Marketing and sales teams have an interesting relationship. Marketing activities are essential for the sales team to access an ongoing pipeline of leads and prospects. Many marketing campaigns are designed to help salespeople move opportunities through the sales process. However, the working relationship between marketing and sales teams can turn tricky at times if there is a lack of communication or transparency between teams.

‍

One way that event marketing teams can provide value to sales teams is through data. Events are more than just a chance for sales teams to attend a conference for free. They provide unparalleled access to what customers and prospects are looking for, what they’re interested in, and how they want to engage with vendors.

Here are a few ways your sales team can capitalize on event marketing data:

Registration + attendee data:

Let’s say your team is looking to attend a conference where salespeople connect with new prospects and leads. Before the event begins, your sales team should connect with your event marketing team to get the download on who plans on attending. What are their job titles, their companies, etc.? After the event, this same sort of debriefing should occur to discuss who attended the event. This can help salespeople learn more about their prospective audiences and plan their outreach more effectively.‍

‍

Virtual event engagement timestamps:

‍As virtual events have become so critical over the past year, many event managers have been able to do some pretty cool things with the technology available to them. One of these digital innovations is engagement timestamps, which can show you when an attendee logs in or leaves a virtual event. Sharing information around when a prospect logs in to a virtual event or, more importantly, when they leave, it can help salespeople identify areas of your business that could provide the most value to prospects.‍

‍

In-person event networking information:

‍One reason in-person events are so valuable to sales teams is that they give salespeople a chance to connect with and engage prospects in a casual, face-to-face capacity to develop deeper relationships. Of course, one of the drawbacks of in-person events is that salespeople can’t spend the same amount of time talking to everyone. This is where marketing teams can come in. By tracking networking event attendance, sign-ins, questions, and other details, marketing teams can give salespeople inside information to move deals forward.‍

‍

Prospect grading input:

‍Most sales teams ‘grade’ their prospects and leads based on the available opportunity or revenue potential. As event marketers often work diligently with many of these leads across multiple events for (sometimes) months before turning into outright opportunities, they are the perfect team to help build out and fill in these grading profiles. 

With Circa, event marketers can deliver sales teams the highest caliber leads possible through data. You can learn more about how Circa can help your event marketing team reach the next level here.