In the ever-changing world of changing trends, events are something that manages to stay, only with different agendas and patterns. Similarly, the world of B2B, too, heavily relies on events to help on building relationships between businesses and is one of the top B2B marketing strategies.

The majority of marketers believe that marketing events are one of the most effective channels to achieve the overall business goal. Be its involvement in an event as a host, a sponsor, a speaker, or an attendee, B2B marketing events bring better ROI and benefits.

What is B2B Event Marketing?

Like any other event marketing, B2B Event Marketing deals with online and offline events that mainly cater to the business spectrum in a way that builds and nourishes partnerships to do business transactions.

Be it an offline or an online event, these B2B occurrences pave the way to build and nurture relationships with the ultimate goal of building brand awareness, increasing event revenue, customer retention, business values, and sales promotion among others. 

Types of B2B Events

ONLINE EVENTS 

For a B2B event to be successful, companies tend to use omnichannel ways to attract a variety of potential partners as well as whip up curiosity. Today, however, events have taken a different form, especially post the Covid-19 pandemic where online events have seen more footfall than traditional offline B2B marketing events. 

Online event marketing has seen a surge in the last two years, wherein webinars, conferences, and many more have replaced the old-school ways of promoting a company or brand. Online events, without a doubt, has been relevant for business and partners to maintain a relationship at a time like Covid 19. 

Online events such as webinars, workshops, live-streaming, etc. have existed in the pre-pandemic era too, but post the lockdown, they have gathered more attention and have been able to reach a wider international audience. 

OFFLINE EVENTS 

While online marketing events catch up to the prevailing situations, offline events have been proven to be more effective. Offline events are more impactful as it helps in creating and building relationships faster as they take place face to face. Companies and brands, through the varied offline events like fairs, summits, exhibitions, workshops, ceremonies, etc. get an opportunity to present their business propositions and showcase their challenges and solutions more convincingly, leaving minimum space for doubt. 

Benefits of B2B Event Marketing 

Along with creating brand awareness, marketing events also gives a chance to connect directly with customers in real-time. The customer engagement rate is much higher, be it virtually or face-to-face. Customer engagement is a necessary aspect of B2B and event marketing is an aid to that. 

Another benefit of event marketing is to educate and inform. Through live events and seminars, consumers can be educated about your product or service and how to make the most of it. Such events give a valuable opportunity to interact with the prospects directly, answer their questions and address specific pain points. 

Alongside, such online and offline events pave way for lead generation. The more people signup for a webinar or an event in your city, it already shows that they are interested in your brand and business. 

The changing phase of B2B events in the Post-Covid world 

Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, the world of B2B event marketing has seen a lot of disruption and has completely changed the way it functions. From offline events, to online, companies had to adapt to the situation and follow a digital path. 

With business-to-business organizations suffering a major loss, ‘living with the pandemic’ has become the new norm. Many marketers believe that they might never go back to the old ways of physical events, whereas some are adapting to the “new normal” by changing their strategies and following new trends in the world of business and marketing. 

Marketers have also been approaching multi-format content that educates and delivers value. For instance, instead of reading a lengthy blog or article, people are choosing to listen to a podcast to save time. Marketers need to try all the formats and build audiences across different channels and embrace the new change to fit into the modern marketing gig.