Hi .

We are slowly adopting the rhythm of regular community events and content production.

What's happened in Trenches

We had amazing discussions about sponsoring email newsletters, tradeshows, and content syndication.

Here is what Joshua Shulman shared:

So my org is at a very fun impasse today. We're trade show hyper-exhibitors (if it has anything to do with our industry, we're there). The second of the two biggest trade shows of the year (IBC) is on the verge of cancellation, with organizers and exhibitors both teetering on the line of whether to go on or not.

A recent industry poll told us that only 18% of regular show attendees/exhibitors have any interest in attending.

I'm in the camp that we should be switching away from trade shows entirely and focusing on the hybrid approach of smaller scale meet-ups + full-on digital approach.

My point:

I think trade shows are an obsolete way of generating opportunities. You can still do them but:

• they take a lot of time to prepare
• they are expensive
• you need to have a good follow up system

I have a great example. One of our customers, iridium mobile, who produces hardware for smart home installation companies, was dependent on tradeshows.

I suggested them to replace it with a virtual summit. Here are the results:

- 2320 sign ups

- 34 sales-qualified opportunities

- 5 new customers right from the bat

The best part?

The event was hosted with just 3 people + a part-time designer, costing less than $2k.

What are your thoughts about trade shows in the coming year?

Share them here.

ABM 2.0 or how to engage strategic accounts

Next Tuesday, 30th Nov, we are partnering with Nick Bennett from our community to share our case studies on how to drive engagement with strategic accounts.

We’ll share practical examples of how to:

1. Create demand and awareness via proactive thought leadership.

2. Launch 1:few partnership webinars and market research with niche associations or communities

3. Create personalized content hubs for buyer’s enablement and further nurturing

4. Drive engagement with strategic accounts via creative outreach and contextual ads

Sign up here: https://lu.ma/abm-engagement

Questions from fellow Trenchers

Let's help each other. If you can contribute or answer any question below, just click the link and share your thoughts.

• What's your experience of sponsoring association newsletters?
• Any book recommendations about getting reviews from customers/customer incentives for UGC/pivoting a product for getting more traction around UGC?
• I have a list of 2.5k companies that are eligible for a service, that I want to "trim & massage" down to a shorter list of 50-100 companies for an ABM approach. The problem is - I need to populate it with data. We usually use Vainu for that, but since the company names are not correctly formatted (like "Company X Ltd" or "Company Y GmbH") that makes it hard. My question - do you have any suggestions for services to use for that? Might need to be some hands-on service like AWS Mechanical Turk, or some ABM service that can take it all the way for us (from this rough list -> more "ready" list including contacts, etc)
• Has anyone done content syndication across Europe?
• Does anyone have any best practices for doing a Q&A case study video with a customer?
• Does someone know if Gong is running paid ads?
• Has anyone else stopped gating content in their LinkedIn/Facebook strategy? How's it been? If you haven't done it yet, why?
• Any B2B SaaS on your radar that is crushing it without a sales team?

Post Of The Week

Key takeaways about running LinkedIn ads from Zoltan Kozma.

• The quality of leads can be high thanks to the unique targeting features, so you have to pay a premium price to reach B2B decision-makers.
• Companies overbid each other because the platform encourages them to apply high bids. Ignore that recommendation.
• LinkedIn’s minimal bid floor feature already set a “price bar” in every auction. You can’t bid under this value.
• Using Maximum Delivery (Automated Bid) by default can easily blow your budget. Change that to Manual Bidding (CPC).
• LinkedIn charges costs on the Ad formats differently, so understanding how they work can help you optimize your spending.
• Seasonality and the timing of the day also affect the competition and the costs. Keep this in mind.
• High friction offers will lead to higher CPCs and CPLs. Focus on delivering content that attracts your ideal B2B buyers so you can start building a relationship with them.
• Setting a too high daily budget can burn money if it isn’t kept under control. Take care you’re using the right settings and you’re continuously monitoring your campaign.

Read the complete guide here.

Best Shares From Trenches Community

• Full-Funnel B2B Marketing explained
• 9 sure-ways to create content that gets IGNORED
• Here is why you should keep doing longer videos regardless of what the average view-time stats and engagement stats tell you
• Should you use humor in your cold outreach?

See you in Trenches 😉

Andrei Zinkevich