How personalized data supercharges your event customer journey

In today's competitive market, event businesses like yours need every advantage to attract and convert leads. One powerful (and oft-misunderstood) tool at your disposal? Data.

By leveraging data-driven insights, you can personalize your communication and tailor the customer journey for each lead, resulting in stronger relationships, higher engagement, and ultimately, more event bookings and business growth.

Here we’re diving into the power of personalization through data as a strategy to nurture your leads and empower your event business through:

• Data-driven segmentation
• Content personalization
• Tailoring the customer journey
• Leveraging marketing automation
• Building relationships
• Measuring personalization success

Data-driven segmentation: Beyond demographics

Today, it's crucial to segment your leads based on a rich tapestry of data points. Standard customer demographics like budget, event type, and aesthetic are a good starting point, but consider going deeper with modern data. Think about tracking things like website behavior and past interactions with your content to reveal valuable insights. Many content management systems (CMS) can provide you with data like that. 

Imagine creating segments for leads who:

• Downloaded your white paper on specific event ideas (e.g., wedding inspiration)
• Visited your page about virtual event solutions
• Belong to a particular industry (e.g., corporate events)

By tracking these segments, you can build a foundation for targeted email campaigns or ad groups that speak directly to the needs of specific leads and successfully convert them into bookings more quickly.

Content personalization: Speaking their language

With a clear understanding of your lead segments, you are armed with the skills to craft content that really resonates. Think about developing blog posts, email campaigns, and website content that address the specific pain points and interests of each lead segment (or at least your ideal segments).

Here’s how to take this a step further: dynamic lead magnets. 

You can offer downloadable resources like e-books or checklists that are tailored to individual leads based on where they interacted with your digital content. 

Before you decide if that sounds like too much work, hear us out.

 Imagine a lead who downloaded a white paper you created on current wedding trends (and of course, they were required to provide you their email address to receive the download). Next, you send them another freebie that compliments their interest in weddings, like a PDF with a variety of invitation design ideas. Then, they can be opted into an email campaign you’ve created to nurture wedding leads for your venue (complete with personalization tokens and invitations to schedule a call with you). And so on. Systems like Hubspot CMS Hub can help you execute a workflow with automations like this.

Creating valuable content that acts as a personalized magnet for your leads in this way provides nurturing that is well worth your while.

Tailoring the customer journey: A personalized experience

Every touchpoint you have with your leads is an opportunity to personalize their experience with you and your brand. Here are few ways to make that happen:

• Smart chatbots: Implement chatbots on your website or in your brand app with access to lead data. They can greet leads by name, answer specific questions, and guide them towards relevant content or resources that serve their interests and needs.
• Interactive content assessments: Develop interactive quizzes or assessments as a way to explore a lead's event needs without requiring your full time and attention. Based on their responses, you can recommend a personalized event package or service.
• Dynamic landing pages: Use a content management system (CMS) to personalize landing pages with visuals, testimonials, and case studies showcasing events relevant to a lead's industry or interests.

Leveraging marketing automation

Marketing automation tools allow you to automate personalized communication at scale. 

Here are a few ways you can apply marketing automation to your events business:

• Triggered email campaigns: Set up automated email sequences based on lead behavior.
  • Real-life example: Sending a follow-up email with a free consultation offer to a lead who downloaded a white paper on inspiration for a specific event type.
• Behavioral retargeting: Utilize retargeting campaigns to display targeted ads promoting services that align with a lead's past browsing activity.
  • Real-life example: If a lead browsed your virtual event packages, use ad technology to retarget them with ads offering a free virtual venue tour.
• Dynamic recommendations: Integrate recommendation engines on your website. These tools can suggest services or content based on a lead's behavior on your website that reflects their interests.
  • Real-life example: A lead who has looked at more than one page on your blog related to corporate events receives a pop-up message from a chatbot recommending your white paper on why private venues are a great option for company gatherings.

Building relationships beyond data

Though data is ultra-powerful in automated personalization these days, never forget that true personalization goes BEYOND data. It is always a worthwhile effort to ensure that each and every lead in your pipeline feels seen and heard on an individual level.

Here are a few ways to do this:

• Personalized video messages: Create short, personalized video messages welcoming individual leads, highlighting services relevant to their interests, or offering a custom consultation. You can make this process quick and easy by using screen capture tools to walk them through your package offerings with an added personal touch.
• Social listening/engagement: Leverage social media listening tools to identify potential leads that are interacting with your content and asking event-related questions. Engage them in personalized conversations on social platforms, demonstrating your expertise and building trust.
• Interactive demos / Vvirtual tours: Offer interactive demos or virtual tours of your venue to your leads. This allows them to explore the space with a personalized feel and reduces friction in your sales pipeline, showcasing your venue’s suitability for their specific event needs without requiring them to book an in-person appointment.

Measuring personalization success

To assess the effectiveness of your personalization efforts through data, you’ll need to track key metrics like these:

• Lead engagement metrics: Keep an eye on things like email open rates, click-through rates, and time spent on specific website pages. Content and email marketing management systems can help you with that. To get clear insight on the effects of personalization, analyze these metrics before and after you make changes to your strategy.
• Conversion rate optimization: Use your CMS to track how personalization impacts lead conversion rates, such as form submissions or event bookings. This helps measure the ROI (return on investment) of your efforts.
• Customer satisfaction surveys: You should be doing this regardless of whether you are personalizing your customer journey, but be sure to gather feedback through surveys to understand how personalized experiences resonated with your leads. This is crucial to identifying areas for improvement and continuously refining your approach to nurturing potential customers.

By using these strategies to leverage the power of data and tailoring your communications to resonate with individual leads, you can build stronger relationships, drive higher engagement, and ultimately, secure more event bookings and propel your business forward. So, go forth and personalize your event lead journey – your leads and your business will thank you for it!