What is the brand activity of B2B companies?
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Stewed Marketing” (ID: Luandunyingxiao), the author Gao Yan.
Each year-end, the offline activities of various companies are all in full bloom. There are user conferences, customer-respected, and new products. However, if you have a budget, you want to know the end of the year. A brand event with B-brand not only highlights the brand’s strength, but also takes the opportunity to call-high, burying an egg for next year’s renewal and new signing. (Of course, from this year to the next year, most b2b companies will use the market budget more cautiously. In addition to the direct effect-oriented low-cost activities, the high-investment brand activities will maintain considerable restraint.)
However, similar activities are much more interesting. When you sing and I am on the stage, it is not difficult to find that B2B’s activities are extremely high. Many small partners who have done B2B corporate branding activities will encounter such soul torture:
Why are the theme of B2B business activities all the same? (Energy, sharing, ecology, digitalization… Is there a familiar familiar foot in wood?)
Why are customers not willing to stand on the stage, and it is always difficult to invite them?
How can I make a brand event that truly has its own unique tonality and soul, and can truly achieve “fame and fortune” from software to hardware?
Today we are going to stew this topic.
First look at two well-watched brand events from two B2B big names at home and abroad: Alibaba’s Yunqi Conference and Salesforce’s Dreamforce.
Yunqi vs Dreamforce: See someone who has money and momentum
1. The theme is the soul: Dreamforce is better than the content
As the originator of the SaaS industry, Salesforce started their eco-conference, Dreamforce, in 2003, the fourth year of the company’s founding. Perhaps because “Dreamforce” itself represents a rich enough meaning and has natural extensibility, after all, there will be different dreams at different times, so this conference has not set a specific content theme over the years (2017 us When I went to the site to attend this conference, I also saw a lot of key messages from the Salesforce brand promotion in the indoor and outdoor advertisements. Today, my colleagues go to Dreamforce every year and will look forward to: newWhat new products, new technologies, new ecology and new application cases can continue to dream for everyone in a year?
Whether the main venue or the content settings of each session, including the content of the exhibition area and entertainment, will be closely related to the theme of “Dreamforce”. For example, the Dreamforce conference that has not been opened this year, on the 20th day of the medical special session, the theme is “Thunder only happens at Dreamforce”, the theme of the segmentation session is constantly strengthening “Dreamforce”.
We know that the Dreamforce conference has many venues every year. There are more than 2,700 breakout sessions and keynote speeches in this four-day conference. The content of each conference venue is organically linked to the conference theme and can be mutually Independence, we need a strong content team. In Salesforce, the team dedicated to running this project is called strategiceventteam, which is also worthy of the name.
Review the Yunqi Conference. This technology conference hosted by Alibaba was founded in 2013 and officially changed its name to “Yunqi” in 2015. This conference is in need of many words in the creation of a technological atmosphere, and it will attract the attention of many technical practitioners every year.
This three-day Yunqi Conference has set up more than 130 group meetings and keynote speeches, which is also unprecedented in domestic specifications and scale. This year, the theme of Yunqi is “because of technology, and cloud habitat”, deepening the concept of “digital economy”, the development of AI technology has become the focus, and the conference also released a very eye-catching AI chip “including light”.
But after the end of the event, we are also paying attention to the peers’ views on the Yunqi Conference. However, the social media and the dynamics in the circle of friends are far less enthusiastic than expected. Like us, the peers said that this conference did not feel a particularly clear content line and main theme, and there was a lack of topics that everyone could focus on.
Think carefully, the name of the conference “Yunqi”In addition to a “cloud” word, it does not give a specific value proposition and tonality in the brand activity of Ali, and the theme of “this technology because of technology, and cloud habitat” has not been specifically The representation of the audience is supplemented with concrete representations. Therefore, “the shape does not disperse and distraction” has become a slightly regretful feeling. After all: under the high-spec, strong expert lineup, this conference seems to lack a little soul.
Overview of the previous themes of the Yunqi Conference, we will find that in fact, before 2018, the theme of the theme is relatively figurative and clear, and by this year, its orientation has become more general.
2. Experience: From the exhibits, concerts to the Tucao Conference, did the participants want to give them?
Undoubtedly, the reason why brand activities can achieve fame and fortune is because it is a comprehensive display of the value of the brand, and of course the external inspection of these values. Therefore, the participants’ attention from the professional to the network, to the comprehensive experience of leisure and entertainment has become the focus of the organizers.
To this end, Dreamforce packs a block every year to create a relatively independent and complete conference experience space, with a lot of clever interactions. Their purpose is also to enable participants to have an unforgettable experience in the event of full immersion.
For example, different parties are invited to the scene, and singers such as Metallica, GreenDay, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stevie Wonder are invited to present, in their own words: to give all participants “an exposition and an exciting event.” Rock concert.” And why choose rock? From the “No Software” banner to bravely subvert the traditional software industry, Salesforce is playing a rebellious, innovative rock fighter. 
In fact, this experience must have evolved over time. Just like the young Yunqi Conference in comparison, in 2014, the head of the Yunqi Conference self-deprecated the “Broken Strawberry Award” internally, because the group believed that the conference “has not experienced the experience of customers.”
After 2015, Yunqi Conference put the participation experience first. This year, in addition to the heavyweights to ensure the professionalism of the content (the core theme is another matter), it has also increased a lot. Interactive programs, such as the programmer’s vomiting conference, invited Hulan, Shi Yan and other talk show actors to spit on the programmer’s work, and invited the stars such as the old wolf, Yuan Yawei, Bai An, and the cosmos to host the Yunqi Music Festival. . It is not difficult to imagine that these colorful and interesting brain-hole ideas that are closely related to the life of the programmers are dedicated to enriching the participation experience of the entire conference. However, if the selection of the singer and the choice of the artist can match the spiritual connotation and tonality of the conference with these celebrity positions, the effect will be better.
In general, from the foreign Dreamforce to the domestic Yunqi Conference, a brand activity that can truly make enterprises fame and fortune, product and effect, requires very clear value and tonal positioning. The imprint is just like the brand of a company. It must be evolved through the baptism of the years to be consistent.
How can I make a brand event with more “soul”?
Of course, whether it is the Yunqi Conference or the Dreamforce Conference, its momentum is beyond my reach for B2B shrimp. After all, some people in the big factory have the money to be willful. In the face of the “difficult situation” where no one has no money, when our company’s scale develops to a certain stage, it is necessary to make a sound through a brand activity with its own corporate brand, how can we make a limited resource? Can the field also allow us to participate in the brand activities of fame and fortune? What is the core? Is to inject “soul” into the brand activity!
1.Timing is important
The Yunqi Conference is held every September, and the Dreamforce Conference is held every November. In fact, it makes sense. Take the HRSaaS industry that we are familiar with as an example. The business peak season is generally in December, and the transaction period averages 2-3 months. In this way, in August and September, our target customers’ businessThe rhythm and pressure will be easier, and it will give the company enough business incubation time. Therefore, at this time, the most important brand event of the year will be held, which will not only invite our target customers, but also have a significant boost to the business growth in the fourth quarter and even next year. Therefore, this logic is more suitable for B2B companies to choose themselves. Assembly time.
In addition to the event-organized Timing, whether your company should be a brand-level event in the moment is still a topic that requires pre-thinking. First of all, you still have to look at the growth stage of the company. According to the “Key Capabilities of Different Life Cycles of Enterprises” in [Gao Yan Strategic Marketing Studio], it is reasonable to say that when your company is in the run-up period, even After the spanning period, there will be a necessity and foundation for holding a brand event. why is it like this? Below we have a few metrics for decision making:
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Are there enough customers? Being a brand activity is to be popular, and the lack of popularity will make the brand name misplaced. If there is not a lot of base accumulation in the early stage, but you want to do activities to stimulate the submarines and get customers, it is better to do a small activity with clearer content and target positioning.
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Are the majority of customers on the service experience a complete lifecycle? Ensure that your customers have at least experienced a completed product verification lifecycle. When your customers have not used your product for one year, they will not be able to tell your product one or two. Customers will also hard to do.
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Is the product fully verified and can present a large iteration? After all, the product is the carrier of the enterprise service customer, a brand activity similar to the user conference, everyone must have a strong expectation for the new iteration of the product. If your product has a large iteration, you can publish it at the same time to meet the expectations of the participants.
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Does the benchmark customer have the basis and possibility for your platform? The event is still a way of presenting content, and one of the most impactful content for more customers is the case and best practices of benchmarking customers. Only with the accumulation of enough successful customers, can customers have a platform for you; at the same time, we must ensure the professionalism of this event.Value and added value can be enough to impress these customers and let them be willing to stand for you.
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Can the budget support this brand event? Although the money is not omnipotent, but the budget of several thousand dollars wants to do even a simple version of the “Yunqi Conference” is powerless. So if there is a big brand event in the year, the budget must be enough at the beginning of the year.
The above indicators determine that if you have not completed the MPF stage and have a certain scale of foundation, you should not consider such a big brand event for the time being. There are still many things.
2. Injecting souls into brand activities with content
The design, construction, creativity, and customer experience of an event are important, but the value of the content is the most important thing to ignore. The content of B2B companies is difficult to do, and the content of activities is even more difficult. As we said at the beginning, the end of the year is when the flowers bloom, but everyone is all about the “energy blue” of “technology”, even if the family is not directly competing, it will inevitably make everyone aesthetic. Fatigue.
A complete brand event begins with the brand keymessage that was developed at the beginning of the year. What are your main products and ideas this year? What is the “sound” that you want to pass to the market, a brand event must be the best support to strengthen this concept and sound. Focus on this information to make a theme, rather than leaving this subject independent. After all, all the communication and market activities are all tactical combinations under the guidance of a brand communication main line. Naturally, it should be “dissolved and not scattered”.
For example, take the user eco conference held in Beisen in 2017. This conference has a logo closely related to the mission of Beisen: iTalentU. Without explanation, everyone can get the meaning behind it, and empower the company through talents and talent management. But talent management is a management science. With the intergenerational changes of talents, the management methods will keep pace with the times.
And at the beginning of 2017, through in-depth analysis of internal and external, we set the brand key-message of the year to be “agile talent management.” Therefore, not only the year-round marketing activities and brand communication are carried out around this core information, but also the creative extension and theme interpretation of “Agile Talent Management” in the two most important brand activities. The theme of the user conference was “ Agile talent management, create reality with ideals.”
When the core content of the normal activities was designed, we organized the following dimensions according to the content of the content marketing that we summarized:
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Industry frontier trends
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Methodological Research
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Solutions
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Customer Success Practice
In the morning, please ask the CEO to share internal and external technology trends with external experts, and invite internal technical experts to conduct on-site technical demonstrations to demonstrate the company’s technical strength. There is a key point here. Many companies are now using external experts to support the scene. This is very important, but as an independent brand activity, there must be enough weight in the internal content to become the annual icon of the conference, just like our current year. The talent management maturity analysis report released, otherwise it will become a conference for “experts” to marry clothes.
In the design of the afternoon field, we set up three sub-venues for agile acquisition, agile identification and agile management talents. In each sub-site, we invited internal experts and external customers to carry out methodologies, solutions and targeted Sexual case sharing. As the content of the venue was more focused and deeper, the number of participants in the afternoon did not fall, and the total number of participants increased by 20% compared with the morning keynote field.
The number of participants in the venue, plus several temporary seats on both sides and rear row
Unfortunately, the revision of the official website of Beisen, the previous mini-station of the event can not be browsed, so we will present some public photos that were posted to the circle of friends at that time (the sensitive information related to the old club must be protected). And for such an event, we only spent half of the budget of the same industry, but it did a good job. If you really want to sum up why, it is that the soul of the content holds up enough value points.
A combination of film and professional, a fun and professional countdown poster
Besides the event site, we also planned online communication on different topics in the middle and late stages of the event:
For example, in the early stage, the professional theme of the conference was more professionally defined and explained. Mr. Gao Yan personally wrote the main manuscript of “Agile Talent Management”, which was published in the Harvard Business Review and was pre-prepared on different channels. Hot;
In the middle of the event, we focused on the methodology of different venues, and produced professional content from multiple aspects such as talent identification, talent recruitment, and talent management, and added activities after each content output. Participated in the CTA; at the same time cooperated with the media large, full-scale, omni-channel coverage;
In the later stage of the activity, we started with the word “making” and carried out different forms of creative output, highlighting the scientific and professional attributes of the event.
Finally, this event not only brought a good spread of voice, but also quickly promoted the signing of some major customers, which played a key role in the company’s business transactions.
After the event, many customers conveyed their voices to us and thought that they had learned a great content through this event. Some customers have already made an appointment to share the platform for the next year. This is actually the role of valuable content. Imagine if this activity is a process without souls, and there is no value for the customer. So let’s not mention the promotion of the business, even the invitation of the on-site customers, it may be a very laborious thing.
3. Invisible internal collaboration
The outside can see the “prosperity” of the event site, but we can’t see what we did in the back of the company for the achievement of this matter.
In fact, during the preparation period of the whole event, it is necessary to plan the overall rhythm of the event. For example, in the preparatory period, what are the most critical links, who is more suitable to solve, what kind of strength the boss needs to contribute; how the internal experts need to cooperate, etc., all need to be planned in advance.
For example, when is the customer invitation, when is it appropriate to start the invitation? Is the invitation of the old customer to be invited by the sales, or is it invited by the customer success manager? What is the difference between the guest speakers and the guests invited? How to communicate the speeches of the speakers? This is all about internal collaboration.
So in the early stage, we should do a good job of division, take every situation into consideration, think about solutions for each situation, and then make invitations for customers, and make different versions of the invitation tools and words to sell. In the speech, the theme of the conference, the agenda, the travel of the foreign clients and the hotel arrangements must be carefully listed.
There are a lot of internal collaborations.Things need to be solved, such as how the content of the boss at the main venue is done? How do the content of each expert on the venue work together? If the customer does not come, I need to ask which boss to assist, etc., which are very fine but important things.
And such a series of complicated and trivial collaborations can be smoothly advanced, and it is especially important to conduct in-depth internalmarketing for all relevant internal partners. After all, there are more things to do, and we must be united. Only when people are cognizant can they act in unison.
4. Sense of Martech Tools Support
“If you want to do something good, you must first sharpen it.” In addition to human collaboration, a good experience can’t be supported by systems and tools.
Independent event management system or a more comprehensive marketing automation system can help us more easily implement EDM and SMS group sending, send participants information to participants on fixed nodes; on-site check-in tools, whether it is Face recognition or QR code scanning, to ensure that you can quickly check in without staying; if there is a substantial large-screen interaction on the spot (we were at the time of a site to do the interactive interaction of professional questions), it will be better enriched Participants’ sense of participation.
Today, Martech tools have more and more choices, but all technologies are likely to fail, so the use of these tools must be pre-tested on-site and concurrent on the network before the customer actually starts signing up. Stress test. Of course, along the process, the most important thing is that the information that is registered for participation is our potential customer resources. If there are MA tools, we can better cultivate these resources afterwards, thus bringing the company Real value of the customer.
5.icon-style event experience
The experience is made up of countless details, one sentence, one text message, one consultation, one sharing theme, one opening video, one handy gift, one take-away professional content… every place There may be dissatisfaction, but every place may bring unexpected value. The experience that truly reflects the brand is different. The foundation is to satisfy everyone’s expectations. Of course, the higher is to surpass everyone’s expectations, and there is not much need to go beyond it. Focus on a key experience.
Take the event in 2017 as an example. In order to meet the details of the service that everyone expects, we have made detailed arrangements and strived to implement it. For example, before the event, sending the address and time of the meeting to the participants, and sending the weather, traffic routes, and surrounding food information to the other party at the same time, can save him a lot of time; at the meeting site, Design a very intimate animation map of the exhibition, telling the other party what kind of route to visit, is the most efficient and fun line, and will also get a very good evaluation; after the event, you can quickly send the summary of the activity and the letter of thanks to Participants, believe inThe party will definitely be added to the fire by the activity.
And in the experience of wanting to surpass everyone’s expectations, we have another focus on strengthening the experience of the venue. In the same year, the contextual design of each venue was based on the content theme:
The head design of the “Agile Management Talent” session
Hogworth’s breakout, tomorrow’s edge and Pandora’s branch, each film has an organic link to the theme of the breakout, and the corresponding three-themed mugs have been created. We have to “worried” to admit that the diversified hand-to-hand ceremony and the way we send the hand-to-hand ceremony have played a small role in retaining the participants.
In addition to the above 5 points, before organizing the conference, you must first locate what your company’s tonality is. It is a fun and lively profession, or a rigorous profession. You can show it through this event.
As the saying goes, the details are the devil, but if you do the opposite, the details can be angels.
After finishing this, you may find that it is not an easy task to do branding activities. Alibaba’s Yunqi Conference has been polished for many years, and now it has its initial scale, and it is still being explored continuously. And evolution. So don’t be discouraged, sink your heart and pay attention to the polishing of every detail, and time will witness our growth.
Note: The ideas and cases in the above pictures are from 2017. They are only used as a supplement to the case. In the past two years, many things can be changed, such as specific creative methods, so please be cautious.
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