In honor of our latest product release - enhanced person location data, I put together this guide on how we use events to build pipeline at Champify. When you're hosting a regional event, understanding who is relevant and in the area is the first step.
How to build your event invite list
In addition to inviting key people from target accounts here are some other groups that move the needle and are more likely to convert into real opportunities:
- Re-engage with closed lost opp contacts. Go back to your opportunity contacts from recent lost opportunities and use this as a reason to re-start conversations.
- Target your key points-of-contacts in open opps. Use this as a natural touchpoint with your main stakeholders for the opps you’re working.
- Don’t forget about your former customers. Contacts that have bought from you before or used your product are moving to key accounts and are great people to have at your events. Not only are they more likely to attend, but also already love your company and will sing your praise to other prospects.
- Reach back out to your champions and sponsors for closed won deals. Getting customers to the event is key and this is a great touchpoint to nurture a customer relationship. Keeping this warm allows you to go back to your key contacts in the future to serve as a customer referral or reference.
- Don’t just stop at the people you've been talking to! Use the event invite to engage cold contacts at your accounts. This is a great way to multi-thread with an offer other than “can we chat live?” – be strategic.
- Go wider than you think for stalled opps. Engage warm and cold contacts at accounts that have gone dark. Go wider than you would for usual prospecting efforts - you can’t predict who the topic/speaker(s) will resonate with.
How to write compelling invitations
Use key attendees to boost RSVPs
Highlight the attendees who work at a great logo or trending company – your prospects want to learn from and meet these folks, therefore they’ll be more likely to attend.
Use context from your CRM
When engaging those closed lost opp contacts, be sure to drop any product, pricing or company changes that relate to the loss reason, and include that in why you are reaching out to them now.
Highlight exclusivity
If your event is an executive dinner, your invites ARE special. You’ve carefully curated the best people and companies to invite. Let people know that the goal is to have a small event where people can have real conversations with interesting people.
Name drop relevant people
Don’t just name drop people fancy logos, include information about teammates you’ve spoken with or invited or people who’ve rsvp’d that they are connected with.
How to follow up
Follow up is the area that gets the least amount of attention, but is the most critical part of turning event attendance into a real conversation.
For virtual events, don’t forget to share your take on the recording afterwards.
Your marketing team will package the recording with key takeaways – they’re gifting you one more touchpoint for you to nurture these personas again. Highlight your favorite parts or clips that you think will be most relevant based on any conversations you’ve had in the past.
Use the RSVPs and attendance to move along active evaluations, re-ignite closed lost deals, and to multi-thread to new stakeholders
For outreach to open opportunity contacts, mention the conversations you had to date and who else from their team you’ve invited/has RSVP’d.
Personalize follow up to make sure you set the meeting.
Don’t assume these attendees will reach out to you after the event. Send a recap and tie it to your PoV of how you can help, or tie it to a pain point they mentioned during your meetings with them.
