Bridge2Growth
Using Social Media to Drive Traffic to a Business-to-Business Event
Bridge2Growth is a unique public-private partnership program designed to help North American companies establish businesses in the United Kingdom. The program provides company registration, creates banking relationships, finds office space and does market research support in the UK, all for free. Bridge2Growth periodically conducts business briefings to educate North American companies, to encourage them to make site-selection visits to the UK. These events are vital to the company’s ability to relay its message and enhance use of its services.
“Tuvel did an awesome job not only in getting people registered, but getting the word out. Their reach to the Internet world is really remarkable.”
— Mary Rabatin: Vice President, British Midlands
Goals
Bridge2Growth wished to identify and drive attendees to a June 2008 event in Chicago, Illinois—a business briefing. There is a long sales cycle, so Bridge2Growth asked Tuvel to begin to develop relationships with key Midwest business contacts that could be used for future follow-ups. The campaign also aimed to create awareness in the site selection market for the Bridge2Growth product.
Strategy
Tuvel aimed to put a seamless communications process and messaging in place that incorporated a phone, e-mail, website and registration system. The campaign was designed to use an integrated marketing approach that included “snail mail” and telemarketing efforts. In addition, Tuvel planned to create social networking communities that offered value and a focus on business topics, rather than the client event, as a long-term element of the strategy. The social networking element of the campaign would leverage influential bloggers and others to whom prospects listen to spread the word about Bridge2Growth’s event and services.
Tactics
Tuvel created a website, online registration system and database for this event. Outreach efforts drove traffic to the website, where prospects registered for the business briefing or requested additional information. Tuvel qualified prospects based on contact, type of company and how they had heard about the event.
The system used both plain-text and more elaborate HTML e-mails, for maximum deliverability to the greatest possible numbers of contacts. Tuvel’s outreach efforts included 1,000 groups and individuals in the manufacturing, financial services, and information and communication technology sectors, targeting only those groups with a reach into the Chicago small to mid-size enterprise (SME) market.
Tuvel marketed the Bridge2Growth message through social networking groups such as flickr, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Ning, LinkedIn, Meetup, Bloglines and document-sharing services, as well as tagging services such as delicious and StumbleUpon. Marketing channels included newsletters, websites, user groups, associations, syndicated calendars, bloggers, e-mail lists, online communities and individuals. Tuvel also monitored Internet conversations to uncover and spread the message to additional marketing opportunities.
Results
Tuvel was responsible for delivering 50% of the traffic to the business briefing at less than half the cost of more traditional marketing methods.
The target event was the client’s best-attended North American briefing to date: over 65% of those who registered on the website attended the event. Seen from another perspective, the event benefited from the organization’s highest-ever
percentage/ratio of registrants to actual attendees.
The campaign created potentially long-lasting relationships for future networking and lead-generation efforts. The campaign also created product awareness—prospect companies were familiar with the client’s services or product as telemarketing efforts commenced.
Achieving similar success
For information on how you can put a Tuvel Communications program to work for your company, organization, product, service or event, please contact us.