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A group of people engaged in b2b event marketing ideas, standing around a table.

Innovative B2B Event Marketing Ideas

If you're looking to promote a B2B business event, there are a few things you can do to get the word out and attract attendees. For example, hold an online seminar or workshop, team up with well-known people in your industry, use social media to spread the word or create special opportunities for people to connect with one another. These approaches can help you increase turnout and create new business opportunities.
A large group of people engaged in a social media event.

Despite investing an average of $251 per attendee, 61% of B2B marketers say measuring event success and ROI is their biggest challenge. 

With the average cost of a corporate event ranging from $150,000 to $800,000, your event needs to do more than just attract attendees. 

B2B events must deliver measurable value and actionable insights to justify your substantial investment.

Is this a challenge or an opportunity? How can you make your next B2B event worth the steep price tag? Here’s the secret:

  • Strategic planning 
  • Creative programming
  • Reliable data to quantify results

But where to start? Our team has you covered. This comprehensive guide from our We & Goliath award-winning marketing experts covers the latest trends, cutting-edge ideas, and proven strategies so you can master B2B event marketing. 

Learn how to actively engage your audience with technology, gamification, and experiential elements. Find the right event types, formats, and activities to align with brand goals. With these tips and best practices, you will always produce immersive, memorable, high-ROI events.

The stakes are high, but with careful planning and strategic follow-up, your next B2B event will deliver game-changing value for your business and bottom line. 

Segment and Target Your Audience

What is one of the most important marketing strategies for your B2B event? You need to segment your audience and tailor your messaging to them.

A woman handing a business card to a man at a networking event.

Generic, one-size-fits-all promotions won’t cut it.

Take the time to think about the roles and buyer personas who will attend your event. Group your contacts into segments like:

  • C-level executives
  • Directors
  • Managers
  • Individual contributors
  • IT professionals
  • Sales representatives
  • Marketers
  • Engineers
  • Students

Then, craft messaging that speaks directly to each group’s goals, challenges, and motivations for attending your event.

For example, for C-suite executives, focus on exclusive networking opportunities, thought leadership content, and high-level discussions on industry trends. For IT professionals, you could emphasize technical sessions, hands-on workshops, and access to expert practitioners.

Getting granular with your audience targeting allows you to create content and customize campaigns to resonate with each segment deeply.

Conduct Surveys and Research

A group of people working on a table with papers and graphs for an event marketing project.

You need to know your audience…before any event marketing. After segmenting and targeting your attendees, conduct thoughtful research to shape an agenda that aligns with their needs and interests.

Why is an Audience Survey Important? 

Surveys gain direct input on:

  • Preferred topics
  • Speakers
  • Scheduling
  • Networking opportunities
  • Feedback on past events

Ask different audience segments for their unique perspectives. Send online surveys periodically before and after your event to improve your strategies continuously.

Why Research Matters

Always monitor wider industry trends. Study what competitive events are doing, and look outside your niche for innovative formats and ideas to borrow. 

Apply these external insights and your audience research to guarantee your event offers fresh, compelling content and experiences.

To create an unforgettable event that appeals to everyone from C-suite executives to students, listen to your audience’s feedback and conduct thorough research. 

Customize Your Message to Your Audience

By understanding your attendees’ preferences and interests, you will design a customized agenda and promotional messages that cater to each group’s unique needs and expectations. With this approach, your event will surely be a hit and leave a lasting impression on everyone attending.

Spread the Word on Social Media

In the B2B space, social media platforms like LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook can be extremely effective for spreading the word about your event.

A woman with curly hair using a cell phone for social media.

Here are smart ways to leverage social:

  • Host live Q&As or panels. Gather a few speakers and industry experts for a live-stream discussion. Allow viewers to submit questions to make it interactive. YouTube and TikTok both offer advanced tools for a more interactive viewer experience. Another popular alternative is hosting an X (Twitter) Space Ask Me Anything (AMA) session. 
  • Share speaker spotlights. Build excitement around your expert presenters by sharing teaser videos and quotes on social media. Remember that attention spans are infinitely shorter on social media than on other platforms. Videos should be no more than thirty seconds long. Snappy eye-catching reels and stories catch the attention of today’s online audience. 
  • Promote special activations. If you have any contests, giveaways, or unique experiences at your event, promote them across your social channels. If you partner with a sponsor for a prize or giveaway, work with the sponsor for cross-marketing opportunities.
  • Post-event recaps and testimonials. During and after the event, post photos, videos, and quotes showcasing the highlights and attendee experiences. Add your event hashtag to these posts and tag attendees, sponsors, and speakers. 
  • Make the most of employee advocacy. Get your team to share and like event posts on their accounts. This expands your reach exponentially. 
  • Leverage influencers. Partner with industry thought leaders, authors, and speakers to promote your event on social media. Collaborating with the right influencers can expand your event’s reach and engage with a wider audience.
  • Create customizable assets. Provide your speakers and partners with easily sharable social posts, graphics, and videos to spread the word to their audiences. Be sure to include assets in a variety of formats, including video. 
  • Use paid social ads. Guarantee your event content reaches your ideal audience with paid ads. Sponsor relevant posts and create targeted ads. Most platforms provide options to target audiences based on their location, workplace, interests, and demographics. This is where previous audience research comes in handy.

With a strategic social media approach, generate substantial buzz leading up to your event. And when the conference ends, leverage the content long after it’s over.

Leverage LinkedIn's Unique Features

A person showcasing social media event marketing with a phone displaying the LinkedIn logo.

With its expansive professional network and built-in tools, LinkedIn provides a uniquely valuable platform for promoting your B2B event. 

LinkedIn Groups

Join relevant LinkedIn Groups where you can organically share event details, offers, and multimedia teasers. Use LinkedIn’s automation and personalization capabilities by sending customized video invites to prospects in their feed. 

Using Hashtags on LinkedIn

To increase the visibility of your event on LinkedIn, include three top trending LinkedIn hashtags in each post. Using industry-specific and audience-targeted hashtags, make your event more discoverable and attract more attendees. 

Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and consider the hashtags they would use to search for similar events. Incorporating these hashtags improves the reach and impact of your event. 

Should I Tag Brands in My Post?

When sharing posts related to your event, occasionally tag speakers and sponsors, only if you’re promoting them or their company. Increase the overall reach of your event and attract new audiences. 

However, avoid over-tagging or tagging individuals and companies unrelated to your event – this could be spam. Instead, be strategic with your tags and ensure they are relevant. Lastly, don’t forget to share any posts that tag your event to maximize exposure.

Pre-Event Networking on LinkedIn

For a more interactive lead-up, schedule a pre-event networking hour on LinkedIn Live. This allows attendees to meet, mingle, and get pumped for the main event. 

Multimedia Messages on LinkedIn

Publish engaging multimedia messages on LinkedIn that bring your event to life through the voices of keynote speakers, influencers, or organizers announcing special conference highlights. 

Tapping into these various formats and features helps maximize LinkedIn for event promotion.

Host a Webinar Series

Webinars generate momentum and attract registrations for your in-person or virtual event. Host a weekly or monthly webinar series a few months before your event. 

A woman is sitting at a desk with a laptop on it, engaged in social media marketing.

These live, online events allow you to:

  • Provide value to your audience with informative and relevant content
  • Establish your company as a thought leader in the industry
  • Generate leads by requiring registration to attend
  • Promote your upcoming event to interested participants
  • Test out speakers and presentation content in advance

Your webinar series might focus on topics related to key conference sessions, new industry research, developing trends, or solving common pain points for your attendees.

Promote the webinars across email, social media, and your website. The replay can also be downloaded and used as gated content in your ongoing marketing automation nurture tracks.

This is a proven way to attract and engage your target audience while driving registrations. Many successful B2B events incorporate webinars as part of their marketing strategy.

Craft Effective Email Campaigns

Email is still one of the most direct and results-driven channels for promoting your event. But simply blasting generic “Save the Date” messages gets lost in the shuffle.

A woman using social media for event marketing while working on a laptop in an office.

Here are some tips for creating email campaigns that deliver:

Personalize subject lines

Trigger open rates by including the recipient’s first name, company, or custom attribute in the subject line where possible.

Segment your lists

Send targeted campaigns to event prospects, former attendees, and different customer segments.

Schedule thoughtfully

Be strategic with the send cadence. Don’t bombard people with constant emails.

Highlight unique value props

Share what makes your event unlike any other – exclusive content, A-list speakers, elite attendees, hot topics, etc.

Use calls-to-action

Drive actions like registering, submitting speaker nominations, reserving lodging, etc.

Share event updates

Send regular emails updating attendees on agenda announcements, new speakers, special promotions, etc.

Promote scarcity

If you have limited space to sell or promote something, create a sense of urgency by displaying the number of items available for purchase and letting people know how quickly they will sell out.

Send reminder emails

Timely reminders significantly improve event turnout, especially for virtual events.

Ask for feedback

Survey attendees post-event to uncover ways to improve future conferences.

With strategic segmentation, messaging, timing, and tactics, maximize email’s impact for event promotions. 

And remember to begin campaigns 4-6 months prior. You need ample runway to activate other key channels like influencers, social media, and media sponsorships.

Partner with Industry Influencers

If you want to make a big impact with your B2B event promotions, take notice of the power of influencer marketing. It’s a game-changer for increasing engagement and building buzz around your event.

A man is holding up a camera at a social media event.

Industry analysts, thought leaders, authors, bloggers, and media partners amplify awareness and drive registrations effectively.

Here are some best practices for partnering with influencers:

  • Choose relevant voices – Vet potential partners thoroughly. Align with influencers who are recognized experts and trusted sources among your target audience.
  • Activate early – Give influencers enough time to work event promotion into their editorial calendars and social media strategies.
  • Provide assets – Supply influencers with branded collateral, including images, videos, custom articles/blog posts, social posts, etc. Make it easy for them to showcase involvement.
  • Compensate appropriately – Be prepared to pay reasonable rates to influencers in exchange for content creation, speaking opportunities, media coverage, endorsements, etc. Free event tickets alone often won’t cut it.
  • Track ROI – Use unique promo codes, UTM parameters, and affiliate links to measure registrations and sales driven specifically by influencer campaigns.
  • Spotlight partners – Give your influencers recognition through on-site signage, event materials, website, email, social media, and introductions from the stage.

Leveraging proven influencers taps into entirely new audiences and adds credibility that boosts buzz.

Use a Multi-Touch Approach: 6 Steps

When requesting influencer promotion for your event, a multi-touch approach will drastically improve results. Follow these six steps for better results.

  1. First, give influencers plenty of advance notice – at least 2-3 months before your event. This provides them time to work event promotion into their busy schedules.
  2. Send multiple personalized requests on a timeline – an initial pitch, then follow-ups around major marketing milestones and announcements. 
  3. Time each request to coincide with periods when influencers are more actively sharing content.
  4. Provide shareable assets to make it easy for them to showcase involvement. Offer pre-written social posts, blog articles, custom graphics, and videos that capture their voice.
  5. Consider offering additional compensation beyond free event access to incentivize influencers to go above and beyond with promotions.
  6. Don’t stop at the event date. Continue engaging influencers afterward by sharing event recaps, photos, and quotes that they can further amplify.

A thoughtful, multi-touch approach shows you respect influencers’ time and makes it simple for them to spread the word. Combined with selecting true industry experts who reach your target audience, persistent outreach will drive more influencer shares and greater event visibility.

Host an Entertaining Pre-Event Party

A pre-event party is a creative way to generate buzz and engage attendees even before the main event starts.

A woman showcasing event marketing by blowing confetti on social media.

Invite registered attendees, speakers, sponsors, and local influencers to an exclusive pre-event gathering with free food, drinks, music, and networking.

Pre-event parties set the stage and get people excited about the conference experience ahead. They serve as a unique touchpoint to continue the conversation on social media.

Capture photos, videos, and testimonials during the event that can be leveraged across your digital marketing channels.

If executed strategically, pre-party events can become a much-anticipated tradition that brings your community together and becomes a highlight of the overall event experience.

Create Effective Conference Hashtags: 9 Tips

If you want your event to be successful on social media, you need a catchy branded hashtag. But it’s not enough to add #YourEventName to a few posts. There’s more to it than that.

A person promoting a social media event with a hash symbol on an orange background.

Here are some tips for creating and leveraging conference hashtags that deliver:

  1. Make it short, simple, and memorable
  2. Include it on all event materials and signage
  3. Display it prominently in your on-site meeting rooms
  4. Encourage attendees, speakers, and sponsors to use it liberally in social posts
  5. Monitor it closely before, during, and after your event
  6. Engage with others and respond to questions using the hashtag
  7. Share relevant event updates, photos, quotes, anecdotes, and links tied to your hashtag
  8. Feature it prominently in post-event thank-you emails and content
  9. Continue leveraging it long after the event for future marketing

With some forethought, creativity, and execution, your event hashtag can unify conversations and provide a searchable, always-on keyword for attendees and prospects to stay connected to your brand.

Hold Multi-Channel Contests and Giveaways

Contests, giveaways, and incentives can be excellent tools for generating awareness and growing your prospect list in the run-up to your event.

Some ideas include:

  • Social media photo/video contests for free event tickets
  • Quizzes and trivia with prizes like gift cards, swag, etc.
  • Referral programs for sharing event links and codes
  • Discounted “early bird” pricing and packages
  • VIP upgrades, reserved seating and special access for top registrants
  • Email content downloads in exchange for contact info
  • Competitions and leaderboards for sales teams/referrers
  • Free merch or swag for registrants and social engagers

Be creative and tailor your promotions to resonate with your audience. The more buzz, the better. Always have a solid lead capture process and clear calls-to-action for all campaigns.

Craft Compelling Event Descriptions

Don’t rely solely on your event name to capture attention. You also need an intriguing, benefit-focused event description that convinces prospects why this event is for them.

A man is marketing an event on social media while working on a laptop in front of a window.

Focus on concise paragraphs that highlight:

  • The key topics, issues, and focus areas covered
  • Specific educational and experiential elements
  • Target audience and ideal attendee profiles
  • Main takeaways and outcomes for participants
  • Actionable insights for driving business impact
  • Any unique event elements that set you apart
  • Endorsements and credible third-party associations

Compelling copy gives visitors and email recipients a snapshot vision of what makes your event worthwhile and relevant. Lean into your key differentiators and value propositions.

Promote Scarcity and Exclusivity

Highlighting the exclusive or limited availability of event tickets and access can be a smart marketing angle. However, this approach will only generate interest if you have convincing evidence that demand exceeds supply. 

Two business people holding pens at a table during a social media event.

Back up your exclusivity claims with strong proof points like a pre-registration list, venue capacity details, or quotes from past attendees emphasizing the unique experience. Without demonstrative validation, your audience may question if the scarcity claims are exaggerations. Substantiate the exclusive appeal with irrefutable facts for best results. 

How can you promote scarcity in your messaging? 

  • Showcase impressive registration momentum and benchmark goals for selling out.
  • Highlight limited-capacity sessions, labs, and activities.
  • Offer exclusive discounted “Early Bird” pricing only for a short window.
  • Note that select speakers and experiences are only featured at your event.
  • Require qualifications and approval to attend certain executive events or VIP functions.
  • Show limited remaining sponsorship inventory in certain high-profile categories.
  • Share examples of past sell outs and waiting lists.

Scarcity tactics work best when integrated as part of an overall strategic promotional mix vs. relying too heavily on hype and FOMO.

Easy Event Registration in 11 Steps

Once someone decides they want to attend your event, don’t lose them due to a confusing, lengthy, or difficult registration process. Your registration process needs to be very simple. Take into account issues like accessibility, navigation, and internet speed rates. 

Easy starting packages • Advanced options • Proven results

A woman utilizing social media on a laptop.

One-click registration guarantees the best results. Don’t make users click all over the page and wait for multiple forms to upload. How can you optimize your event registration?

  1. Keep forms short, asking only for essential info. Offer non-required fields later.
  2. Allow registration using social logins or pre-populated forms.
  3. Offer easy checkout with stored payment options.
  4. Provide bundle and tiered pricing options.
  5. Enable group or team discounts for bulk corporate orders.
  6. Allow promo codes and customized affiliation codes for discounts and tracking.
  7. Send confirmation and reminder emails with registration details.
  8. Provide an online portal for attendees to access info and manage their registration.
  9. Highlight deadlines clearly and allow waiting lists once sold out.
  10. Make cancellations, exchanges, and refunds easy to submit.
  11. Let prospects preview the agenda and details before requiring registration.

The easier you make event sign-up, the more registrations you’ll drive and the less abandonment you’ll face. Remove all friction from the process.

Create Irresistible Registration CTAs

Compelling calls-to-action drive event sign-ups and conversions. Strategically placed CTAs with persuasive messaging significantly boost registration rates. Optimizing calls-to-action involves careful copywriting, visual hierarchy, and placement on key pages – efforts that can pay dividends by generating increased registrations and attendance.

A wooden block with the word cta on it next to a notebook and a plant used for social media event marketing.

Some elements of effective registration CTAs include:

  • Clarity – Make it blatantly obvious what action you want visitors to take.
  • Urgency – Incorporate timing and scarcity elements. But don’t overhype.
  • Value – Emphasize the benefits attendees will get by registering.
  • Positioning – Place prominently on pages, ads, and templates. Repeating it across platforms.
  • Accessibility – Ensure the CTA button or link is clickable on all devices and channels.
  • Consistency – Use recognizable event branding and messaging across CTAs.
  • Security – Include visible trust symbols like padlock icons, SSL seals, etc.
  • Simplicity – Straightforward, benefit-focused copy converts better than clever gimmicks.

Getting your call-to-action right takes testing and optimization. Try out different styles, spots on the page, and wording to see what converts visitors best. Experiment with your CTAs to find the perfect format, placement, and text to motivate your audience to take the desired action.

Share Post-Event Videos and Content

Don’t stop your event marketing efforts once it’s over. Post-event audiences offer a prime opportunity to continue nurturing leads, gathering data, and positioning your brand as an industry leader.

  • Collect testimonials – Obtain powerful video and written feedback from happy attendees.
  • Share event recaps – Blog, social posts, and email summaries with photos, stats, and highlights.
  • Push out videos – Edit keynotes, sessions, and interviews into shareable video clips.
  • Offer presentations – Provide select speaker decks and content materials from the event.
  • Analyze data – Review analytics and survey feedback to help shape future events.
  • Sell recordings – Monetize access to professional video replays and virtual sessions.
  • Start planning – Tease future events and open registration early to capitalize on momentum.

Post-event marketing allows you to extract maximum value from your event’s time, effort, and resources. You probably put substantial time, effort, and money into planning and executing your event. Post-event marketing provides an opportunity to continue generating value from your investment in the event even after the last guest goes home.

Master One-to-One Event Marketing

Mass emails and social posts have their purpose, but personalized outreach can often provide the most powerful event marketing results.

A group of people at a social media event sitting around a table looking at a laptop.

Here are some one-to-one tactics to incorporate:

  • Live sales calls – Your sales team pitching relevant contacts over the phone.
  • Account-based outreach – Target key accounts with personalized multi-touch campaigns.
  • Executive invitations – VIP invites to C-suite prospects signed by leadership.
  • Handwritten notes – A rare, memorable way to stand out from other events.
  • Event booth invites – Stop by a key prospect’s trade show booth with a personal invite.
  • Client event reviews – Discuss what clients want to see at your next event and follow up.
  • Employee advocacy – Have your team personally promote to their professional networks.
  • Referral requests – Ask satisfied past attendees to reach out to peers.
  • Influencer seeding – Send personalized previews and exclusive content to key influencers.

While time-intensive, high-touch outreach demonstrates the VIP treatment attendees can expect when they engage with your brand and event.

Incorporate Gamification

Gamification uses game-like elements in non-game environments to drive participation, engagement, and recall. This technique can provide a fun, memorable way to market your B2B event.

A group of people collaborating at a table for a social media event.

Some examples of gamified marketing tactics include:

  • Leaderboards for most event social shares, referrals, etc.
  • Badges, points, or ranks for attendees completing tasks or challenges
  • Trivia or bingo-style games related to the event agenda
  • Scavenger hunts, contests, and giveaways
  • “Escape room” or Amazing Race-style problem-solving games
  • Team battles, competitions, and tournaments
  • Role-playing or interactive storylines with avatar creation
  • Virtual reality adventures or simulations
  • Reward systems for completing tasks and collecting achievements

Gamification taps into our innate human desires for recognition, status, competition and problem-solving. Make the most of these motivations, and your event marketing transforms.

Produce Catchy Event Promo Videos: 11 Best Practices

People love watching videos online, and it’s a great way to show off your event in an exciting and dynamic way.

A person capturing a crowd on social media.

Here are 11 best practices for promotional event videos:

  1. Spotlight keynote speakers, influencers, and celebrity guests
  2. Provide virtual venue walkthroughs and agenda previews
  3. Share testimonials from past attendees
  4. Offer discount codes or special offers for those who watch
  5. Tease exciting new features, content, and activities
  6. Leverage FOMO by showing highlights of past events
  7. Incorporate music, motion graphics, and slick editing for maximum impact
  8. Keep runtime short, usually between 30-90 seconds.
  9. Encourage social sharing by tagging speakers, sponsors, and location.
  10. Prominently feature your event hashtag, date, and website.
  11. Aim for an emotional response – excitement, inspiration, curiosity, urgency, etc.

Online video presents a huge opportunity to convince and convert event prospects at scale. Invest in quality production and strategic promotion.

Provide Valuable, Gated Content

Producing gated content tied to event registration is an impactful tactic used by leading B2B marketers.

What are some popular types of gated content? 

  • Industry research reports, whitepapers, or ebooks authored by your team, speakers, or sponsors.
  • Webinar or workshop recordings focused on relevant, educational topics.
  • Exclusive video interviews
  • Cheat sheets, toolkits, or template packs
  • Discounted access to online training courses and certification programs
  • Private Slack or LinkedIn community access
  • Curated lists of resources, links, apps, etc.
  • Templates, calculators, and other spreadsheet-based tools
  • Access to replays of past virtual events
  • Entry to post-event VIP content libraries
  • Early access to newly launched software, demos or betas
  • Exclusive invitations to live industry panel discussions
  • Sneak peek recordings from your upcoming event
  • Job boards and event-specific career opportunities

The gated content you provide should be premium, highly relevant to your event theme, and offer clear value.

In exchange for contact information, you will build your prospect lists and nurture leads by positioning your event as the pathway to more amazing content and resources.

Highlight Your Venue

For in-person events, the venue itself can be a major part of your marketing. Conference centers, hotels, and resorts each have unique settings, amenities, services, and architecture that help shape the event experience your attendees will have.

A person capturing a concert moment with a cell phone for social media sharing.

How can you integrate your venue into promotions?

  • Showcase venue photos, virtual tours and videos across channels
  • Talk up sought-after location attributes like beachfront, ski slopes, etc.
  • Working with venue on co-promoting via their website, social media, email, etc
  • Coordinate with venue PR teams on external media campaigns and press mentions surrounding their properties
  • Promote venue-hosted amenities like spas, golf, restaurants and recreation
  • Note special room blocks, discounted rates and easy commuting options
  • Highlight convenient proximity to desired tourist activities and attractions
  • Familiarize attendees with maps, transportation options and navigation tools
  • Provide venue-produced guides, brochures and content to registrants
  • Have venue reps engage directly with registrants to upsell upgrades
  • Provide venue-branded giveaways, like water bottles or beach towels
  • Offer free expo hall passes so locals can check out the venue

Showcasing all your venue has to offer makes your event more enticing while expanding promotional channels.

Give Speakers Promotional Toolkits

Speakers are invaluable partners for amplifying event promotions. But you can’t just ask them once and expect results – you need to make the process easy through persistent communication and turnkey assets.

First, give confirmed speakers plenty of advance notice – at least 2-3 months if possible. This allows time to work event promotion into their calendars.

Provide speakers with a promotional toolkit including:

  • Custom graphics and branded assets they can share on social media and in email newsletters
  • Sample posts and pre-written content to simplify social sharing
  • Talking points on the event’s key benefits to help them craft persuasive messaging
  • Easy registration links and opt-in forms to share with their networks
  • Examples of relevant hashtags, handles and tags to incorporate
  • Tips on creating engaging event-related content like live Q&As
  • Appropriate monetary compensation and/or public recognition for their efforts

Establish a timeline to follow up periodically with new assets, fresh content suggestions and reminders to post leading up to the event. Resend the toolkit multiple times rather than just once.

Speaking at your event gives them skin in the game. With persistent communication and turnkey promotional aids, you empower speakers to tap into their extensive professional networks and expand your event reach exponentially.

Leverage Retargeting Ads

Retargeting (or remarketing) ads allow you to present customized promotions and offers to prospects who have previously expressed interest.

Event-related retargeting tactics include:

  • Serving ads to people who visited your event website but didn’t register.
  • Offering special discounts or incentives to those who abandoned their event registration.
  • Cross-selling related events to past attendees.
  • Sharing new speaker or agenda announcements with email list subscribers.
  • Remarketing post-event content to leads who watched video promos earlier.
  • Advertising upcoming events to people who engaged with your social posts.
  • Promoting merchandise or special offers to virtual event viewers.

With cookies and tracking pixels, retargeting helps ensure interested prospects don’t fall through the cracks when your messages don’t initially convert.

Strategize B2B Event Sponsorships

Sponsorships can provide a significant revenue stream while also giving you built-in event marketing support. But lining up random sponsors won’t unlock this potential value. You need to target partners who help amplify your message strategically.

Some tips:

  • Seek sponsors with overlapping target customers.
  • Recruit exhibitors with products/services that align with event themes.
  • Offer category-exclusive sponsorship opportunities.
  • Bundle promotions across website, email, social, video, signage, swag and event materials.
  • Require sponsors to promote across their own marketing channels as part of agreements.
  • Incorporate “Presented by” naming rights for major underwriters.
  • Offer premium booths, speaking slots, and branding for bigger investments.
  • Limit sponsorships by vertical to prevent direct competitor conflicts.

The right sponsors cover event production costs and become invaluable marketing collaborators.

Boost SEO Value

Increasing your event pages’ search visibility provides an added opportunity to attract registrants.

A magnifying glass with the word SEO on it for social media marketing.

Some SEO event marketing tips:

  • Include target keywords in page titles, URLs, content and metadata.
  • Optimize with semantic HTML tags like H1, H2, schema markup, alt text, etc.
  • Provide detailed schema structured data for search engines to index.
  • Build inbound links via sponsor and partner sites, PR mentions, social shares, etc.
  • Publish relevant, keyword-optimized blog content surrounding the event.
  • Guest post on industry websites to build backlinks and awareness.
  • Update site content over time to keep search engines crawling back.
  • Respond to all reviews and mentions of your event on third-party sites and listings.
  • Acquire event media sponsorships with leading publications.

With thoughtful SEO planning and execution, extend your event’s visibility and discoverability across search channels.

Measure Event Marketing ROI

Track event marketing performance using measurable metrics and KPIs. But what data do you need? 

A magnifying glass is placed on top of social media graphs and event marketing charts.

Here is the data you should collect: 

  • Website and landing page visitors driven by campaigns
  • Email click-through and conversion rates
  • Sponsorship leads and sales influenced
  • Social reach, engagement, clicks and conversions
  • Links, backlinks and SEO traffic growth
  • Video completion rates and viewership stats
  • Direct ticket sales and revenue attributed
  • Referral and promo code tracking
  • Lead quality, sales cycle and deal size for event-sourced pipelines
  • Surveys covering event awareness drivers and satisfaction

Measuring your marketing the right way helps you see what’s working and what’s not. It shows you where to put your time and money to get the biggest bang for your buck.

With smart goals, catchy branding, and using all the channels out there, you can make sure your B2B event grabs eyes and gets people pumped up and ready to go. The more strategic you are, the more you’ll get people’s attention in the weeks before it the conference. That way, when your big day comes, everyone will be excited and ready to make it an epic success.

Put Your Audience First

Remember to always put your audience first. Build campaigns tailored to their preferences, challenges, and interests. Provide true value through your content and promotions.

Leverage the latest digital marketing tools and techniques, but don’t neglect the power of in-person networking and word-of-mouth.

Capture Your Audience’s Attention

Want your event marketing to be cutting-edge? Get creative and think outside the box with the B2B event marketing tools we shared in this guide. Implement innovative tactics like personalized promotion and immersive experiences to generate serious buzz. Craft unique branding, leverage immersive tech, and develop interactive programming to capture attention.

Bring innovative ideas to life and your event will be unforgettable. This is how you establish yourself as a leader in next-level event marketing. Apply the innovative event marketing ideas covered in this guide, and you will be well on your way to event marketing success!

Stand Out from the Crowd with a Custom Event Strategy Session

Tired of “just another” event that blends into the busy marketplace? Ready to make a splash and truly engage your audience? 

Don’t leave your next event’s success to chance. Schedule a complimentary custom event strategy session with the experts at We & Goliath today.

With over two decades of experience running virtual, hybrid, and in-person events that pop, our team can help you craft an experience as unique as your brand. 

We’ll uncover exactly how to promote your event, select speakers, and design an agenda that positions you as a leader – not just another face in the crowd.

This is your chance to put our brains together and start mapping out an event that gets people buzzing. An event that drives action, fuels your goals, and kicks your competition to the curb!

Spaces are limited for these personalized sessions, so claim yours today. Let’s strategize!

Words are empty without action.

We practice what we preach — and we deliver.

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Need Some Advice on Hosting an Event?

Let our event experts help you decide which platform and production style are right for you, and how to attract the audience, speakers and sponsors you need to succeed.

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