Seasoned event marketers all know that a relevant, ‘large enough’ and well-structured first-party data set is needed for event marketing to work well.

This is because efficient and effective event promotion relies on reaching the target audience via email at all stages of the funnel.

A multi-channel approach is, of course, essential – so attention should also be paid to your event website, content marketing, social media, PPC/Paid Media, advocacy, partnerships, as well as supporting and enabling your salespeople.

But the hard truth is that without a fit-for-purpose database, your event marketing won’t perform as it should, compromising the whole event.

There are four methods every event marketer should consider when putting together the database needed for effective event marketing. But before we explore these methods, we should first define what we mean by ‘large enough’ and ‘well structured’ when it comes to a data set.

For event marketing, what is a ‘large enough’ 1st party data set?

MPG’s rule of thumb for attracting conference delegates is 50 – 100 relevant, emailable contacts on your database for every delegate you want to attract. Assuming a conversion rate of 1 – 2%, this is always a good starting point.

We apply the same principle to other types of event customers.

Here are all the benchmarks we use for conferences and tradeshows:

HOW CAN TEAM MPG HELP?
Not sure where to start when it comes to growing your database to the right size?
Contact Team MPG for a chat. We love talking data!

For event marketing, what is a ‘well-structured’ 1st party data set?

In order to achieve the conversion rates above, it is essential for contacts to be tagged or categorised in a way that enables segmentation.

Segmentation is dividing your database into lists in a way that allows you to send specific messages to specific target groups – so that your messaging is relevant, so that your marketing works!

For example, you’ll want to target vendors with a message specifically pushing the benefits and value of sponsoring or exhibiting at your event. Then, you need to be able to easily identify within your marketing platform which specific companies and individuals in those companies would be interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at your event. This can only be done if you have structured your database in a way that it can be segmented.

HOW CAN TEAM MPG HELP?
Struggling to work out how to send targeted communications to specific audiences?
Not sure how to ‘fix’ or add better structure to your database?
Get in touch to find out how we’ve helped many companies set up and maintain high-performance databases.

The ‘four methods’…

As promised, we will now explain the four methods for developing a well-structured, large enough 1st party data set for your event marketing. Each method has its pros and cons, and there are specific situations when certain methods are best.

Here they are:

METHOD #1 = INBOUND: Optimise all your marketing channels, especially your event website, to collect data via inbound means.

Pros:

• Generates highly engaged and mostly relevant contacts.
• Permissions can be collected when data is collected, allowing you to build emailable contacts in countries where explicit consent is required.

Cons: 

• This is a slow burn. Although you may collect good, engaged contacts using this method alone, you will likely fall short of the volumes you need. (see table above).
• Creating and executing well on inbound campaigns and customer journeys is not ‘free’ or ‘cheap’. It requires specific skills (some very technical), careful planning, and strong messaging to encourage your audience to click on your ads or social posts and fill in your web forms. You need to invest in expert marketers to make this work well – whether these marketers are in-house, outsourced, or a bit of both.
  
  

MPG recommends you invest in METHOD #1 = INBOUND when:

1. Always! Your event website and all the comms you send out should always be optimised to collect 1st party data via your website. Not doing this means you’re wasting money on marketing, as none of your channels will be working as well as they should.
   
   Rule of thumb: Always optimise your marketing and website for inbound data collection before you do anything else. It may be time-consuming, but this must always be done to collect the best kind of contacts who are most engaged and most likely to respond to your emails.
   
2. You’re focused on growing your database with contacts based in countries where you need explicit consent to be allowed to email contacts.

3. You have valuable, unique content available that you can package up and put behind forms. If you don’t have content like this – make some!

HOW CAN TEAM MPG HELP?
Are your customer journeys working as well as they could to collect valuable data?
We can quickly spot problems and resolve them.
Get in touch to request some examples of work we’ve done for clients where their inbound marketing has become a key driver of ongoing database growth.

METHOD #2 = DIY DATA WORK: Use your staff members (permanent, interns or contractors) to update contacts, add key info like email addresses, categorise and tag records and add new relevant contacts to your database.

Pros: 

• Good for ongoing database maintenance when you have a large enough business to justify this kind of resource. 
• Good for improving highly targeted data sets of up to 500 contacts.

Cons: 

• Very labour-intensive.
• Inefficient, i.e. real cost per contact is very high
• Slow. You won’t get high volumes quickly – unless you have a number of staff members working on your database, which is not usually viable or financially sensible to add headcount for work that can easily be outsourced more cheaply.
• Contacts are cold and may have never heard of your company, brand, or product. You looked for and found them, not the other way around.
• Data compliance can be challenging to manage and carries higher risk.
  
  

MPG recommends you invest in METHOD #2 = DIY DATA WORK when:

1. You have access to inexpensive resources and/or excess staff capacity.
2. You want to closely manage data collection on a highly valuable, very specific and relatively small list of contacts (up to 500).
   
   

METHOD #3 = BUY A LICENCE TO A DATA PLATFORM: There are a number of options available when you want to buy large data sets and access them immediately. These include shared data platforms such as Zoominfo, Cognism, and Apollo.

Pros: 

• Access high volumes of data quickly and relatively cheaply.
• In some instances, platforms can feed data directly into your CRM.
• Some platforms include sales automation tools. 

Cons: 

• A large number of companies are using the same data. Sharing this data pool with many others potentially means data is fatigued as multiple companies target it.
• Relatively limited coverage of the B2B universe, so getting good coverage of target accounts is not always possible.
• With typically less than 20% of contacts updated annually, many contacts are out of date.
• Works on monthly cost with ‘use it or lose it’ credits, so there is no flex available for when data is actually needed. In an event campaign, more data is required at the start of the campaign, and there is little to gain from feeding more data late in the campaign cycle. 
• Contacts are cold and may have never heard of your company, brand or product. You looked for and found them, not the other way around. So, you’ll need to send a welcome email or series of welcome emails soon after ingesting the data into your systems, which is also a requirement for data law compliance.
  
  

MPG recommends you invest in METHOD #3 = BUY A LICENCE TO A DATA PLATFORM when:

1. MOST IMPORTANT:
   1. aYou need large volumes of cheap data fast and
   2. bData quantity is more important to you than complete coverage of core audiences and
   3. cYou are confident the platform you’re buying into allows you to extract a list of relevant contacts via the data selection process available within the platform.
2. You would like to give your salespeople direct access to the platform as a prospecting tool, they are keen to be trained on how to use the system, and you are confident there will be high usage of the tool by your sales team.
3. You are confident you can integrate the data platform with your CRM to help you keep your existing data set up to date, especially the records you have added to your CRM from the platform.
4. Your company’s procurement and legal protocols allow you to buy a licence for a data platform. These platforms can sometimes be seen as high risk in terms of compliance with data laws.
   

HOW CAN TEAM MPG HELP?
Do you want to buy a licence for a data platform but don’t know which one will best suit your needs?

Or maybe you’ve bought a licence, and you want to make sure you use it as well as possible in terms of pulling out the exact data you need, using up all your credits in the best way every month, ingesting the new data into your systems in the right way, and ensuring cold outreach with this newly acquired data is effective.

Team MPG can help you do all these things. Get in touch to find out more.

METHOD #4 = COMMISSION BESPOKE DATA RESEARCH FROM A SPECIALIST DATA RESEARCH FIRM:

There are many specialised professional data research agencies that will build bespoke lists and data sets in a compliant way, that you can then add to your database.

Pros: 

• You can specify the exact contact records you need, i.e. who you want on your database, and the specific contact details you need, e.g. you may want a postal address to send direct mail, or a telephone number if you’d like to follow up your marketing with a phone call, or you may only need an email address for email campaigns to drive relevant people to your website to then register for an event, subscribe to a newsletter or complete lead generation form.
• Data is collected at the time of research, so it will be up to date.
• Once the process is established, a large number of highly relevant contact records can be built in a short space of time.
• This method can ensure compliance with all data privacy laws – as long as a reputable data research company is used. 

Cons: 

• It can’t be done in a rush. Planning and time are needed to ensure this approach can be incorporated successfully. It is advisable to appoint a data research agency and start the process of creating data research briefs at least 4 weeks before you expect the first batch of data to be delivered.
• Projects can often be delayed or fail to deliver the required data if briefs are unclear, incomplete or not specific enough, and the data research company is not closely managed. 
• As with using data platforms, contacts are cold and may have never heard of your company, brand or product. You looked for and found them, not the other way around. So, you’ll need to send a welcome email or series of welcome emails soon after ingesting the data into your systems, which is also a requirement for data law compliance.
  
  

MPG recommends you invest in METHOD #4 = COMMISSION BESPOKE DATA RESEARCH FROM A SPECIALIST DATA RESEARCH FIRM when:

1. The specific relevance and quality of the data acquired are more important to you than quantity. 
2. You need good coverage in the database of your target market in terms of companies and individuals in those companies, e.g. you need to ensure you capture the top 100 companies in an industry in your database, and within these, you need all members of the C-Suite on your database. Methods #1, #2 and #3 above won’t give you this kind of coverage.
3. You need specific data points that data platforms don’t provide.
4. You require an existing data set (e.g., the last three years’ event attendees) to be clean, up-to-date, and complete regarding all necessary data points. In some cases, a customer may have moved to a new company, in which case you’d want to use data research to find out which company they have moved to and add their replacement at their previous company to your database. This is highly valuable data, and only a consistent data research approach can ensure your key data sets are well maintained.

The four methods outlined above are all valid and useful – depending on what you want to achieve. Quality is usually more important than quantity, so it is important to be mindful that ‘fast and cheap’ may actually cost you more in the end. 

HOW CAN TEAM MPG HELP?
Do you want to work with a data research company but don’t know where to start in terms of sourcing a good, credible organisation?

Do you need help managing your data research partner to ensure every record you buy from them is relevant and complete?

Or maybe you need help ensuring that the data you acquire via research is ingested into your systems in a timely and systematic manner, that the right kinds of communications are sent to new contacts to ensure compliance, and that the data you’re acquiring will work well for you.

Get in touch to find out how MPG can help you with all of the above.

When you work with MPG to manage your data research, you get:

1. A gap analysis of your existing database – comparing what you already have with your target market and market opportunity. 
2. A plan to research data in the correct priority order. 
3. Strong, well-structured data research briefs that will ensure the data you need is delivered.
4. Rigorous quality control of all acquired data, ensuring you only pay for relevant records and that you are confident the correct data is ingested into your systems.
5. Close management of the data research firm to ensure the required volume of cleaned, appended or new contacts for your database are delivered on time to ensure success within your marketing campaigns. 
6. A well-delivered programme of welcome emails to ensure your newly acquired data is handled compliantly and in a way that will engage the prospects on your new list in the best way for a strong ROI. These new contacts are your future customers, and you want rapid engagement and a strong conversion rate. You want as many of these prospects to become customers as fast as possible. This can only be done if your newly acquired data is handled well. 
   
   

“Team MPG are true experts in B2B marketing databases. Their approach to making sure the right data is held in a system – in the right way – is strategic, systematic, and thorough.
They also understand the martech elements really well, and know how to set up a tech stack and data flows to support automated database processes.
I would highly recommend Team MPG as an outsourced solution for getting your marketing database in good order.”

Stephanie Williford, CEO, EB Medicine