How to win bigger clients (free guide & webinar)

We’re excited to announce that our brand new whitepaper is now available! This one was a labour of love…

Across 30 pages you can expect no-nonsense, proven formulas for filling your pipeline without the need for big advertising budgets, technical knowledge or AI wizardry.

By reading the guide, you will discover the tactics we use to consistently generate enterprise level leads, and learn how we secured a fledgling mortgage broker 15,000 new subscribers and a healthy pipeline three months from launch.

This guide will be an indispensable aid to any B2B or professional services companies that are looking to level up their marketing.

Download it here.

 

Too long, can’t be bothered to read?


Fair enough, not everyone’s an avid reader.

For those that don’t enjoy settling in to read the wise, wise words of Twenty One Twelve, but still need to improve their marketing plan, you might enjoy our forthcoming webinar.

Taking place on the 8th of June, you can join Twenty One Twelve’s founder, Henry McIntosh, to discover how you can win bigger clients and generate more business for your company.

Sign up here!

How to Use Events as Part of Your Lead Generation Strategy

 
If you’re a small business owner, you’ve probably considered running an event at some point. You might even have run events. Whether it was a big launch event or an intimate gathering, did it drive the results you wanted?
 
Events are a powerful lead generation tool which, when used effectively, can help educate prospects and move them further down your pipeline. This is especially true if your product or service is high-ticket, with a longer sales cycle.
 
For a high-ticket company, trust is everything. Seeing your service, your ideas or your product in person can be the difference between converting the prospect or losing them. The old adage holds true – seeing is believing.
 
Despite all this, few people run effective events or any events at all for that matter. It’s sometimes due to a fear that ‘nobody will turn up’ and sometimes due to a lack of understanding of how to run a successful event.
 
Below we explore how events can be the focal point of a wider marketing campaign, offer ideas on filling your event with the right audience, share real-life examples of successful B2B events, and discuss post-event strategies to drive leads.

 

Pre-event Marketing

 

Integrating Events into Your Marketing Campaign

 
Events should not be viewed as standalone marketing initiatives but rather as an integral part of a broader marketing campaign. This can be achieved by:
 
Creating a strong pre-event marketing strategy:
 
Too many companies take for granted how hard it is to:

Get sign ups to an event
Ensure sign ups actually attend on the day
 
In our experience, events which are free to attend will suffer an average dropout rate of 50%. That’s 50% of all the people who sign up, won’t actually attend. It also means you need double the number of people to sign up, than you actually want to attend your event.
 
So your marketing strategy pre-event is absolutely critical – is it designed to reach enough people? Does it engage them enough to ensure they attend?
 
There are a number of pre-event marketing activities that can ensure you gain enough sign ups and guarantee more attendees on the day:
 

Create a compelling event structure and title

 
No matter what business you’re in, there’s no reason for your event to be boring – the worst thing it can be is vanilla, so make sure it packs a punch. Create an event you would actually want to attend.
 
Some events are naturally easy to promote, such as our event for Lick Me I’m Delicious. A superb and wacky brand with an amazing service, we played on the outrageous branding and called that particular event ‘Lick Me Live’ – which the client loved.
 
But even if your business isn’t the sexiest, there’s no excuse. You can still create a compelling event.
 
Take our launch party for FOMO Mortgages, as an example. By collaborating with local brands, including a gin distillery, boat charter company and a live music agency we created a truly memorable and social media friendly launch party, while raising thousands for charity.
 

Donate to attend

 
If you don’t want to charge for a ticket consider asking sign ups to donate whatever they want to attend the event.
 
This serves a dual purpose, it gives them an emotional reason to attend and it makes you look good by raising money for charity.
 
You can even ask the charity to support the marketing of the event and prospects will be much more willing to donate than to pay for a ticket which lines your pockets. As mentioned above, we raised nearly £3000 for Henley-on-Thames charity, The Riverside Counselling Service, by asking for a donation to attend the launch of FOMO Mortgages.

 

Create a robust outreach campaign

 
In general, we would recommend outreaching to a minimum of 15x the amount of people you need to sign up or 30x the number of people you want to attend your event.
 
Your quickest sign ups will come from the data you already have – newsletter subscribers, LinkedIn connections, social media followers and your website traffic. So create a solid content and communications plan to outreach to these individuals. That might include some educational content surrounding your event, with a link to sign up as well as the benefits to them specifically if they attend.
 
Plan this content in advance, so when you launch your campaign, it’s completely coherent and you have enough activity to grab people’s attention and drive them to sign up.
 
Then, you need to focus on acquiring people who have never heard of you. Events are a great introduction to your brand, especially if it’s fun or highly relevant to the individuals you’re outreaching too.
 
Some of our favourite cold outreach tactics include highly personalised cold email outreach, LinkedIn outreach and advertising campaigns and collaborations with complementary brands, individuals and charities who can spread the word on your behalf.

 

Bring in partners

 
Who has access to your ideal target market? Can you partner with them on the event?
 
The benefit of this is that your business is exposed to completely new but relevant audiences through a trusted medium i.e. you’re not having to outreach to them completely cold.
 
For example, if you’re a wealth management firm you might partner with an accountancy firm to help educate each other’s audience on your respective disciplines. You can also share the cost of the event itself, making this a very smart play.
 
You might also consider working with a guest speaker who is revered by your target market. We helped put hundreds of people into webinars with Henley-on-Thames based business coach, Mark Van Rol, by partnering him with UK Sales Trainer of the Year and best-selling author Andy Bounds.
 
By using a guest speaker and getting Andy to promote the webinars, Mark positioned himself as a trusted authority within the business coaching space and reached thousands of highly relevant new individuals.
 
Finally, you might also consider partnering with complementary brands which can add some pizzazz to your event! Sometimes, brands will be willing to help if you are raising money for a cause that is close to their own purpose, such as Hobbs and Eight Ray Music supporting FOMO Mortgages on a complimentary basis. They may also help if you share a target market and you can guarantee you will put their brand in-front of the right people.
 

*Something to consider!

 
How are you qualifying prospects? If your event is more intimate in numbers, you don’t want the wrong people in the room. In fact, you don’t want the wrong people in the room full stop. So it’s important to consider how you will qualify sign ups to ensure they are target market. This can be done by asking them to ‘apply to attend’ by filling in a simple form. While this adds ‘friction’ to the process, it ensures you get the right people in the room.

 

In-Event Considerations

 
You also need to consider how to structure your event to ensure a great guest experience, things to consider include:
 
Are you using a videographer/photographer to capture the event to help with your marketing? If so, are they well briefed on what you require content-wise? The content produced in-event can be a truly powerful asset to be used in your marketing going forward.
 
Are you offering food and drink? If so, does it complement your product or service? If your event is for high-net-worth individuals, don’t feed them crap food and Lambrini…
 
How do you intend to keep people engaged? Are the speeches too long, do you have a charity raffle or interactive games that can keep guests entertained and in the room. If you can have touchpoints which encourage people to share the event on social media that’s also a bonus.
 
How do you plan to ‘work the room’? A huge skill is the ability to ensure you meet as many guests as possible and interact with them. It’s worth planning this with your team to ensure you aren’t stuck talking to people for too long and that you have someone who is able to introduce you to new people.

 

Post-Event Strategy to Drive Leads

 
The work doesn’t end when your event is over.
 
An effective post-event strategy is essential for driving leads and building relationships with potential clients. Here’s how you can achieve this:
 
a. Survey attendees
 
Ask them what they liked, didn’t like, what they would like to see next time and whether they would like a call to discuss your product or service. Keep the survey short, four questions is enough. This is a non-intrusive way to generate leads and get invaluable insight into your target audience.

Bonus: you can also ask for their view on a certain subject, which can provide you with qualitative data on a key topic. You can use this data to create original, thought-leadership content. We did exactly this for Twenty One Twelve client, ProfitAbility. We used the data collected to create a whitepaper that is used as a lead magnet to generate enterprise level leads.


b. Personalised follow-ups

Email or call attendees personally. It’s no problem to send a generic newsletter with some nice imagery or a link to the video from the event, but reach out to key targets individually too. This can often drive insight, advice and referrals that a survey or generic email won’t provide.


*What about non-attendees?

For sign ups who didn’t attend but still signed up, send a simple ‘sorry you couldn’t make it, how about a call or a coffee?’ These individuals are still interested,but maybe something cropped up which meant they couldn’t attend – do not ignore them.

c. Share event content

Share videos, images, and testimonials from the event on your social media channels, website, and email campaigns to extend your reach and maintain momentum. Make it crystal clear that attendees and partners are welcome to use the imagery or video across their channels too – this just serves to increase your reach!


d. Nurture relationships

Don’t stop nurturing attendees. Long after the event continue to engage with attendees through targeted email campaigns, offering them valuable content, exclusive offers, and updates on your products or services. This helps to build trust and keep your brand top-of-mind for potential clients. Remember, timing is crucial in B2B and professional services, so stay front of mind and eventually you will convert a decent percentage of your audience.


e. Evaluate the event

Analyse the success of your event by measuring key performance indicators such as the number of attendees, leads generated, and social media engagement. Use this information to refine your strategy for future events.

 

What now?

 
Events can play a pivotal role in your lead generation strategy, providing opportunities to engage with potential clients, showcase your offerings, and establish your brand as a leader in your industry. By integrating events into your broader marketing campaign, targeting the right audience, learning from successful B2B event examples, and implementing a robust post-event strategy, you can maximise the impact of your events and drive leads for your business.

With proper planning, creativity, and a focus on delivering value to attendees, events can serve as a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. Whether you’re launching a new product, building brand awareness, or simply looking to connect with potential clients, consider incorporating events into your lead generation strategy to reap the benefits of increased engagement and tangible business results.


Want to explore running your own event? Get in touch with us by emailing info@2112.marketing

Does your business have to be purpose-driven?

It might be controversial but our purpose at Twenty One Twelve is to help our clients grow and make more profit. In the process, we intend to create a profitable business ourselves. 

Why’s that controversial?

Because people are increasingly concerned with the sustainability and provenance surrounding what they buy and who they buy it from. That’s supposedly more true for younger consumers,  which makes complete sense. As consumers ourselves, the team here at Twenty One Twelve is careful in their choices.

 

“Consumers between the ages of 17 – 38 are almost twice as likely to consider ESG issues when making purchasing decisions than consumers over 38 years old.” (PWC)

 

This trend isn’t just important within the B2C space, increasingly B2B brands need to prove their ESG credentials:

 

    1. According to a 2020 study by Gartner, 75% of organisations are planning to include ESG criteria in their procurement process by 2024, up from less than 25% in 2020. 
    2. A 2021 survey by EY found that 98% of institutional investors consider non-financial performance, including ESG factors, when evaluating investment opportunities in B2B companies. 
    3. A 2019 global survey conducted by ING revealed that 61% of businesses said they would lose competitive advantage if they didn’t adopt sustainable practices, including ESG-related initiatives.

 

But let’s not confuse being a purpose-driven brand, like Patagonia, with being a good brand which follows solid and ethical practices and principles. The two aren’t the same.

And the idea that every business needs to be purpose-driven doesn’t quite sit right with us. Simply jumping on a bandwagon to make yourselves look virtuous doesn’t make sense. It feels disingenuous. 

We’re big believers that if we’re profitable, it makes it easier for us to deliver wins for our clients, partners, suppliers, the Twenty One Twelve team and the charities we support.

For example, our team likes to get involved in a myriad of charity initiatives. From raising money by running half marathons to being a core part of the team behind Henley Lockdown Fest – a virtual festival during lockdown which raised over £25,000 for the NHS and the Henley-on-Thames based-charity, The Riverside Counselling Trust.

We also advise our clients in this regard. From a selfish point of view, it gives them the edge over their competitors – would you choose the brand that donates to charity or the one that pockets all the profits? It also makes our clients feel good about themselves but they don’t consider themselves purpose-driven.

Consumers don’t want purpose constantly shoved in their face. Too much virtue signalling, bandwagon jumping or high horsing, makes you look disingenuous. People mainly want to know the brand is well and sustainably operated and, if it gives back then that’s a bonus.

For Twenty One Twelve client FOMO mortgages, we added a philanthropic element to the brand to mirror the values of its founder and to endear it to consumers. If you remortgage through FOMO for example, a donation will be made to Ecologi to help offset your carbon footprint.

At this point, the ESG agenda and greenwashing are too well known to fool an informed audience. But, if you can be more authentic in your approach to your company’s purpose, a focus on ESG goals can still be a powerful tool. 

Of course, the success of this tactic depends on your audience, which is worth considering when you’re thinking about designing a purpose around your brand.

If you do go down this route, stick to it rigidly and be prepared – this point of difference will cost you money.

 

“A true brand purpose doesn’t boost profit, it sacrifices it” – Mark Ritson

 

And that’s the truth of the matter, if you’re not prepared to sacrifice profit by staying true to your purpose, it’s not a purpose at all.

Get in touch with us if you’re scoping out your brand strategy.

How to find a name for your fledgling business

A lot of people would suggest it’s not overly important. But I would argue you still need to consider:

  1. What first springs to mind when you hear it?
  2. How easy is it to say and remember?
  3. What does it actually mean?
  4. Can you build brand consistency around it?
  5. Is it unique within your space?
     

It’s also important to be aware of any negative connotations it may hold.

Like when Coors Beer translated it’s slogan ‘turn it loose’ into Spanish, where it’s a colloquial term for diarrhoea. 

Or when Mercedes-Benz entered the Chinese market under the brand name “Bensi,” which means “rush to die.”

Now you may not be planning global domination but a new brand’s name is worth considering.
 

Creating a new brand

Our own name, Twenty One Twelve, is long and hard to remember. 

But it’s got a good story behind it, so we like it.

It’s a name that still bemuses people, is it inspired by a Canadian rock band from the seventies or the world-famous Henley Royal Regatta? Find out in this blog…

Would we choose it again? Probably, because meaningful names are few and far between.

For example, when considering a brand name for one of our client’s new ventures recently we went through it all:

  • Latin terms
  • Greek Mythology
  • Foreign language terms
  • Fusing serendipitous words to create new meanings
     

We then had to check that:

  • The domains were available (yes .com is important)
  • It wasn’t too similar to a competitor’s name
  • There were no negative connotations or meanings we had missed
  • It sounded good and was a little bit clever too

But don’t settle.

A brand needs a voice. The worst thing it can be is vanilla. 

Your name can be leveraged across your entire brand messaging.

Take our client FOMO Mortgages for example. FOMO or fear of missing out, is a name that we play on constantly with the company’s messaging –

 

Don’t miss out on the best mortgage deal

Don’t regret not protecting your family

 

These are rudimentary examples but they go to show that there’s a lot in a name, choose wisely.

And if you need help – reach out to us by emailing info@2112.marketing.

Why did we call our agency Twenty One Twelve, way back in 2016?

A lot of people I meet are intrigued by the company’s name, Twenty One Twelve. Some assume I’m a massive fan of 70’s Canadian rock band, Rush – who released an album by the same name in 1976. But most are a bit bemused by it, it’s long and quite difficult to remember – so why on earth would a marketing agency choose it? Shouldn’t we be called something ultra modern and cool?

Twenty One Twelve Marketing was born in Henley-on-Thames way back in 2016. I had just won a UK Blog Award with the web design wizards over at Ri Web and the copywriting briefs were piling up. It was time to make the move from freelancer to agency and this humble start-up needed a name.

One thing all marketers know is the power of storytelling. The problem was, I didn’t have an exciting rags to riches saga. I’d never gone from a market stall to multi-millionaire ala Lord Sugar or leapt from welfare to riches like most internet entrepreneurs claim to have done. Instead, I was from the sleepy town of Henley-on-Thames.

When we first started Twenty One Twelve we solely focused on digital marketing for luxury brands. We’re more diverse now – offering services to B2B and professional services companies. But when the focus was luxury, Henley was a very useful place to be based and the town’s world-renowned regatta provided the perfect inspiration for the birth of a brand.

If you’ve never been to Henley Regatta, it’s worth a visit. The creme de la creme of rowers compete and both banks of the Thames are filled with bars and restaurants, including the ultimate hospitality experience that is The Hidden Garden. 

Completing the regatta course is quite a feat, or so I’m told. It’s long and choppy. So much so that Olympians won’t come to Henley during an Olympic year, because it’s bad practice for racing on the man-made Olympic courses that are shorter and calmer. 

The course length?

2112 metres. And so the name was born, Twenty One Twelve. Thought up by our old Director, Ryan Irving, we felt it was a good representation of our newly minted brand. It takes dedication and determination to complete the course of Henley Regatta – The cox must be precise as they guide the boat across the choppy, winding course and rowers have to rise above the frenetic noise of the madding crowds to keep their tempo and cool.

And despite not having a single rower in the team, the virtues of the regatta course represented everything we wanted our agency to be – precision marketing designed to drive commercial results.

Now, in 2023, we’ve grown into our name and we feel we’re everything we set out to be.

Need marketing support or guidance? Feel free to email us on info@2112.marketing to set up a friendly, no-obligations call.