Question: How do you get 80 interested people into one room and translate nine of them directly into clients?
Answer: According to Neil Driver, a partner at accountants Davis Grant, the answer is a social media lead generation campaign on LinkedIn.
The Objective:
Davis Grant wanted to leverage their presence in the growing online business sector and decided that the way forward was to target a new audience outside of their existing client base and invite them to an event where they could showcase their specialist blend of accountancy and tax products.
Says Neil: “We wanted to push ourselves into that Shoreditch bubble of the tech industry and attract a younger generation of potential client – people who are already engaged in the use of social media.
Social Media Tactic
They chose to work with Glenn Watkins, CEO of inVenturez, who specialise in email marketing and lead generation using social media. Glenn is also Chairman of Academy Groups 88 and 08.
Glenn advised Davis Grant on how to use LinkedIn to target and engage with specific people that they wanted to attract to the event through value-led messaging, and how to follow-through on this activity to ensure that they registered to attend. The Event Bright system, which automates reminders, was used to manage the registration and follow-up activity.
The campaign was aimed at entrepreneurs and owner-founders of web-based businesses across business sectors who were already likely to be users of social media. A key part of the campaign was an investment made in running a sociable evening event at a fashionable Shoreditch location on the practical issues of online businesses and tax planning, with a roster of high-profile speakers including Shak Khan and Frank Meehan. The idea was to make a resonance match between the subject matter and the ideal client prospect.
Says Neil: “Glenn took us through how to use LinkedIn to target the people we wanted at the event and how to engage with them. Then it was question of sending out invites to the people we wanted. The grunt work was to get them to register – Event Bright handled the rest. And as a follow-up, we sent video snippets taken on the day.”
Key Learning Points
- Critical to the success of the campaign was a value-based interaction to engage the people we were reaching out to, targeting the appropriate people with a social message (not a sales message!)
- An event has its own timeline and there are critical tasks to be achieved within a limited time-frame. Ensure that the necessary additional resources are allocated. A graduate intern helped populate the seminar.
- Don’t forget to ensure that all the traditional marketing material is impeccable, from the wording of the invitation through to a great venue and effective networking with prospects on the day.
- Consider working with an external project manager/social media expert who already understands the potential challenges at each phase of the campaign.
- Focus is key to any social media lead generation campaign. You have to be focused about who you are targeting and how much time is to be allocated.
- You need to allocate sufficient time after the event for proper follow-up calls and visits
- Value is enhanced with quality marketing messages after the event and a separate follow-up process for those who registered but didn’t attend.
“The campaign was a huge success and we are delighted to have generated nine new clients from the seminar,” Neil said. “However, we were slightly underprepared in terms of the follow-up required for the high level of interest we received. The people resources have to be in place if you are to fully optimise the investment. We had to do a lot of follow-through within a short period of time and in a similar situation I would allocate more people to this.”
Learn more about Glenn Watkins at:
linkedin.com/in/glenndwatkins and Academy88.com