Rethinking Event Strategy: How to Plan for Maximum Engagement and Impact

Our goal is to create memorable, high-level experiences that elevate your brand and set the tone for building relationships, which in turn, converts your prospects into customers. So many of our corporate clients are mindlessly running from event to event. When you partner with Acquire , we help you build a goal-oriented strategy for your engagements, ensuring maximum impact. Full transparency, we are less important if we can’t play a part in helping you convert, so it is imperative that our engagements don’t just check a box, but help to push your prospects down funnel. This is what we are thinking about when crafting an overall strategy:

Who are you engaging? Each experience we craft will differ based on the profile of each individual you are looking to engage. It is important to have a feel for what they are interested in. The experience is crafted so that they not only say yes but have profound takeaways.?

A different strategy should apply to each client or prospect type - first touches or early-stage prospects may need to get to know your brand, what you stand for and begin to build relationships with people on your team. Leads that have gone cold may need a personalized gift sent at just the right time to reopen the door to a future conversation. Current clients up for renewal may benefit from a beautiful experience that makes them feel valued, turning them into loyal, lifelong customers.

Each engagement should have a specific goal - If you can’t easily identify what the goal is, there is no point in hosting the event. A goal can be simple: build relationships, generate leads, and blow away current customers up for renewal so they feel really special and choose you again. Like in sales, we have to know what we are working towards in order to have the highest impact and to ensure that we go above and beyond that measure.

The only way to move people down the funnel faster is to have a personalized follow-up strategy post-engagement - We hosted an event recently where we learned that one of the attendees' sons had just had wrist surgery that day. We passed this information onto the salesperson responsible for this prospect with a gentle nudge: DoorDash them dinner tomorrow. A gesture like this shows you’re listening, you care, and makes a huge impression. We have also followed up in-person events, where we learned that several attendees love Bourbon, with a virtual whiskey tasting featuring rare and allocated whiskies. This added touchpoint in the sales cycle is not only a gift that comes with an experience, but it shows you're paying attention, all while getting people together again with less lift from a time and $$ standpoint, offering maximum impact for continuing to build relationships. We always offer a customized video for our clients to send to attendees post virtual engagements to thank them and let them know what to expect moving forward.

The way to look at your event strategy is simple: look at the year as a whole and drop your prospects into “buckets.” Your events will be curated based upon their specific needs. When designing high-impact engagements, leave it to the experts who can craft memorable experiences that will appeal to each customer type. Each event should have a specific, measurable goal that is communicated to everyone on your team. Following up your engagement with a personalized strategy will offer maximum impact.?

At Acquire , we have created a one-stop shop for all things customer and prospect connection. Whether it’s a virtual event, an in-person engagement, or sending a high-level client gift, we are experts at setting the tone for connection. We shine when we help you turn your prospects into customers.?