Leveraging ABM to Build an Effective Financial Services Field Marketing Event

Field marketing events are an important part of many businesses’ marketing strategies, and for good reason. Not only do these events provide a great way to get in front of potential customers and showcase your product or service, but they also give you the opportunity to build relationships with them. 

You can meet with people face-to-face and answer their questions directly, allowing you to build credibility and trust. Additionally, field marketing events are a great way to generate opportunities, get real-time feedback  and drive sales. 

They can be used to spread the word about your business and create a buzz in your local area. Plus, they provide an opportunity for customers to interact with your product or service first-hand, giving them a better understanding of what it has to offer. 

All-in-all, field marketing events are an invaluable tool for any business looking to make an impact in their local market.

Step #1: Begin with Smart Goals

Starting with goals is like trying to build a habit… no one wants to do it and it’s often overlooked. Specific goals that are measurable, achievable, results-driven, and time-bound help you achieve success. From there you can build out your plan!

At Demandbase, our goals include:

• Registration ratesEvent and attendance rates
• Qualified responses
• Engagement (new accounts, customers, new personas, etc)
• Booking follow-up meetings
• Pipeline & revenue

Step #2: Choose the right channels

Account-based marketing (ABM) is typically talked about in a silo and not in conjunction with how you execute everything that goes into a solid integrated marketing approach. I’ve found this is what makes ABM successful; targeting the right accounts, to the right people, at the right time. 

Based on the business case I built, I knew our target accounts (both enterprise & mid-market) would be attending Money2020. I set out to target those specific accounts and decision makers directly. Using  an integrated marketing strategy, my approach was to personalize the engagements by creating an omni-channel strategy to target those accounts. Data first, then determine your approach and plan accordingly.

Step #3: Plan

My integrated marketing strategy included the following channels and partners:

• DB Advertising: Warm them up with personalized M2020 creative
• Qualified: Personalized chat for financial services with two different tracks based on how they engage with the chat
• Marketo: Promotional email series beginning 6 weeks prior to Money2020 linking them to a personalized landing page
• Outreach: We leverage Outreach but you could use any sales engagement tool like a Salesloft for example. This email cadence was set up for SDR’s, AE’s, and CSM’s to invite their prospects and customers to our event or to meet onsite with our CEO. Targeting our tier 1-3 accounts, Director, and above titles with Marketing and Sales personas.
• Bambu: Allows our employees to socially share that we will be attending Money2020
• LinkedIn: Personalized Money2020 banners with QR code to scan to attend our cocktail party and a separate code promoting my session
• Sendoso: Cocktail gift set for attendees and those who attended meetings on site at Money2020
• Salesforce: Reporting and dashboarding happened through Tableau CRM to monitor pipeline and revenue

Step #4: Execute

In order to execute on all the moving pieces, we started roughly 6 weeks prior to the event. We have quick SLA’s for our content and creative team but I still buffered 2.5 weeks to get the work done before launch. We had 1 meeting to ensure the team was on track and I highly recommend getting the team together to ensure you have all your tickets, the creative is what you expect, and they aren’t expecting any delays, etc.

I was specifically excited to speak on a panel discussing the topic titled “How to Promote an Inclusive Work Environment”.

Leading up to the event we had 3 meetings with the team who would be on-site. We ensured that we were booking meetings for our CEO and everyone knew their role. We call these meetings “know before you go” and EVERYTHING is covered: from what time folks are arriving/departing, where to meet, roles during the event, where to house notes, etc. In addition, the event lead (in this case me), had multiple calls with my AE from Money2020 (shoutout to Mitchell Hirschorn). He was simply the best in helping us navigate a large, complex event for the first time!

The goal for our cocktail party was 50 attendees. I’m happy to say we exceeded that goal with over 125 attendees. 

Step #5: Measure

So what did we learn? An in-person session is always great for more and better awareness as well as the ability to connect before and after the event with folks.  

Cocktail Party Breakdown

• # of registrations – 493
• # of attended – 125
• Types of accounts that attended: Senior leaders at AmEx, Amazon, BofA, Bank of the West, Deloitte, HP, iQor, Keybank, Marqeta, JPMorgan, PayU, Valeyo, Visa, and many more.

CEO Meetings

10+ Meetings with senior leaders at: Citi, Synchrony Bank, Signature Bank, Bain Capital, Papaya Global, BlueVine, Salesforce, Stax, and Socure

Sales Meetings

30+ Meetings with leaders at companies like Orion Innovation, BofA, Coinbase, First United Bank, New Oak, Chartway Federal, Fifth Third, Orion Innovation, Teradata, and many more

Overall, I’d say our first appearance at an industry specific event was a great success! All the planning, coordination, and effort made it all worth it in the end.