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How PFL Uses Tactile Marketing to Boost Event Marketing

Event Marketing is a Cornerstone for PFLFor PFL, event marketing delivers the bulk of our most qualified leads. Trade shows, co-marketing events, webinars and local events generate the leads we need to keep our marketing healthy and active.

They are also expensive. Industry events, such as Dreamforce, can easily cost a marketing team a minimum of $50,000.

Despite the expense, plenty of people are willing to shell out the money. Dreamforce 2018 - a massive event, to be sure - had over 170,000 attendees.

Standing out at an event and getting the connections you need to make it fruitful is an ever growing challenge. At PFL, we use our own Tactile Marketing Automation solutions to cut through the clutter and make an impression before and post event:

Trade shows

User groups

Webinars

Sessions and workshops

Private events

Here’s how we do it and some lessons we’ve learned along the way.

Event Marketing

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Pre-Event Marketing

Tactile Marketing Automation +Pre-Event Marketing

Setting up intimate, 1:1 meetings with our customers and prospects is a core goal for PFL’s tradeshow marketing strategy and it is where we’ve done the most iteration, testing, and improvement.

We use a multi-channel approach to invite target prospects, customers and partners to our side events. Tactile marketing is a big component of the program. Today, our Meeting Maker Campaign is almost entirely automated, personalized and measured through Tactile Marketing Automation. The Meeting Maker Campaign is also a very popular use case for our customers.

The tactile marketing piece doesn’t exist in a silo - it is sent in the midpoint of a digital campaign that uses email, retargeting and phone outreach.

You can see an example here of one of our private dinner invites. This is a small cutting board with an invite attached. We’ve used this piece for several shows. Variable content populates the invite template with event information inthe Marketoprogram tokens.

Campaign Flow and ResultsHere’s how we execute a trade show meeting maker campaign with Tactile Marketing Automation. This campaign interfaces with our account based marketing philosophy as well.

Note: PFL uses Marketo as our marketing automation platform, but the same flow will work with any marketing platform.

1. We create a lead list.

2. We score the lead to see if they fit into our ideal customer profile, or are one of our ABM targeted accounts.

3. If the lead scores as an ideal customer, or is with a target account, we validate mailing address information using the PFL Address Verification & Append Service.

4. We then send the qualified leads direct mail with industry-specific collateral. Our Marketo industry field dictates which collateral should be included and the lead’s name and company populate in the personalized note.

5. High-value leads that received the direct mail are flagged by our technology once direct mail is delivered, further triggering outreach from our BDRs, retargeting ads and a few more email invites.

a. If the lead is not an ideal customer, we place them in a digital-only flow.

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Pre-Event Marketing

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Pre-Event Marketing

In the past, we’ve offered a reward for meeting with PFL, usually a trendy tech item such as an Amazon Echo (when they were novel). As we’ve moved into different industries, where gifting is either frowned upon or simply not allowed, we’ve shied away from offering a reward for a meeting.

The shocking part?

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Not offering a gift is just as successful, with nearly identical conversion rates. The key is sending a high-impact mailer that provides relevant messaging. For example, we’ve done a video card paired with an industry guidebook and a box with the recipients name on it.

Here are the results for one of our recent Dreamforce Meeting Maker campaigns:

*costs include meeting space rentals, food, travel for PFL, and direct mail production and delivery

7.2% Conversion Rate

20 meetings out of 279 direct mail sends

16 SQLs

5 won deals

$118,235 first year return

81% ROI*

Key Learnings

1. The list is critical!

Trade shows typically don’t give you attendee lists prior. You need to try to figure out who might be attending to fine-tune your list. We’ve accomplished this in the past with various tactics:

2. Timing is important.

Warm your contacts up with digital ads & emails one to two months out, then plan for the mail to land 2 weeks out. People are last minute with schedules, but you want to catch them before they are completely full.

3. Persistence pays off.

Make sure you have a direct mail follow-up cadence in place. We recommend a cadence of an automated email upon direct mail delivery, a sales call within 24 hours of delivery, and then a mix of sales calls, emails and LinkedIn messages leading up to the event.

Furthermore, warm leads are more likely to commit to a private in-person meeting. Consider this when creating your list and try to maintain a healthy balance of cold accounts and warm accounts.

Contents/Sweepstakes run two months prior to an event, often done with partners. Those who engage are likely going to the event.

Look at past attendance if you’ve done the event before.Consider event location - which prospects and customers are located in or near the event.

Look at email and digital engagement with pre-event promotions.

During Event Assests

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PFL + During Event Assets

You’ve faced the same problem: our sales team needs samples, swag and collateral for their on-the-floor efforts at events.

How many hours have you spent rounding all of this up, shipping to the right location and sorting it? Probably as many as we have.

Personal Marketing Center

One of the many ways we use our own solution, Personal Marketing Center (PMC), is to make it easier for our sales teams to prepare for a trade show.

PMC houses customizable and static digital and physical assets. Our reps or the ops person planning the event can easily select the swag & collateral they need, personalize it for the trade show (such as changing dates, trade show names and more) and deliver it to themselves or the event location.

Post Event Marketing

Tactile Marketing + Post Event Marketing

The days following a big trade show, like Dreamforce, can be just as chaotic and stressful as the weeks leading up to the event. And they are just as crowded - think about your own inbox after a major industry event. Your poor inbox is likely on fire. Overwhelmed prospects often go on email delete rampages just to stay afloat. This opens up a big opportunity to stand out with direct mail and move a relationship forward.

Here’s our typical post-show campaign.

Campaign Flow and Results

Currently all of our leads from the show go through the following flow:

Immediately append addresses (4 days)

Trigger mail (2 days fulfillment)

2 day shipping

Trigger follow-up email and opportunity owner taskon delivery

The opportunity owner begins a series of follow-up calls & emails to move the prospect forward in the buying cycle.

Direct mail lands a week after the event (giving contacts time to catchtheir breath)

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Webinars

Tactile Marketing + WebinarsWebinars deliver a consistent stream of leads for PFL. As we become more devoted to ABM ideology, our webinars are also becoming more focused to appeal to our target accounts. Even with highly-targeted content, it is a challenge to convert sign-ups into actual attendees. People are notorious for signing up and either forgetting to attend or deprioritizing it.

We use tactile marketing to remind prospects of the webinar (the mailer lands the day before the webinar) and to reinforce prioritization of actually attending.

Results? We are still A/B testing our webinar campaigns, but many of our customers ask to replicate the campaign. It’s a very easy way to dip your toe into the personalized Tactile Marketing Automation water.

After a webinar, our BDRs either send qualified attendees a customized direct mail piece through our SwagIQ Salesforce integration, or they add them into an automated Marketo program that includes direct mail. Its important to capitalize on prospect interest and send them something timely and relevant. For instance, if a prospect attended a webinar with an ABM topic, our reps would send them a package that includes an ABM guidebook and speak to the topic in the personalized note.

Campaign Flow and Results

Our pre-webinar direct mail is affordable and personalized, despite being rapidly produced. It’s also a repeatable program. We use Marketo webinar program tokens to populate the copy on the mailer so that it is specific for each webinar.

Email Invite 1 - 3 weeks out

Email Invite 2 - 2 weeks out

Direct Mail Triggered - 7 days prior to webinar

Direct Mail Lands - day before webinar

Last Chance email - day of webinar

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800.930.5088 | inquire@pfl.com | www.PFL.com

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PFL is a Montana born and raised marketing technology company, who pioneered the new category of Tactile Marketing Automation. With headquarters just north of Yellowstone National Park, and in Indianapolis, IN. We provide sales enablement and marketing automation solutions, as well as printing, mailing, and fulfillment services, to directly connect B2B and B2C organizations with cutting edge solutions that accelerate productivity and drive business forward.

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