In this age of social media, video conferencing and next generation mobile broadband, one tried and trusted marketing tactic that isn’t diminishing in popularity or effectiveness is bringing sales prospects together at your own event, or hooking into a ready-made audience at a trade show or industry conference.

But how do you make them pay?

1) Invest in getting the right bums on seats
Whether a third-party event or your own shindig, you’ll need good data to work from. This needn’t only be purchased data from a quality source; most organisations are sitting on extremely valuable customer/prospect information that they’ve never got around to properly segmenting or nurturing.

2) Develop a reputation for compelling content
Very few prospects – no matter how relevant – want to register for a 40 minute thinly veiled sales pitch. Don’t just counter this challenge with an exciting venue, fun post-event activities, luxuriant refreshments or other inducements. On its own, it won’t guarantee attention during your boring bits. Get an exciting, independent speaker, commission some research, prepare some practical and impartial materials that delegates can take away with them to tackle the business challenges they face.

3) Make the right proposition
Don’t start with the optimum agenda for selling your wares; start with the optimum agenda for engaging your audience. Use a targeted invitation process, study the analytics, and feed this into a telephone-based follow-up process to ensure confirmations are double-confirmed. The thread running through all this is a simple and coherent proposition that everyone connected with the event can communicate.

4) Be ready to record
Where else do you get key spokespeople/domain experts, customers, prospects, partners and media together in a great venue with corporate branding dripping from every corner? So take the opportunity to film it, or at the very least take pictures. The guts of a corporate seminar doesn’t make the best TV, so think hard about capturing something people would want to watch. Like this recent Cohesive example:

5) Always think PR
Established industry events routinely attract journalists and analysts looking for insights, contacts or news. But media relations can also be part of your own events. Get closer to a key press contact by asking them to be a speaker or moderator. Invite journalists along to network with your customers and hear fresh technical insights – strictly on the basis it isn’t a sales pitch. Or how about polling your delegates’ (or trade show booth visitors) views on a series of hot industry issues; and then sharing those findings with the press? Events are also valuable for unearthing existing customers’ willingness to do case studies or go public on their deployments.

6) Share it
Events are social affairs, so be social about them. Encourage discussion about the event agenda on social networks; socialise a hashtag to encourage real-time debate (and be sure to listen!); use pictures and videos to update prospects and followers who couldn’t or wouldn’t make it along on the day.