The morning after the night before

Whether you were at the Place Party last night, part of the BILT Europe shindig in Edinburgh or celebrating a win at the Yorkshire Residential Property Awards, you may have woken up this morning wondering if it was all worth it…

The answer is probably yes.  As long as you knew what you were hoping for.

The decision to invest in attending an event or conference is always a marketing one (“It’ll be fun” isn’t enough. You can do that on your own time.)  Will it help to raise the company profile, enhance brand reputation, expand your knowledge, bring new connections, nurture existing relationships?

Here is how we make an investment decision and measure the return:

Relationships

In property and professional services, people buy people. How did last night’s shenanigans help you to build good relationships?

You should be able to talk about current clients and collaborators you spoke to, as well as new connections made.

Make a note: who you spoke to, whether you knew them already or not, and what promise you made. Then deliver on your promise.

Reputation

Here is how you make your marketing team happy. How many people saw or engaged with your email, social media and online activity related to last night’s event? What was the sentiment of that interaction? Who got involved? How many people engaged with your blog / vlog? We love a good marketing metric.

Revenue

It is fairly simple to identify whether an event contributed to attracting new business or investment. If you talked about an opportunity last night, you’ve helped to move it along the pipeline.

Use the tags on your database to flag who you met so that you can track the results, from contact to lead, enquiry and eventually revenue. You’ll need to be able to prove it in order to have an informed conversation about next year’s investment.

Recall – what did you learn?

Parties and conferences aren’t just about business development.  They are also about having fun – whatever that means to you. What did you learn? What surprised you? What trends did you see? What relationships did you build?

Share that knowledge with your colleagues and your clients; use it for creating content and for making a better informed decision next time around.

So. First things first. Have a good breakfast and a strong coffee. Do your follow-ups. Review your RoI. And prepare for the next event: next week has plenty to offer.