Turning Online Events Into a Business Machine
Now more than ever, your marketing and partnership teams need to work as one. Learn how in this article with Mark Kilens and Daniel Lancioni.
Let’s be honest, 2023 isn’t going to be any easier than last year. Massive layoffs are taking place, and the C-suite is cutting budgets from marketing and partnership departments while still expecting them to produce double the revenue with half the team.
Now more than ever, your marketing and partnership teams need to work as one. Don’t underestimate the "all for one and one for all" phrase. Follow that principle and start creating a partnership marketing strategy, a.k.a. co-marketing.
This is an approach to marketing that involves two or more complementary businesses working together to promote each other’s products, services, and brands.
Imagine being able to reach new audiences and markets in a more efficient way, give your sales teams access to more prospects and the ability to generate more leads, deliver more value to your customers (and thus reduce churn rate), and most importantly, double your brand exposure and return.
In the co-marketing world, there are many ways in which you can partner to drive revenue, but we’ll focus on online events and how they can become a revenue machine.
Integrating online events with your co-marketing strategy
Before you start sending emails to your network asking if they would like to co-host a webinar with you, there are some questions you need to ask yourself first:
- Who are you partnering with?
- Who are you trying to reach as a result of this partnership?
- Why are you partnering?
- Why should people show up?
- What type of event are you hosting?
- What’s the layout?
If you’re new to planning online events, start the co-marketing process with a written piece of content, such as an article, handbook, template, or one-pager, that is easy to read and use. Then evangelize that content with an online event.
Consider the following steps to boost your online events strategy.
1. Put the value on the table.
The content you’re building should be valuable and actionable. While planning your partnership strategy from the co-marketing standpoint, it’s crucial that you have your audience’s pain points and environment in mind. Dig deeper and find out about which topics they are talking about, what types of questions they are asking others, which communities they are part of, and who they follow. Then create your hot-take and create a journey to work with your results.
Pro tip: LinkedIn is one of the best ways to find this information. B2B companies live, write, and share content through this social media platform.
2. Partner, partner, partner.
Deep dive into the industry and leverage your network. There is a pool of experts and influencers that are talking about the same subject you want to share with your audience. Just make sure to do your homework and research your prospective partner. Take your time building your IPP (Ideal Partner Profile).
Here’s how you can identify your IPP:
- Focus on those who act and make things happen. Don’t let them speak sweat to you and focus on what they have previously achieved.
- Find out who has sold to the prospects you’re trying to break into, the ones that have opportunities with the prospects you’re going to. Ask yourself this question: who has the highest overlap of prospects and customers/contacts?
Pro tip: Use Reveal’s directory to help you quickly and efficiently identify which partnerships might be worth investing your resources into by looking into your account overlap data.
- Identify the companies that are operating in your space—use Nearbound as your secret ingredient.
- Focus on a partner that can give you entry to a market that’s hard to break into and that can give you credibility.
- Search for those partners that are already engaging with your users and prospects.
Pro tip: Consider the needs of your partner before and after running the initiative together.
Another thing you can do to make sure you choose the right partner is to classify your prospects according to a scorecard graph, where:
- X-axis: Willingness to partner (how proactive, open, and easy is this partner to work with), score low to high.
- Y-axis: Potential value (how much potential value, e.g., Revenue, can be generated from this partnership based on the current account overlaps), score low to high.
Top tip: While using this matrix, make sure you consider the match between your company culture and your partner’s company culture.
3. Pick an apple from the tree.
There are different types of online events. Once you have selected your audience, identified their pain points, drafted the topic, and selected your partner, you can start thinking about the "delivery." This means how your audience will receive the information. There are many ways to do this, however, choosing one depends on your objectives.
4. Measure success.
Success goes way beyond just collecting email addresses. It’s about making people aware of the subject and enhancing customer satisfaction. If you manage to meet these two criteria, qualified leads will flow automatically.
Measure the influence your campaign has created on prospective customers, along with the sales KPIs and strategies.
One key metric you should consider is event intent. Usually, these types of insights just come from asking one question during your online event and using this information to personalize your outreach and follow-up emails.
This strategy can be as easy as looking throughout the chat—once the event is over—and reaching out to everyone who engaged during your online event, to send a "thank you" message and continue the conversation.
And who knows? From those conversations, you might end up creating more co-marketing initiatives or even better, creating a partnership.
Don’t underestimate the power of events. They are key to understanding customers and their buying behavior.
To succeed, you need to partner with other companies and departments, cause this is the only way you’ll drive revenue together.
Summary
- Ask yourself questions like who your partner is, who your audience is, what type of event you are hosting, and why people should attend before planning a co-marketing strategy.
- Create valuable and actionable content that addresses the pain points of your audience and research prospective partners before selecting them.
- Choose the type of online event that best suits your topic and audience, such as webinars, Q&A sessions, masterclasses, and joint value prop sessions.
- Measure the success of your campaign by collecting data such as event intent and sales KPIs.
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