The cover for our Hosted Buyer Events Guide.
The Need:
Brolly Event Solutions, and their parent company Data Connect, were firmly entrenched in the niche market of food distributor trade shows and had been working with such clients as: Sysco, Shamrock and US Foods for years. However, due to changes in that targeted industry the number of events they could support shrunk every year. When I started with them as Marketing Manager there was an express need to expand in two key ways: to new verticals (like hardware, pet supply, and pharmaceutical) and to new event types (internally dubbed "general trade show").
The Remedy:
We needed to reach out to these new markets, provide value and demonstrate our thought leadership, so I got to work on a series of inbound marketing campaigns to meet these critical objectives. Over the course of 2016 I strategically released three key campaigns to coincide with industry sales cycles.
1: Hosted Buyer Events Guide
Our first piece of material aimed squarely at new verticals. It was a guide to hosted buyer events, a type of event we specialized in supporting and a key strategy that can help many B2B trade shows garner incredible returns. I researched and outlined the guide and then sent it over to the talented Traci Browne, a well established industry influencer, to flesh it out.
A "tear-out" page from the guide that served as promotional content.
After copyediting the guide I took to InDesign to really bring the guide to life. My goal was to build a visual aesthetic that fit in with the Brolly identity, but didn't over power the content with branding. Additionally, I wanted to add as much real value as possible to the guide so I made sure to include concrete examples of each concept that was discussed in the guide, and worksheet style tear-out pages readers could use for their events. Finally, I tied it all together with unique vector illustrations.
This piece was released in the early spring of 2017 to coincide with our peak selling season for fall events of that year, as well as to provide value to our existing clients who renew with us annually.
2: Event Data Assessment
A key advantage of Brolly, being a division of Data Connect, was our acumen with event data. Where many of our competitors would founder with improperly utilized data, we could leverage it to bring events to life. I wanted to showcase this proclivity that ran through our organization from top to bottom. So, I developed our Event Data Assessment.
In the Data Assessment Campaign users could come on to our website and sign up to receive a complimentary data assessment for their next event where they could get professional input on their event data strategy. During the assessment users would walk through an established framework for data strategy and would leave with a customized PDF of next steps and recommendations.
Our assessment form.
To bring this to life, I built a new campaign in Infusionsoft that would capture user info, set up assessments and follow up with recommendations on how Brolly products could be of service. Then, I put Adobe Acrobat's handy form field feature to good use to create a standardized process for each user. As an extra treat I even built in a custom chat widget on the page to allow our audience to ask direct data questions to our team.
3: Matchmaking Guide
For our final piece of the year we targeted both a hot topic in the industry and a new offering from Brolly, matchmaking. Released in late summer to kick off our critical fall sales season, our guide to matchmaking was built to bridge our two markets. Both B2B, commerce-centric trade shows and general events had much to benefit from matchmaking and I wanted to illustrate the unique value Brolly could bring to event organizers of all kinds.
Our return on matchmaking page.
Production of this piece was much the same as our hosted buyer events guide, being written by Traci Browne and outlined/researched/edited/designed by myself. What really set this guide apart was it's series of take out pages which served as promotional content on social media. Given the timeliness of the piece I was able to drastically increase the organic exposure of this branded piece.
The Results:
“Directly attributed to new business.”
These inbound materials not only helped establish the Brolly Brand as a leader in the events industry but also directly led to new sales. Over the course of the year we were able to increase monthly leads captured by 120%. More importantly though, thanks to Google Analytics, I was able to directly attribute contracts in key new industries to the effects of our inbound marketing campaigns.
