Engagement Studio Webinar: How to Plan & Build Event Programs

In a competitive world, mastering Salesforce Engagement Studio gives your marketing efforts a critical edge. Done right, you’re not just promoting an event - you’re nurturing relationships with leads, scoring valuable data, and maximising ROI from every step of the attendee journey. 

If you missed our recent Engagement Studio webinar, which focused on planning and building programs to support events, don’t worry. Here’s a recap of what we covered, with all the key points and you can hit play on the recording below to watch the webinar replay in full!

As I highlighted (with emphasis!), during the webinar, planning is crucial. 

Before you even think about setting up your Engagement Studio, you need to get your objectives clear. 

Ask yourself:

• What are you aiming to achieve? Is it increasing registrations? Ensuring higher attendance? Or maybe it’s converting attendees into customers post-event?

• Who are you targeting, and why are they attending? Tailoring your objectives to specific audience segments can ensure your messaging is relevant.

• How will you measure success? Without measurable goals, it’s difficult to track progress or understand how well your program is performing.

Being clear on these aspects means you’ll be in a stronger position to build a logical, focused Engagement Studio program that drives towards those outcomes.

And the beauty of Salesforce’s Engagement Studio is that you can map out each interaction step-by-step, ensuring that no opportunity to engage your audience is missed.

Here’s what to consider:

• Define the journey: This is about understanding how you want leads to move through the event cycle - from the first invitation to post-event follow-up. What touchpoints are needed, and what messages are most appropriate at each stage?

• Segment your audience: No two prospects are the same, and this is especially true for event marketing. One segment might be long-time subscribers who need a nudge to finally attend; another might be new leads who need an introduction to your brand. Segmentation ensures your messaging is tailored to different needs, and the results are more relevant and effective.

• Set measurable goals: Make sure that each element of your campaign is tied to a goal. For example, you might aim to increase registrations by 20% or ensure 50% of your attendees engage with post-event content.

Getting the planning right makes execution so much smoother and ensures you don’t waste time on tactics that won’t deliver.

In the webinar, we discuss the fact that accurate data is the cornerstone of any successful event program. 

This is where many marketers slip up. They skip the important step of refining their data lists before launching into the campaign. But here’s why it’s so important: if your data is a mess, you’re going to end up sending invites to the wrong people, or even worse, your emails might not be sent at all because of errors in your CRM data.

Here’s how to manage your data effectively:

• Segment your audience carefully: Look at factors like lead source, engagement history, and customer profile to create targeted lists. The more tailored your campaign is, the better.

• Use suppression lists: This ensures you don’t waste resources on irrelevant contacts (such as those who have already registered).

• Integrate data from different sources: Salesforce CRM data, web forms, third-party systems - all these data points can help to paint a clearer picture of your audience.

It’s worth spending the time on data management upfront to ensure you’re targeting the right people, with the right message.

With data in place, you can now start building your campaign assets. This includes everything from your email templates to landing pages and forms.

During the webinar, I walked attendees through setting up an Engagement Studio campaign that aligns with your event objectives. The focus here is on creating assets that look good and serve a purpose, whether it’s getting registrations or re-engaging leads who missed the event.

A few key pointers:

• Emails: Make sure your email content is relevant and aligns with your event’s goals. For example, early emails should focus on building excitement and encouraging registrations, while closer to the event, you might want to send reminders with key information.

• Landing pages: This is where attendees will register, so make sure the page is simple, clear, and user-friendly. Don’t overload them with information, just the essentials they need to know.

• Forms: Keep it brief! The longer the form, the more likely people are to drop off. Ask only for essential details, and make it as easy as possible to complete.

Mapping these assets ahead of time will make it easier to plug them into your Engagement Studio when the time comes.

One of the most powerful aspects of Engagement Studio is the ability to automate personalised email journeys. In the webinar, we explored how you can use automation to handle everything from promoting your event to following up with attendees afterward.

Here’s what to focus on:

• Personalisation: Automated doesn’t mean impersonal. Engagement Studio allows you to send personalised messages based on the recipient’s interaction with your emails. For example, you can automatically trigger a follow-up email to those who opened but didn’t register, or send special content to attendees who engaged with your post-event materials.

• Email cadence: Plan the timing of your emails carefully. Don’t bombard people with too many emails, but also don’t let them forget about your event. A few well-timed, targeted emails can make all the difference.

• Scoring: Use lead scoring adjustments to automatically assign scores based on demographics and engagement with your campaign. This helps to surface your most engaged attendees and the least.

• Testing: This is one step you should never skip. Test every element of your program before launching to ensure it’s working as expected, whether it’s testing email links or checking the logic behind your automation such as wait times and specific send dates.

Finally, I went through the importance of measuring your campaign’s success. 

Salesforce offers a wealth of reporting options, and it’s important to take full advantage of these to understand what’s working and what isn’t.

Here are some reporting tools you’ll want to use:

• Account Engagement reports: These are perfect for tracking email performance in terms of open rates, click-through rates, and conversions.

• Salesforce CRM reports: Want to see how your campaign has impacted registrations, attendance, and even new sales opportunities? CRM reports are your go-to.

• B2BMA dashboards: These provide powerful insights into email engagement and allow you to track multi-touch attribution, helping you understand the broader impact of your event marketing efforts.

Regularly reviewing these reports will help you tweak and improve future campaigns, and demonstrate attribution for your marketing efforts ensuring you’re always moving forward. Ultimately, with the right framework in place, you can reach automated marketing nirvana.

Effective event marketing requires careful planning, clean data, tailored content, and strategic automation. By mastering Engagement Studio and following the steps outlined above, you’ll be able to create programs that not only drive registrations but also build long-term relationships with your event attendees.

If you want to learn more and see live demos of how to build these Engagement Studio programs in action, be sure to check out the webinar replay above. Whether you’re new to Salesforce or just looking to sharpen your skills, this session is packed with tips to help you level up your event marketing strategy.

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