As the name suggests, Business-to-Business marketing aka B2B marketing refers to marketing and selling of products to other businesses and organisations. The current situation of the world has forced businesses to take up the virtual route more than ever now. In order to understand the evolution of B2B virtual events, we must go back in time when tech-giants like IBM and Microsoft used and made this phenomenon popular in the early 2000s.
They certainly introduced this new era of virtual B2B event marketing, but internet speed and quality had not advanced to today’s level. Thus, the video quality used to be inferior and the results were far away from providing physical event’s like user-experience through virtual media. The technology came and went just like a wind.
Later, when the world’s economy declined in the year 2009, many companies turned to virtual platforms to reduce the travelling cost. They started hosting virtual events for their clients and customers. Hence, the option emerged as an economical and budget-friendly marketing alternative. The digital substitute also offered added convenience for businesses. B2B event marketing through virtual means became one of the major parts of marketing gradually.
B2b Virtual Events For Marketers
How marketers allow balls to fall in their courts using virtual events? It depends upon the goals the marketers want to achieve through B2B event marketing. Here’s how you can achieve your goals in this revolutionary era of digitization by executive virtual events.
Attract Customers With Your Offerings
Leave your impression that will compel your customers to choose your product/services over your competitor’s. Virtual webinars for B2B marketing play a vital role during ‘evaluation phase’. This phase refers to that stage of the marketing when the customer has already identified the need for your product and decided to make a purchase. But now they are trying to find a better option between you and your competitor.
This is the opportunity where you intervene with your virtual event marketing strategy to attract your customer’s interest and loyalty.
Launch Product
Use visuals and high-quality videos to display the best features of your product to win over your prospect customer’s hearts. You can opt for business to business virtual conferences to approach your individual prospects for the product launch.
Draw Engagement
Try to draw your prospect’s engagement and understand their needs to cater to them with tailored solutions. Your customer’s experience with you and your services would speak volumes in your favour.
Interactive Sessions
Virtual webinars for B2B marketing help you get connected with your prospects with the special features of your product/services and enable two-way interaction. These interactive, engaging and effective sessions will allow you with improved brand loyalty and trust.
Open Invitation
Grow your audience with open invitations to your virtual event. The best benefit of b2b virtual events is that you can accommodate more participants without stretching your budget and increase your reach.
Track Records
Since activities done through online mode are easily trackable, the virtual events help you keep a track of orders, purchases and profits effectively.
Feedbacks & Recommendations
Virtual marketing is also an effective way of inviting feedback and recommendation. Feedback from your existing customers truly improves your goodwill in the market and expands your client’s range.
Future of Virtual B2B Event Marketing
Many brands and businesses have realised the importance of business to business virtual conferences and have started utilising them for their growth and improved brand credibility. Those who were still dependent upon conventional ways of marketing are now forced to adapt to the technological advancements to keep up with their competitors. In the end, you would have to evolve your business with time.
Current coronavirus pandemic has compelled businesses to change the way they deal with their customers and prospect clients. Any business that has been reluctant to switch to digital modes is forced to face losses. All these months since the world first encountered this new virus, marketers figured out revolutionary ways to stay in the market despite the global situation.
Organisations relied upon B2B virtual meetings for internal and external business management during the lockdown. Work-from-home wouldn’t have been possible without this technological revolution. Virtual events and marketing are the future of this era. Travelling would be avoided more than ever now. Social distancing seems to be the most appropriate social etiquette. And your clients and customers would be reluctant to attend in-person meetings or seminars.
In such a scenario, virtual webinars for B2B interactions are going to be the most likeable solution. Now, how businesses are going to come up with innovative virtual event ideas to attract their customers’ interests, will decide a company’s future.
Transition From Push Marketing To Pull Marketing
Push marketing has dominated the market for ages. Pull marketing has turned the perspective of marketing upside down. Conventional marketing forces their ads to the customers whether they want to interact or not. On the other hand, pull marketing brings experiential aspects into practice. A customer is more likely to interact with your brand if he/she would not feel to be compelled into dealing with its marketing tactics. B2B virtual meetings is another feather in experiential pull marketing.
Businesses who are still stuck with conventional forms of marketing are lagging behind without realising the negative aspects of it. Whereas many new brands have adopted the new advancements in the field of marketing including interactive business to business virtual conferences.
Your audience should have the choice of interacting with your brand and your virtual event content should be too impactful to drive better engagement. This kind of marketing will leave a long-lasting impact on your audience and chances are that they would come back looking for you.
Conclusion
The trend of B2B virtual events is going to go a long way for businesses and event marketers. It has so many opportunities for new brands and existing businesses. The only thing required from a business is openness and adaptability to new technological changes. The enhanced video quality for video conferencing and event broadcasting is another tool for better engagement.
Dreamcast is one of the virtual event service providers that cater to your specific business needs with its unique and innovative live streaming solutions.
