Sales events have a beginning, middle, and end, and your marketing team should be involved in each step. Taking advantage of your marketing team can help your sales team have more sales at these events. Make sure that you align your goals and it will make the event much better. Creating marketing and sales teamwork will help each team optimize during events.
Before:
Strategize. At least one month before an event takes place, you need to let your marketing team know. Inform them about how you plan on running the event, how you are planning on setting up, the hours of the events, and more. The marketing team should be aware of all the event details. Everything from whether the event is going to have wifi to larger logistics is useful information.
One of the most important pieces of information is the specific accounts that you intend to target. They also need to know of any meetings that you have already booked. They can reach out to both parties, but the marketing for the two are different.
The Sales and Marketing teams need to make sure that they have a game plan in place before the event. Details should be discussed:
- How you plan on designing the booth
- Any swag that you plan on giving away
- Where your booth will be located
- How the two teams plan on communicating during the event
Pre Event Actions
The earlier you marketing team is notified of an event, the more likely they will be able to create a pre-event campaign. Most pre-event campaigns are email campaigns. While your sales team is completely capable of sending emails to your targets, your marketing team specializes in activities like this. Or if your sales team is doing the email campaign, your marketing team can look it over before it launches. Either way, outreach is important before a campaign. Your marketing team can also support outreach through social media, promoting your presence at the event.
As the event gets closer, your team should start training. Any questions that may still be unanswered should be answered at this step. And members can begin practicing pitches. Everyone needs to know what role that they will have during the event. Each team should be up to date with the services or products that are going to be pitched at the event. The marketing team should know their role during the event, supporting the sales team. Lines of communication need to be established in case it is needed during the event. Your marketing and sales team have the same goal. They both desire to create revenue for your business.
Salespeople are actually doing marketing regularly. Many of the activities that they do to make a sale falls under the umbrella of marketing. Marketing can learn from the sales team about their interactions with potential clients. Marketing can use that information to create content that will work best for your audience. This works both ways. While your marketing is learning how the sales team operates, your sales team needs insight into the marketing department. Content that may appear in social media posts, blog posts, and ads “can be used as sales tools.”
During the event:
During the event is when all of your preparation pays off. The better your prep is, the more you set both your teams up for success. To make sure that everything is going according to plan, it is important that the two teams remain communicating during the event. The most important tool during the event is communication.
Social Media.
Social posting comes before the event as a form of promotion but does not stop there. You can make posts of how your booth looks on the floor, a picture with a satisfied customer, or just your team having fun before the event starts. Now, most social media has the ability to “go live”, and your marketing team can use that to their advantage. Stories and live posts work perfectly for events since they are featured for a short period of time, usually 24 hours.
Note Interactions.
While you are at the event, your interactions with prospects should be concise and short. Longer conversations don’t necessarily guarantee a sale and limit your ability to talk to other potential clients. Even with a short conversation, you can receive enough information to make a sale. Make notes on important or defining information that you receive from an interaction. These notes will help you remember details about prospects that are special. Keeping track of interactions will help CRM down the line, after the event.
After:
Many times, after an event is completed it feels like our work is done. However, the most important work is done after the event.
Sales are rarely made on the spot. Following up after an event builds relationships that started at the event, creating more potential for a sale. When working together with your marketing team, you are able to optimize these leads.
The sales and marketing teams should be working together, executing their plan that was created before the event. The marketing team can send emails to the sales team with a recap of the event, including data and pictures, for the sales teams’ follow up emails. A new way to spice up follow up emails is to attach videos to them. It makes your email different from all the other emails that your target will be receiving from the event.
Debrief.
A debrief is like a follow up for your team. After the event, you should look back at the game plan that you created weeks ago and take notes. See what was effective, what needs changing, and what needs to be completely taken out.
Things to discuss during the debrief:
- Did the training for the event prepare salesmen for the event?
- How did targets react to your booth? Was there the amount of engagement you desired?
- Did you give your marketing team the tools to support during the event? How did they do?
- Was your booth’s location good for foot traffic?
- Was the event successful overall?
- Do you think your company should repeat attending this event or events similar to it?
- Do you need to improve on follow up, post-event?
The reason that debriefing is so important is that it guarantees improvement. There is no perfect event strategy that works for every company across the board. This makes it more important that your company customizes its own. The best way to learn is for experience, and debriefing makes sure that that happens.
Find out how Inside Sales Solutions can help your events with the alignment of Sales and Marketing.
