanDuel.
6 ways to use events successfully
As you can see there are loads of ups to promoting your company at an event (in-person or through sponsorship), but how can you make the most out of the opportunity?
1. Hire a booth
Once you’ve identified the right event audience for your product or service, it’s worth seeing if you can hire a booth or stand. This not only allows you to promote your brand but also gives people a forum to come and ask questions or find out more about your company.
You can also run a competition or contest at a booth to gather contact details. This could be as simple as offering a draw for a free laptop or hosting an AR scavenger hunt! The key is to align the offer to your brand or service to make it stick in people’s heads.
“Turing Fest has a great audience that is deeply interested in building, growing and learning. We enjoyed every conversation we had at our booth, and seeing an overly packed room of attendees during our presentation warmed our hearts,” Angela van Bragt, Senior Field Marketing Manager EMEA North at Amplitude
2. Develop clever merchandise
Business cards are a tried and tested way to get your contact details into people’s pockets, but clever merchandise can help you go one step further to create a memorable takeaway at an event.
Branded merchandise is common at an event from t-shirts to mugs to umbrellas. However, it can pay to think outside the box to find merchandise related to your company and stick in people’s memories.
For example, if you’re an eco-friendly or sustainability-driven company what about giving out seeds or recyclable stationery? If you’re at a tech conference, cater to your audience by offering speakers, headphones or a power bank.
3. Become a Sponsor
Sponsorship is a great way for a company to raise brand awareness and generate leads. It helps to raise the profile of your brand to a specific audience and align it to a quality event.
Reputable events will offer a partner or sponsorship package that will put your brand front and centre so it’s visible during talks, and on event material and offers a booth where you can meet attendees.
At Turing Fest, we have a 72% renewal rate due to the excellent ROI partners receive as part of the event.
“Administrate has sponsored Turing Fest for probably four or five years in a row now, and it’s important to us. It’s very rare to have the quality of attendees that you find at Turing.” – John Peebles, CEO at Administrate
4. Attend VIP or specific events
Events don’t always have to be huge to have an impact on your company. Invite-only events (like our Founders Dinners) offer people working in specific roles the chance to mix and learn from peers.
These types of small events mean that the topics discussed are specific to your area of interest. They also enable you to network and spend more time talking to people and connect with peers that may be facing the same issues as you or have experiences you can learn from.
5. Use social media
Social media is a powerful communication tool for any company. It can be used effectively before, at, and after an event if you do it right.
In the lead-up to an event, share who is going to be there from your company, or announce what booth you will be at if people want to find out more. At the event, consider live streaming on the social platform you use most or do regular posts with images to show what’s happening with hashtags (Twitter is great for this.) You can also post polls or ask people for opinions on an insight or issue.
After the event, you can share videos or images with people at the booth or other attendees (be sure to tag anyone in the images to expand your reach). Being active on social in this way will get the most out of the platforms and drive engagement with your followers.
6. Host a podcast or webinar
Along with using social media, consider other content formats such as a webinar or podcast to make the most of the event.
Make connections at the event and see if you meet anyone that has great ideas or insights to share and ask if they would be interested in taking part in a webinar or podcast.
Or if there’s a talk that is relevant to your customer base, approach the speaker to see if they would be willing to talk to you more about it.
Events as a Sales Tool
As you can see, events can provide companies with great opportunities. You can grow your peer and customer network, raise brand awareness, generate leads, and gain more insight into your industry.
Add Turing Fest to your calendar this year either as an attendee, or as one of our valued partners!
