How B2B brands are blending field marketing with digital initiatives for a bigger impact

We live in a digital-first world, so it might seem like investing in field marketing is a step backwards. What if we told you companies were combining field marketing with digital initiatives to drive even bigger impact? Summer is the perfect time to pull together all available resources and review your marketing initiatives, and that includes making sure you are meeting people in person. Field marketing was once the only way to market successfully. Now, by combining the enduring power of field marketing with the effectiveness of digital initiatives, brands are becoming unstoppable. 

So, how can you get started building a diversified marketing strategy that incorporates field marketing elements? We have a few ideas. 

What is field marketing?

The easiest way to understand field marketing is to think of it as being out in the field. It involves meeting customers in physical spaces and prioritizing one-on-one conversations to recruit prospects, sign new customers, and drive revenue. Field marketing can be any number of in-person events, including trade shows, in-person demos or consultations, local community events such as farmer’s markets or fairs, conferences, or workshops, among many other things. Field marketing is the best way for your brand to build an engaged community and create a face for itself, rather than just a name.

With field marketing, your prospects may be much more likely to convert because of the strong relationships. However, there are more advantages to field marketing including, high-quality interactions and lead generation from being physically present, better relationships and personalization for current and future clients after meeting them in person, stronger retention of current clients (it’s harder to let go of a partnership when you feel connected to the person, not just the organization), in-person feedback from real-time product demos, and enhanced customer knowledge of products and services. 

How brands are blending field and digital marketing

Putting it all together, brands are blending the best of digital and field advertising to meet customers where they are and put a face to a brand. One of the best example scenarios for blending the two is conferences or trade shows, or any in-person event for that matter. With events, a marketing team has the opportunity to gain digital insights about the audience before actually attending. This can be done through targeted email marketing, vendor lists, or connecting with people on social platforms. Blending the two means you can schedule time to meet with hot leads at the show, and deliver a concentrated post-event nurturing campaign to close the leads you met at the show. 

Additionally, if you have a marketing team around, they can be supporting your team at the event virtually while you meet people in person. Ideally, people at the event can share photos and anecdotes beyond, “Come meet the team!” As with any marketing campaign, you want people to feel special and create an engaging proposition. 

Another interesting way to combine field marketing with digital capabilities is to incorporate personalized data collected during in-person events. For example, if you meet with customers on a regular basis, it would make sense to have a CRM complete with information you have learned about them through your conversations. These can be broad or specific anecdotes that help you deliver enhanced, more personalized service to your customers. 

Community events are another great source of engagement for the community and local businesses. Because of the drive to shop local, many farmers markets, street fairs, and seasonal promoters will heavily promote events on digital and physical platforms, making it easy for your brand to connect with customers before they even get to your booth or meet you for the first time. You can build different incentives into the digital or field component, delivering special offers for showing up or following the business. At the end of the day, field marketing is all about social amplification and supporting the community and other brands. 

These are strategies that can help you get close to your customers to build trust and engage in long-term relationships that continue to grow.

How to Get Started 

One of the best things about field marketing is that it allows you to learn more about your audience by meeting them in person than you would through a digital campaign. It is relatively easy to take a quick look at your current marketing strategy and figure out if you can incorporate field marketing initiatives. We recommend starting with the following:

1. Audit Your Current Field Marketing Activities: To get started, take a minute to audit what you are already doing. Do you host webinars or other digital get-togethers? Could these events be held in person next time? The goal is to determine if it is easy enough to add new field marketing activities to your calendar. It’s interesting that as marketers we have spent so long touting digital solutions that to add something in-person seems a bit strange. However, in light of economic changes and our digital-first world, connection has never been more important.
   
   If you do not already have field marketing activities as part of your strategy, start small and work your way up from there. It might also be easier to start with something organized by a group, such as a trade show or local summer fair where you can rent a space or just attend as your brand for the first time.

   If you already have field marketing activities on the books, are you also combining them with a digital approach to capture the most value? If not, highlight the ones that could benefit from an extra digital touch. Then, consider making it a habit to research new events for each quarter or season, depending on what works for your brand.

2. Align sales and marketing teams: Most likely not everyone from your sales or marketing team is going to attend the event. It will be vital to create a process for events with your sales and marketing teams so each knows what is expected. This requires breaking down silos and encouraging alignment between teams. For example, marketing needs to know about the events well before hand in order to plan digital campaigns in time. Then, the sales team needs to be versed on what type of content the marketing team needs from them during the event. For example, are the attendees responsible for sending photos and a blurb about their day or will there be professional photos available that the team can use? If the sales team is meeting new people, where will new contacts go so they can receive the proper follow-up and be added to future digital campaigns? Creating a process sets clear expectations and responsibilities.
3. Invest in tools that provide for digital and offline data inputs: Ideally, you have a CRM or CDP that can collect and manage both digital and field data. The right data in the right place can help you determine if someone came to an event because of your digital campaigns and how that impacted who they interacted with at the event. Giving your teams the most valuable information can help them nurture customers and provide personalized experiences. 
4. Start with a pilot and scale what works: Attending a trade show or local event for the first time? Build out a process that includes a simple digital campaign and follow-up. Do not try to do everything all at once the first time. Rather, test a few things to see what is working and pay attention to your audience. This might be a good time to invest in partner marketing with similarly aligned organizations. For instance, the organizers might be advertising on social media, allowing you to share or repost easily to your followers as well. 

Field marketing, when combined with digital initiatives, can have a huge impact on businesses. Getting out and meeting people face-to-face builds trust and longer-lasting relationships. However, field marketing on its own might not be enough to really move the needle as we still love digital connections and a follow-up email. The future of marketing is hybrid. Get started today with a call to MDG.