How does it work?
Success is built on a knowledge base of what worked -
and what didn't.
Case Studies: Traffic Building
IT Conference
One of the ironies of building traffic to a professional conference is that those conferences that offer free attendance sometimes have a more difficult time attracting attendees than those conferences that charge thousands of dollars.
Client
The sponsor of this particular B2B conference is a well-respected professional publication that serves the IT industry. Each year, the publication sponsors a very successful series of conferences, held in various U.S. cities, dealing with technology trends, innovations and other topical issues.
Challenge
The IT conference industry is very competitive. At the same time, potential attendees - especially the C-levels - are becoming more discriminating about the conferences they attend. In addition, there's some skepticism associated with free B2B conferences, the concern being that the promoters of these conferences are so involved with building high traffic for their paying conference exhibitors that they're not as committed as they should be to providing value to attendees.
Solution
The client's list of subscribers offered an excellent mailing list and the company's conferences were extremely well planned, so it was up to the creative to convince this audience that it was still well worth their while to attend one of my client's conferences.
A multi-media B2B campaign was created.
First, prospective attendees received a six-panel self-mailer. Special attention was given to the design and copy to brand each conference as a dynamic, industry defining, must-attend event. Conference names, speakers' bios, session titles - everything was examined and revised where appropriate.
Follow-up emails were sent to prospects, reiterating the benefits of the conference.
In addition, print ads ran in the client's printed publication; online ads appeared on the publication's website; and the conference was promoted in the publication's on-line newsletter.
Result
The multi-media traffic building campaign worked very well. Despite the competitive environment, traffic at all but one of the conferences was equal to or greater than previous years.