Catalyst Marketing

The fastest way to wreck your marketing

It was mid-March, and as it did for so many people, COVID-19 threw a big ol’ wrench in one of our writers’ life plans.

Instead of moving to Switzerland this summer, as planned, she and her partner needed to extend their visas in Estonia—a tiny country as far northeast in Europe as you can get before you hit Russia.

The extension itself was no problem. The country is a gorgeous collection of forests, bogs, and seascapes, up-and-coming startup scenes, and elegant cobblestone old towns. While our writer and her partner hadn’t planned on staying longer, it wasn’t by any means a bad place to be. Plus, their visas were extendible for another half year.

The only problem? They needed to renew their health insurance before applying for their visa extension and after a dozen emails, half a dozen calls, and over two weeks of back-and-forth with customer service, nobody seemed to know how to do something as simple as extending their plan a month ahead of schedule.

Customer service reps answered questions they didn’t ask and gave up on the ones they did. Phone operators told them they had to email. Email customer service reps ignored the messages piling up in their inboxes. And the deadline for that visa extension loomed on the horizon.

Cue our writer screaming into the void.

(And cue that insurer nearly losing her business.)

As our writer was fuming (and fuming and fuming some more), she stumbled upon the solution. Why, she raged, had this company promised the moon in its marketing and then left her in an endless loop of customer service hell when something as important as her legal right to stay in her home was at stake? Their marketing department was so on top of things that they’d written to her a year or two before to thank her for giving them a favorable review. So why now was her insurer leaving her out in the cold?

This was the aha moment.

Marketing. She still had the marketing person’s email address.

She shot off an email, explained her situation, and—boom—within an hour, she had a response. Within a day, she’d been passed along to the appropriate (and more senior) customer service person. Within two days, the problem was solved.

Her visa extension should be coming through the following week. And all was well in the world.

Well, sort of.

Because now—after years of being a loyal customer and a power referrer, constantly nudging other expats toward this brand—she didn’t trust her insurer. She was hesitant to send them more business.

And her story illustrates a huge problem for marketers:

Our brilliant marketing plans only work if customer service is on the same page.

Because real talk: marketing can usher as many new customers through the door as you want, but if you can’t keep them, you can wave goodbye to profitability.

After all, 74% of customers say they’ll peace on out after a bad customer experience. Existing customers are 60% – 70% more likely to buy something than those new to your brand. And research says increasing customer retention by a measly 5% can increase your profits by anywhere from 25% to 95%.

This is why marketers who take a flywheel approach to marketing—where customer retention, upsell, cross-sell, and loyalty are prioritized right alongside acquisition—outperform those who narrowly focus on acquisition. It’s also why companies that make sure customer service is on the same page as marketing and has the tools to solve real customer problems are going to outpace the competition in coming years.

Especially now that we’ve hit a recession.

Because right now, people are weighing every dollar they spend. And if your competitor has a reputation for great customer service and you don’t? That’s where those dollars are going.

It’s not enough for marketing to promise a great customer experience. The customer service team has to be right there with you.

It sounds simple, but the siloed nature of most companies makes it damn hard.

And the answer starts with getting customer service and marketing in the same room and on the same page. Making sure marketing isn’t overpromising and customer service isn’t under-delivering on promises made. Making a plan for how the teams can support each other. Opening the lines of communication.

It’s no longer enough for customer service, marketing, and sales to work in their own tidy little silos. If one team promises, another will have to deliver. Because seamless customer experiences are the customer’s expectation, and without them, you can watch as long-term loyalty sails off into the horizon.

And if you need a strategic partner to help start and facilitate those cross-team conversations? As always, we’re here to help. Reach out anytime.

It’s time to freshen up your brand (and there’s a right way to do it)

Just before the virus yeeted us all out of our normal lives and into the spacious homes that now feel about two -inches squared, Oracle did a brand refresh.

A new website. New colors. New background art. A shorter, more streamlined homepage.

The new design came with a new brand mission statement, announced at their 2019 event—to help people see data in new ways, discover insights, unlock endless possibilities.

The mission statement is nice (though, let’s be honest: “discover insights” could mean too many things to be truly useful here and “unlock endless possibilities” is inspirational nonsense).

But the redesign? The muddy colors and busy backgrounds, the lack of contrast, and complete erasure of helpful calls to action? I hate every sullen, depressing inch of it.

New site: muddy, divided.

Old site: simple, clear, bright, easy to navigate.

To be fair, despite their all-seeing brand name, Oracle couldn’t have predicted that their refresh would come a few months before a rather depressing time in history. They couldn’t have known how much we’d need brightness, warmth, and hope.

But being as we’re in the future now, the rest of us can.

We know that two thirds of Americans report feeling nervous, depressed, lonely, or hopeless at least once a week right now, and 20% say they feel that way at least three days a week.

We know that an estimated 40 million jobs disappeared seemingly overnight.

And importantly for marketers, we know that 70% of consumers (as polled by Twitter) said brands should boost positive stories.

People, in other words, need hope, inspiration, and a sense of normalcy. In the stories we tell, the way we communicate, and—not least of all—our brand designs.

Which is why now is a great time for a brand refresh with those things in mind.

Are your websites, microsites, email templates, and other brand materials positive and hopeful? Have your designers embraced color theory and given you a brand that comforts and delights?

Is your messaging as clear as it can be? Because stress (which is through the roof for many right now) kills focus and amps up forgetfulness. Plain language and clear messages are always important, but right now, they’re doubly so. If your brand messages are hard to read, now more than ever: your customers aren’t picking up what you’re putting down.

We’ve said it before and it’s worth saying again: research shows that brands that stay the course with marketing during a recession will outpace the competition. Which is why it’s time to revisit your brand with the new normal in mind.

One brand that’s knocking the happiness factor out of the park right now? Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s Adobe, with their bright reds and pink-pinks, their simple language, and their clear calls to action.

So, if you need some inspiration, their marketing materials are a good place to start.

And if you need more than inspiration? Our team is here to help, with experts in everything from strategy to content to design. Reach out anytime.

Digital marketing companies Denver

Now is the time to capitalize on last year’s conferences

Those conferences you exhibited at last year? Here’s how to get the most out of them now.

It’s no secret that the conference industry has been forever changed in the face of COVID-19. Some big events are canceled. Others have been postponed. Still others are going digital. 

And if conferences are a key part of your marketing and sales strategy, you might be left feeling a little unmoored. 

But here’s the good news: Not only are digital conferences just as good (if not better) for marketers, but all those in-person conferences you exhibited at last year? They’re still a great source of leads if you play your cards right.  

So, how do you make the most out of last year’s events while borders are closed and big events are banned this year? Here are five tips from our experts:

Reach back out to the attendees.

75% of B2B deals take at least four months to close. And the average B2C purchase takes 1.7 to 3.4 touchpoints (varying by industry and product type), according to a Google study. 

The takeaway in this data? It pays off (big) to keep in touch with your prospects long after a conference (or first meeting) is over. Especially if you are B2B. Which means when conferences are canceled, it’s a good time to reach out to last year’s prospects anyway. 

Reference your tchotchkes, games, or marketing schtick.

If you did something memorable at your booth during last year’s conference (and we hope you did), it’s time to dust off that memorable marketing and do what comedians call a call-back—circling back to something fun or funny in order to delight your audience. 

We saw a good example of this recently. One of our marketers attended an event last year where a booth handed out stuffed sloths. This was popular as all get out and to get your sloth, you had to fill out a short form with your email address. 

So, what did the brand do with those emails? They came back at us with the sloth theme again with a marketing email that asked, “Have you ever been on a video call with sloths?” 

The pay-off in the email was just like it sounds: you could join a video call with two actual sloths. The tie-in to their brand had to do with taking your marketing from sloth-speed to hyper-speed. 

Smart. Smart. Smart. 

Update your presentations and share, share, share.

If you presented a talk at an event last year, now’s a great time to update that talk, record the new version, and send that over to your prospects—both from the original conference and new and relevant in your pipeline. 

And if you didn’t present last year? It still would be valuable to think one up, record, and share. People who are disappointed about canceled events might perk right up when they see they can get some of the same valuable content in their inbox.

Check-in with your sales team.

For many B2B companies, sales is undergoing a major shift without the go-to in-person connections of conferences. So, it’s a good time for marketing to check in with the sales team. 

How can we help with richer nurture campaigns, more digital advertising, and digital content resources—from videos to white papers? What can we do to help them make connections even when they can’t be in person? Ask and we know you’ll find some opportunities.

Be real.

With the world changing at such a rapid pace, it’s hard to say what comes next for conferences. Some will go digital temporarily. Some may go digital permanently. Others may fade into memory. Will conferences ever be the same? Nobody really knows.

Which is why when it comes to communicating with former attendees, it makes sense to acknowledge the current reality. We don’t know if the conference will happen in person again. But we do know we value the connections we made there. We do know we want to continue those relationships and we do know we’re going to figure it out together.

Speaking of figuring it out together, if you could use some marketing support, we’d love to talk. Reach out anytime. 

6 steps to a solid account-based marketing strategy

With the number of decision-makers on B2B purchases ballooning year-over-year, account-based marketing (ABM) is back with a vengeance.

Instead of focusing on individuals—as B2C companies typically do (and should)—B2B understands that the typical enterprise decision is made by no less than 16 stakeholders. Which means the smarter strategy is to target by account, not individual.

But once you understand the importance, how do you pull off great account-based marketing? What does a solid strategy look like?

According to our experts, there are six vital steps to getting started:

1. Create a list of target accounts

Obviously, you can’t target teams until you know who they are. Work with sales to identify the companies you want to go after, understand the typical makeup of your stakeholder groups, and categorize those accounts if needed.

If, for example, you’re targeting three different industries, now’s the time to not only identify what accounts you’re after but tag them by industry, so that you can better target your messaging. The more detail you can get on your target accounts, the better your marketing and sales will be in the long run.

2. Get yourself some intent data

Intent data helps you identify businesses that are already interested in your product or service. Which means instead of simply guessing at who might be in the market, you can know who is and target them appropriately.

As our team explained in a recent blog post, “It’s yet another way that the old marketing model of throwing a wide net and hoping you catch the right prospects is out. And the newer, smarter model—of identifying the right people before you spend your marketing dollars going after them—is in.”

3. Plan for direct mail

Right now, a lot of direct mail campaigns are on hold. But that won’t last forever. Because the truth is, studies show that direct mail takes 21% less cognitive effort to process than email. Not to mention that response rates are 35 times higher than email.

When the pandemic is in the rearview mirror, direct mail should bounce right on back into your account-based marketing strategy. And since that ending could come at any time, it’s smart to plan ahead for what your direct mail strategy will look like in the future.

4. Personalize your nurture emails (and landing pages)

86% of people say personalization impacts their buying choices—and that goes for both B2C and B2B.

Smart account-based marketing embraces this reality, personalizing emails, landing pages, and even direct mail for more customer delight and better business results.

And when we say personalizing here, we mean more than just folding prospect names into your email intros. Real personalization understands who each account is, what they want, what problems they’re trying to solve, and any roadblocks they’ve run into along the way—and serves up content that matches those things.

For example, if your intent data says a company has been researching product A, you don’t lead your emails to them with product B. If the data says they’ve been looking for discounts, maybe you entice them with a discount on a longer-term commitment or a larger purchase. If the data tells you they’re having a customer service issue, emails and landing pages should acknowledge that you’re working on a solution.

5. Plan for digital advertising

If there’s anything the current world situation has taught us, it’s that digital is vital—and it’s only going to continue to grow in importance.

Internet use is up by 40% in Italy. Average daily traffic across the world has jumped by 27% on Facebook, 16% on Netflix, and 15% on YouTube. And while there’s certainly a fair share of that traffic that represents a more B2C crowd, business has—of course—also moved almost entirely online.

Your ABM strategy was always going to include digital marketing. But now, more than ever, there’s an opportunity to get in front of your decision-makers online.

6. Follow up, follow up, follow up

75% of B2B sales take at least four months to close. Which is why when it comes to B2B, sales should be following up—a lot.

Do prospects have more questions? Do they need more materials? What would help them make their decision?

Sales should be after the answers to these questions and should work closely with marketing to provide whatever it is prospects need—from whitepapers to vendor comparison charts to live demos or video tutorials.

Your ABM strategy

Need some help fleshing out these six strategic pillars? That’s what we’re here for. Contact our team anytime to find out how we can help.

Marketing predictions post COVID-19

It’s day one billion of shelter-in-place. What comes next for marketers?

Okay, okay, so it’s more like day 30 or day 23 or day 45, depending where you are. But let’s be honest: all those memes going around about how February was 28 days, March was six months, and April is 10 years don’t feel wrong.

The world has changed and keeps changing and everybody—marketers included—is starting to adjust to a new normal. To find our way forward in a world where events must be virtual, communication strategies need a facelift, and data that gets us to the right prospects at the right time is no longer optional.

We’re starting to get a sense of what’s changed in the here and now. But what about the future? What’s coming next for marketing and sales? How is the current crisis going to have a ripple effect into the future? And, more importantly, how can we prepare ourselves?

Here are five predictions from the wisest marketers we know:

1. Brands who keep going are about to jump the line.

Think you should cut back on marketing spend? Think again. Companies who slash their budgets to the bone are unlikely to survive a recession according to research by Harvard Business Review.

Marketers agree, with only 8% saying companies should stop advertising right now. (And who even are those 8%? Because someone needs to give them a reality check.) And consumers are coming out of the woodwork to express their agreement too. In fact, 44% believe brands should do everything in their power to protect workers and vendors, even if it means suffering monetary losses, in order to earn or keep consumer trust.

Which is why our advice is to keep going. Brands that take the long view and focus on building brand equity will come out on top. Especially in B2B, where our sales funnels are three months, four months, six months, or even a year. Stopping your marketing efforts now is just going to kill your sales right as the world is starting to bounce back.

2. Digital ad spend is going to bounce back (so take advantage of low costs-per-click now).

The economy will bounce back. It always does. And those of us who marketed through the last recession can tell you: what you do before it comes back matters a whole damn lot.

CPCs and CPMs are lower on certain platforms and now’s the time to take advantage (while also keeping in mind that tone-deaf ads are worse than no ads and how you communicate during a disaster matters).

As our Digital Media Director—Trevor—says, “The key here is taking full advantage of real-time data and attribution modeling to inform your marketing decisions. As we all look to maximize efficiencies, this becomes the foundational piece. Changes in supply and demand will make keeping a highly proactive eye on spending and messaging essential to inch—and then speed—past the competition as things continue to change and eventually recover.”

3. Virtual events are here to stay.

Right now, we have to rely on virtual events if we want to get the benefits of events and trade shows. But even once the crisis has passed and more than three of us can be together in a room, virtual events aren’t going away.

Because who really wants to travel thousands of miles, pay thousands of dollars, and be stuck in a hotel for three days when you could just tune in from the coziest spot on your couch or at your home desk?

Virtual is simply a more cost-effective way to network, sell your products, and market your services. And the more virtual reality and augmented reality get in on the action, the more virtual events will feel pretty much like live ones.

4. Pay attention to LinkedIn.

Everything is changing—and sales is no exception. Which is why salespeople should be taking full advantage of LinkedIn while in-person networking is a No, No, and Hell No.

61 million LinkedIn users are senior-level influencers and 40 million are decision-makers. Which is a whole lot of great prospects all in one place.

65% of B2B marketers have already gotten leads through LinkedIn ads. And with networking becoming more virtual—not only now, but into the future—that number is only headed up.

From an ABM perspective, LinkedIn is the right channel to go after target accounts. And it’ll probably perform better than traditional marketing.

Which means now’s the time to:

• Consider sponsored InMail for your top salespeople or enhanced InMail with the newly-rolled-out Conversation Ads (think: a chatbot inside InMail).
• Post videos that explain your product in a visual and compelling way.
• Promote lead magnets.
• Engage your audience with questions and thought leadership through LinkedIn blogs.

5. It’s time to test drive personalized video.

Video’s been a big deal for a long time. And if you aren’t already onboard, now’s the time. Make screen share videos that demo your products. Publish salesperson selfie videos to introduce yourselves (and humanize the person behind the emails). Insert personalized snippets (like sales rep headshots) into your existing marketing videos. And make video playlists that guide people deeper into your funnel as they need more info.

6. Creativity is always a good idea.

No matter what’s going on in the world, creativity and strategy are always going to be rewarded.

Brands who work within the context of whatever situation they’re dealing with and come up with creative messages across channels (from video to virtual events to webinars to live chats) will come out as winners at the end of all this.

And if your creativity is around collaborating for the greater good, showcasing authenticity, being empathic, and giving customers a greater voice? All the better.

So that’s what our team has to say. What about you? What do you predict is coming next for marketing? We’d love to hear your thoughts and talk about how we can help you reach your goals in the coming months and years. Reach out anytime.

Intent data is the next big thing

Intent data. It’s marketing’s secret weapon. The sales team loves it, too. And yet, only 25% of companies are using it, according to a 2018 study.

So are you part of the 25% harnessing the power of intent? If not, it’s time to take a look at what it can do for you.

Wait a second…what the hell is intent data?

Hold up. Before we get into this, let’s get on the same page.

In the last few years, the world of data has grown by leaps and bounds, burying marketers in jargon and leaving us scrambling to catch up. (In fact, that’d make for a good drinking game: take a shot every time a new data term pops up.)

So, before we talk about why intent data matters, let’s get on the same page about what the hell it is:

Intent data is information about prospect or customer activities that helps us understand their intent. It’s the data we collect on them when they’re actively researching our products and considering our services.

The MarTech company that owns the intent data space right now is Bombora, and they put it well on their website:

“[Intent] data identifies which businesses are actively researching your products and services, signaling when and what they want to hear from you.”

So, for example, if you’re an ABM solution, intent data allows you to identify people looking for ABM solutions. If you’re a digital marketing agency, you can find people who are already researching digital marketing agencies.

It’s yet another way that the old marketing model of throwing a wide net and hoping you catch the right prospects is out. And the newer, smarter model—of identifying the right people before you spend your marketing dollars going after them—is in.

Intent data in the time of COVID-19

While identifying customers who already want what you’re selling is a smart strategy no matter the economic backdrop, it’s an especially smart strategy right now.

Because the better you can target the right prospects and ignore the ones who don’t need your services, the less money you’ll waste on people who simply aren’t interested. The more you can home in on people who already know they need your services, the higher your conversion rates are likely to soar.

And with economic slow-downs already starting in certain sectors, smart targeting is one of the ways to weather the storm. Because companies most likely to survive economic downturns are those who keep investing in marketing, R&D, and assets, but find ways to make their spending more efficient, according to the Harvard Business Review. And marketing and sales efficiency are what intent data is all about.

What can intent data do for you?

We haven’t seen any large-scale studies on the impact of intent data yet, but we can tell you that Bombora’s case studies show 700% increases in website engagement, 67% jumps in LinkedIn ad engagement, and email open rates that doubled. Those success stories are pretty compelling and we’ve heard plenty more like them.

Curious to learn more about intent data and how we recommend folding it into your marketing strategy? We’d love to chat. Reach out anytime.

Why more events should be virtual

A few months ago, the world was a very different place. Even though business is more digital than ever before, there were still a lot of face-to-face sales meetings, creative brainstorm sessions, lunch-and-learns, and—of course—events.

Today, as we all know far too well, the game has changed. If you can’t do it virtually, you probably can’t do it at all.

And since there’s plenty of bad news scrolling through our feeds, here’s some good news for businesses: we have the tools to take so much of what we do, including events, and make it virtual.

Even better: virtual events come with tons of benefits. More data. Closer connections with your attendees. Instant access to all your promotional materials—without the printing costs.

We’ve already raved about how much we love virtual events and we’ve already talked about how to plan yours. So today, let’s dig deeper into why you should be seriously considering virtual events—even after the crisis passes:

Give customers some good news—and build your brand at the same time

With newscasts, social feeds, and email inboxes full of dire warnings and bad news, we’re all on the lookout for good news.

Give us funny stories of walking in on conference calls in your tighty-whities, heartwarming stories of shelters where every dog has found a foster home during the pandemic, and creative ways that we can still access the things we love right now, and you’ve got yourself some brand ambassadors for life.

In other words, good news is even better in bad times. Anything that makes us feel—in day-to-day life or our work lives—that things are moving forward is going to feel pretty damn good right now.

And finding out that your favorite event isn’t canceled—that you still get to hear that inspiring keynote from your favorite author or that marketing case study from a firm you admire or that in-depth workshop you’ve been looking forward to? That’s pretty damn good news. Not to mention that if you get on the virtual event bandwagon now (as opposed to this summer and fall, when we’re likely to see everybody getting on board), your brand is going to stand out. One snippet of good news in an avalanche of the nerve-racking.

Home in on qualified leads

Whether you’re running the event or setting up a virtual booth, one of the big benefits of going online is that you have more data about who you’re talking to. On a platform like Intrado, when a prospect walks up to your booth, you’ll see their name and title—a feature that makes it easy to identify qualified leads, get those leads to the right person on your team, and start the conversation already knowing where their customer journey might start based on data you have on other similar prospects.

Reach more people

One of the big wins for virtual events is that more people can attend. And I don’t just mean because of space restrictions. Where a physical event may be impossible or impractical for some because of travel time, travel costs, and more expensive tickets, a virtual event skips over all the hassles and cost of travel—an especially appealing change for international attendees. In many cases, you can also lower ticket prices and attract an even wider audience.

Offer exclusive content to the right people

Since you know instantly who is approaching your booth, it’s also easy to tailor your content for them. Have a high-value prospect? Offer them a free copy of your normally paywalled book or an invite to an exclusive webinar.

You can use this strategy to target specific prospects or just make all event attendees feel special with access to something people outside the event don’t get.

Pay less to exhibit

Speaking of lower prices, exhibitors will probably also pay less for not only conference space but on-hand staff, catering, security, etc. Less cost means more exhibition opportunities for you and more exhibitors for event planners.

Deliver collateral in an instant—without any printing costs

In-person conferences mean plenty of printing—and it’s not that unusual to run out of some collateral. Online, this just won’t happen. Every brochure, business card, white paper, tech spec break-down, and other collateral piece you’ve created is at your fingertips, ready to be passed along to prospects with the click of a button—and no printing costs.

Attract better speakers

Another benefit of not requiring travel? Your speaker pool just grew by leaps and bounds. If your dream speaker can videoconference in from Australia or Norway or Hong Kong, that’s a lot simpler and less costly than flying them into Minneapolis or Omaha or Austin.

Stay ahead of the curve

If virtual events weren’t on your radar before, they should be now. And if you need help figuring out how to run your own, exhibit at one, etc.? Well, that’s what we’re here for. Let’s talk.

How to Execute Virtual Events Flawlessly

Is your event going virtual? Here’s how to execute it flawlessly.

Virtual conferences have been on the rise for a while. And now, with the world on varying levels of lockdown, they’ve quickly become more important than ever.

So, in case you’re planning a virtual event (or scrambling to make a formerly in-person event a virtual success), today we thought we’d take a deeper look at how to execute it like a pro.

Consider this your virtual event checklist:

Prepare yourself and commit

Virtual events sound like they might be easier than their in-person counterparts. But, as anyone who’s run one can tell you, they come with their own unique set of challenges. According to Marketo, they can take a good four to six months to plan and plan well. And, of course, the bigger the event, the longer the planning.

So before you dive in, make sure you’re giving yourself enough time, committing enough resources to the effort and finding experienced partners to help you execute.

Decide what type of event you want to host

Are you running a large, multi-session virtual event or will a single-session webinar or webcast do just fine? The trick to answering this question starts with your goals. If you’re trying to take something as large as SXSW virtual, you’ll take a different approach than if you are running a customer conference, or a one-day, expert lead, workshop.

Figure out the scope of your event early and it’ll inform every other decision you make: how long you need to ramp things up, who you’ll market to, where you’ll promote, what kind of platform you need, etc.

Choose your adventure…err, platform

If you’re shifting a small workshop, a one-hour roundtable, or a half-day of marketing panels from in-person to virtual, your platform needs are probably pretty simple. Video. Audio. Group chat or question functions. The bandwidth to host whatever group size you’re after.

If you’re moving a huge summit online, on the other hand, you’re going to need a bigger boat. Which is where more robust options like Intrado—where attendees can network and take meetings, as well as watch presentations or participate in activities—become important.

So what kinds of questions should you ask when choosing a platform? Here are some starting points:

• In addition to video and audio, what else do we need to pull this off? Do we need exhibitor space? A way for attendees to network and meet virtually? Interactive options for workshops? Booth games? Giveaways?
• What kind of branding do we need? Will a free webinar program with no branding options cut it or do we need something more?
• Do we need space for sponsorship branding? What about exhibitors?
• What types of sessions are on offer and will they all be real-time, recorded, and available one at a time or simultaneously?

Nail down your price point

Will your event require tickets or be free to attend? Will there be different levels of access, as there are with many in-person events? How much will you charge?

There are lots of pros and cons to the free vs. paid discussion. Free events may attract a larger audience. Paid events will attract a more serious one. Paid events may deal with higher audience expectations. A technical difficulty on a free webinar is easier to brush off. And paid events, especially with early-bird discounts, will get earlier sign-ups and call for longer promotional schedules. For free events, about 45% of people will book on the day of the event.

There’s no one right answer, so the answer to this question should always circle back to your goals and what price point will help you reach them.

Confirm your dates and times

If your event is live—and especially if it’s interactive—just like an in-person event, you’ll need to nail down dates and times early. This will impact your speakers, your pre-event promotion and content creation process dramatically.

Get high-quality speakers and great content

As with physical events, speakers can be a big selling point. The earlier you can get exciting pros and interesting topics on your roster and in your promotional materials, the better your early sales and sign-ups will be.

And if you are the speaker? Make sure your topic, slides, examples, and talk are on point. If the presentation is a new one, test it on someone in your target audience or one of your creative partners before you dive in before a live audience. It’s important to keep virtual events engaging and the trick is to do so without the live feedback you may be used to receiving face to face or even in front of a large audience.

Find the right partners and sponsors

Running a great event is a team effort, and the bigger the event, the more that holds true.

Which is why you should make sure you contract the right creative and strategic partners (psst, we can help with that), identify trusted technologies, and find sponsors (if applicable) that are a good fit for your event goals and audience.

Schedule some practice sessions

Not only should your speakers be practicing their talks, but your team should do some run-throughs with the technology. Ask speakers to submit their slides at least a few days before the event and have your team test them out. Troubleshoot any microphone issues. Get through any learning curves and figure out any tech glitches so that you don’t have to deal with them during a live event.

Promote at the right time to the right audience on the right channels

Just as with an in-person event, having a multi-channel promotion strategy is a recipe for success. Long before you open your virtual tours, you should be strategizing and then executing promotions across social media, email, website, ads, etc.

Pamper your online attendees with extras

One of the benefits of virtual events is their flexibility. As HubSpot’s marketing manager suggests, use this flexibility to offer up extras like more Q&A time, one-click special offers, or a bonus session.

Offer games and prizes

Part of the fun of in-person events is cocktail hours and games, raffles and prizes. This is just as easy (scratch that: easier) in a virtual event setup.

Measure your results

Understand what talks your audience responded to, what encouraged sign-ups, and how your attendees responded to everything from keynotes to games to your live blogging efforts. Not only can this data help you make small changes during the event to make it smoother and more delightful for your audiences, it can also help you improve your next event.

Follow up with your audience

Speaking of measuring results, one of the best ways to take that measurement from quantitative (straight data) to qualitative (a sense of overall customer feeling) is by sending post-event surveys to find out how attendees felt.

And follow-up doesn’t stop with surveys (or, at least, it shouldn’t). Stay connected with your audience. Send them links to recorded content and other valuable post-event bonuses. Invite them first for early-bird discounts on your next conference. Surprise and delight them with the fact that the value doesn’t stop at the end of the last presentation.

As any marketer can tell you, keeping the engagement going is most of the battle. After all, increasing client retention by just 5% can knock your sales up by as much as 95%.

Nodding along with everything above? We’re always here if you need some help planning, creating marketing materials, or doing anything else related to virtual events. Contact our team anytime.

How to communicate during a disaster

Here’s a fun game to kick off another week of self-isolation: what’s the worst brand email you’ve gotten during the pandemic?

If you’re having trouble choosing, you’re not alone. An informal poll of the marketers I know tells me we’ve all had our fair share of cringeworthy, eye-roll-inducing, dear-god-why-did-they-send-me-this emails, pop-ups, and social media ads in the last few weeks.

Which is why we thought today might be a good time to weigh in on how brands should be communicating during a disaster—and how they oh-so-should-not.

1. Stay in your lane.

Real talk: we are all inundated with information right now—much of it conflicting. And sifting through who we should and shouldn’t listen to is exhausting. So make it easy on your customers and prospects and stay in your lane.

If you’re a financial advisory firm, give us financial info. If you’re a travel company, by all means, let us know about travel advisories, closures, and CDC recommendations to stay home. If you’re a therapy organization, now’s the time to remind us that you do virtual therapy sessions. If you sell toilet paper, let people know how they can get their hands on some if their stores are out.

And, please, dear goddess, do not give us medical advice if you’re not a medical professional.

2. Understand customer pain points as they relate to your business.

There’s an old communications adage that’s particularly relevant right now: try to serve everyone and you’ll serve no one.

General messages of solidarity are actually just inbox clutter. Nobody wants to hear overarching philosophies about the resilience of mankind from their plumber or patronizing speeches about hand washing from their accountant.

So skip the general messages and go straight to your customers’ pain points as they relate to your business.

If you’re Netflix or Zoom, it’s time to talk about how your platform can handle the uptick in use while everyone’s working from home and staying in to watch movies every night. If you’re Schwab, it’s appropriate to offer educational resources about bear markets and investment expectations. If you’re Hello Fresh or Home Chef, it might make sense to let your prospect list know you’re still up and running and accepting new subscriptions if they can’t leave the house.

3. Know when to fold ‘em—and how to talk about closings.

One of the best emails I’ve gotten in the last few weeks was from Switzerland’s tourism organization. They were writing to let me know that trips to Switzerland aren’t possible at the moment (useful information), but since half the fun of planning a future trip is dreaming and planning, they also offered up some of their best content—soothing lakeshore photos, essays about mountain hikes—to keep us all dreaming while we wait for the crisis to pass.

Similarly, a nearby restaurant has closed its doors for public safety (though we’re not in a zone where restaurant closure is required), but let patrons know they’re still doing donut deliveries, since handmade donuts are one of their most popular offerings.

In both cases, the businesses were sending messages with not-so-great news. Closed borders. Closed doors. But in both cases, the information was useful, and the pivot was to something positive. Future trips. Delivered gooey, sugary donuts.

4. Don’t email just to email.

In the past two weeks, I’ve gotten approximately a thousand emails from brands just checking in. Every email is the same. Our hearts are with you! We acknowledge the pandemic! We care about your health and safety!

And while that’s a nice sentiment and all, it’s also useless. Those emails didn’t teach me anything new. They didn’t engage me more with those brands. They didn’t offer useful information or actions I needed to take. In fact, I find them irritating. Because in the midst of all this chaos, I don’t want to have to wade through 100 emails each day that don’t add anything to my life.

If you don’t have anything to say, you don’t need to say anything. You don’t have to publicly acknowledge COVID-19 for customers to know you know about it. Unless you’re providing something useful, resist the urge to create more content for content’s sake.

My favorite emails right now are the daily deal emails from BookBub and Chirp, both of which are humming right along offering me deals on the escapist novels I so need right now.

5. Talk like a human.

We talk a lot about ditching jargon and talking like a human, and this is especially true when you’re talking to people who are under stress. Because stress impairs cognitive function, according to pretty much every scientific study ever.

If there’s ever a time when you need to ditch the jargon, disaster communications are it.

Bonus tip: keep your lists clean

If I had a nickel for every brand email I’ve gotten from someone I didn’t recognize, I could retire tomorrow. Financial advisors I spoke to 10 years ago, car companies whose cars I no longer own (this side-eye is for you, Honda), and quite a few emails that left me going “how the hell did I get on this list?” In short, everybody seems to want in on the conversation. And I am so the wrong person for them to be talking to.

Those irrelevant emails aren’t just neutral. They’re irritating. And they impact how I feel about the brands sending them. Which is a pretty damn good argument for keeping your email lists healthy.

If we haven’t heard from you in five years, now’s not the time to ask us to figure out who the hell you are. And don’t even get me started on brands that subscribe people without their consent, a practice one podcaster aptly calls digital STDs.

What you should be doing instead is cleaning your email list regularly. If people aren’t opening, engaging, and connecting, they don’t need to be on your list. Period. As communications maven Sarah Von Bargen puts it, “You’re paying for hundreds of people who never open your newsletters. Whhhhhhhyyy?”

Bonus tip two: be kind to yourself

So, hey, we have lots of advice. And some of it might feel a little harsh. Because what if you already sent that totally useless inspirational email to your whole list and reaped a reward of high unsubscribes?

The answer is that we’ve all been there. And we all need to practice some self-forgiveness along the way.

As someone who’s feeling salty about her inbox, I’m also here to say it’s okay. And it’s time to look at how we can improve our future communications, not mourn our lost opportunities.

And if all of this feels overwhelming and you need a little help with your communications? We’ve got your back. Reach out anytime.

How to Make the Most of Virtual Conferences

Virtual conferences are coming for you—and that’s a good thing

For the last 10 years, business has slowly gone virtual. From face-to-face meetings to Zoom and Skype. From traditional offices to the 4.7 million US workers who now work remotely. From daily stand-up meetings to ongoing, real-time Slack conversations.

Up ‘til now, some companies have embraced digital, virtual business with both hands while others have held back, screaming that you can pry their physical memos and boring daily meetings from their cold, dead fingers.

But no longer. In the midst of the CDC’s advice to stay the hell home and flatten the curve of COVID-19, even the most resistant companies are now accelerating full-speed toward virtual.

Kids are remote-learning from their living rooms and listening to authors livestream readings of their favorite books. Companies with no-work-from-home policies are working remotely. Even food tours have found a way to go virtual.

Of course, conferences—a trillion-dollar industry—have rapidly started to go virtual as well. And companies who can do virtual conferences well in the coming years are going to thrive.

Now, as WIRED Magazine points out, so far “the…ideas have been fairly uninspired: webinars, panel livestreams.” And they’re right. Livestreaming is the baseline. Thriving takes more ingenuity.

The solution provider bringing that ingenuity to the table right now is Intrado—a platform that feels like a video game where you can walk down the hall into sessions, pick a seat, and (most importantly) have conversations with other attendees and speakers. You can quite literally grab a coffee (BYO, obviously) and have a chat with another attendee.

Presentations are recorded so that you can view (or re-view) on demand. And for exhibitors, virtual booths are amazing. A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to exhibit at one and what I loved most about it was that I knew immediately who people were when they walked up to the booth. Their name and title were right there, and I could quickly assess whether I was the right person to chat with them or if I should pass them to my sales engineers and their deeper technical expertise.

Even better, all conversations were logged, so I could reference the details later. Not to mention that exhibitors were also able to:

• Show videos in their booth
• Share collateral and case studies
• Have booth games (these are REALLY popular)

In short, the virtual conference I attended had found a way to bring all the benefits of conference attendance—from networking to one-on-one meetings to exhibition halls—and all the benefits of digital—from data logs to presentations on-demand to marketing materials available with a click of the mouse—together for an even better conference model.

Since Intrado hosts the platform, you don’t need to get your IT team involved (unless you want them to be). And since the conference is virtual, you’ll likely save thousands on ballooning hotel rates and other travel expenses.

So, what does this mean for your business? It’s time to take a look at platforms like Intrado and start thinking strategically about what virtual conferences might mean for you.

And, of course, if you need some help navigating the new technology and the strategy that makes it successful? That’s where Catalyst can come in—to help you drive attendance, develop presentations, design cool digital booth graphics, create engagement games for your booth, produce videos for your booth, help you set up booth chat and make recommendations for logistics and engagement, and nurture leads after the event.

If that sounds pretty damn exciting (we think it is), let’s talk.