Events have long been a cornerstone of professional services marketing, and firms are often generous in allowing third parties to use that event space. But, asks Nick Misquitta, do they really bring any lasting value?
The value of venue space has never been higher. In-person events once again outnumber webinars just as many firms are reducing their office space. Requests to host events will continue to rise but capacity to accommodate these may reduce.
How do professional services firms analyse the marketing benefits of hosting third-party events at their offices? What are the objectives behind hosting these events and how do firms measure success? Firms should first examine the cost-benefit analysis of offering office space to third parties.
Analysis – Strategy – Tactics
Hosting an event for a client, charity or a trade association is a marketing tactic. Just like sponsoring an award, creating a piece of thought leadership or asking a client for a testimonial. However, not all tactics are created equal. Different tactics aim to achieve different objectives. And different objectives are targeted at different stages of the marketing funnel (or client journey).
So, when you’re considering a request to host a third-party event, you should ask yourself a few simple questions:
1. Which specific objective(s) is this aiming to achieve?
2. Are there alternative tactics that achieve this objective more efficiently?
3. What more will we need to do to move attendees down the funnel towards instruction (and reinstruction)?
Revisiting the basic marketing funnel will help.
You could have a funnel for your firm or a particular service line, for example, employment law. Is a target client aware of your employment team? Have their decision-makers shown an interest in your team? Do they, for example, attend your events or do they read your direct marketing? Have they shown a desire to work with you? Have they, for example, met with you or invited you to pitch? Are they already a client or a repeat client?
The diagram opposite (The marketing funnel) shows how activity moves from brand-building to client acquisition. And on the right, it reminds us that despite everything we communicate, we know from research that only around 5% of a market segment will be ‘in-market’ to instruct at any given time. Most will not be in-market this month, this quarter or even this year.
All things being equal (which they never are)
We’ve all been guilty of looking at the cost of a tactic rather than the benefit of it. Things fly under the radar if there is only a small cost involved: the inexpensive magazine advert, the bronze-level conference sponsorship, or the in-house breakfast event.
But even if the costs are equal, the benefits may be completely different. That’s why you need objectives for each stage of your marketing funnel. That way you can evaluate opportunities objectively and make decisions based on achieving objectives rather than on whether there is little cost in doing them. And that objective shouldn’t be to nab the opportunity before a competitor does.
The table opposite looks at three very different third-party events you could host.
Don’t confuse brand awareness for brand-building
Getting people who don’t know you into your office can be good for brand awareness: it literally gives them awareness of your brand and nobody will buy your services if they haven’t heard of you. However, there is no guarantee that it will create any interest in your brand or services, particularly if nobody from your firm has a speaking slot (and a one-minute ‘Welcome to our offices, we’re pleased to have you…’ does not count).
There is also a difference between brand awareness and brand-building. Brand awareness is someone being able to recall the name of your law firm when asked to name a UK law firm. Brand-building is influencing future buyers of legal services to think of your firm in a buying situation. This requires frequent repetition of consistently distinctive communications. Being in your offices once does not achieve this.
Anyone who comes into your office for a third-party event will need various other touchpoints to move them down the funnel towards instruction – they won’t get there alone.
Post-event, attendees will need to be educated as to the services you provide and the experts you have through, for example, thought leadership or further events. Once they know you have expertise, how will they know you’re different to your competitors? Will you have access to delegate data? That’s unlikely unless they consented to this at the point they registered for the event. Without the means to follow up with them, the majority will be lost the moment they exit your office.
Making a third-party event a success
A few things that could help include:
• Ensure the privacy wording of the third party’s invite gives consent for delegate data to be shared with and used by your firm for marketing purposes.
• Secure a meaningful speaking opportunity and get your experts there to network with the delegates.
• Give the delegates a reason to continue to associate that event with your firm (e.g. branded takeaways and post-event social media).
In-market or out-of-market?
You can’t persuade someone to buy a service they don’t need. If you accept that hosting a third-party event is primarily about brand-building and not client acquisition then you should also consider the alternatives to achieving that brand-building objective. Because if you want your brand to come to mind when someone has a particular need, you should have created a long-lasting memory before someone has entered the market. Will hosting a third-party event create the kind of strong memories and associations with your brand that are required?
I would suggest you should go back to the objective you’re trying to achieve and consider whether this is the best tactic to achieve that. If not, consider your other options. You have plenty of them.
Nick Misquitta is a Senior Business Development Manager at CMS UK.
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