The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) takes up all four halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center, plus the lobbies of hotels on the strip. Salesforce.com’s annual Dreamforce conference routinely attracts more than 100,000 users. Cisco Systems’ Cisco Live conference series arrives at several high-profile, around-the-world venues, typically drawing tens of thousands of customers. Whether it’s to introduce new product, promote new services, or educate customers and prospects, these companies make a huge investment in their event strategies.
But events aren’t just for the big guys with the big budgets. Managed services providers (MSP) and value-added resellers (VAR) can also leverage events to acquire prospects, extend their service offerings into existing client accounts, and educate customer staff to expose them to new technologies and trends, while positioning themselves as a trusted partner.
Webinars, small-scale trade shows, even open house facilities tours can all be effective marketing tools. In the Events Guide for MSPs and VARs, StorageCraft senior marketing content specialist Casey Morgan demonstrates how MSPs and VARs can leverage events to garner new prospects, deepen relationships with existing customers, and educate IT staff and the general public about trends and issues in the information technology landscape.
Events Guide for MSPs and VARs provides a step-by-step framework for developing the event that will provide the most return on investment for your organization.
- * Budget. How much money you can commit to an event will affect the type of event you can host, from a trade show at a convention center to an invitation-only webinar. The important thing is ROI—how many leads can you expect to garner? Will that offset the event cost? Goals are intrinsically tied to budget—they’re the “return” on the return-on-investment equation. Whether you’re trying to increase sales, find new clients or educate existing clients about other revenue-generating opportunities, understanding the dollar value is crucial to creating a realistic budget.
- * Target audience. The audience you’re trying to reaching will have an impact on the decision regarding what the most appropriate event might be. Current clients that you’re trying to promote new services to might be better served by one type of event as opposed to potential clients you’re trying to bring on board. If you’re aiming to educate the general public about trends and issues in technology, the type of event might be different from one aimed at the technical staff of existing clients.
- * Type of event. Having aligned your budget and target audience, there is no shortage of ways to reach them. Webinars, online Q&As, in-person events, lunch-and-learns, open houses … the list goes on, and Events Guide for MSPs and VARs outlines the pros and cons of each, and their appropriateness for reaching your target audience.
In addition, Events Guide for MSPs and VARs reviews how partnerships, sponsorships, StorageCraft marketing development funds (MDF) and promotion can make your event a success and provide ROI.
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Events Guide for MSPs and VARs
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