Focus Article- Tara Arrington

Pre- and Post-Event Strategies for Relationship Nurturing

Whether you are planning a firm-hosted seminar or organizing attendees for a chamber of commerce reception, developing strategies to engage with attendees before and after the event can make the event more successful.

An event can lead to your firm scoring a dream client, aligning with the perfect partner or making meaningful connections in the referral space. If you’re not developing relationships outside the event though, they have the potential to be a waste of time and resources.

Starting before an event begins, analyze your guest list to help you pair attendees with the team members you want them to meet. Obtaining the list is easy when you’re organizing a firm-hosted event, but it’s not always simple for events your firm attends or sponsors. Jen Lemanski, senior manager in practice growth for PKF Texas, says that she will work with her coworkers attending an event to identify a handful of people they should meet. Lemanski specified that this is most effective with smaller events.

“We don't bother [assigning potential targets at large events] because finding one person in a sea of 700 people is just not going to happen,” says Lemanski.

A little personalization can make an impactful difference when engaging with attendees prior to an event. Kelsey Blum, partner marketing manager at Brand House Marketing, explained that their team prioritizes individualized communication before events. Brand House Marketing is MBE CPAs’marketing firm, providing marketing services for both MBE CPAs and clients.

“When individuals see emails from their tax manager versus our generic company email, the likelihood of them opening it increases dramatically. We also like acknowledging past interactions or anticipating discussions on specific topics,”says Blum.

Social media is another tool to engage with attendees prior to your event. Blum states that they use social media to spark conversations and build excitement before an event such as MBE CPAs’Annual Leadership Summit. Sharing content for the Leadership Summit would look like highlighting the program and/or speakers, using relevant hashtags and engaging with users who interact with your call-toactions.

Pre-event communication can also elevate an attendee’s experience. Since their Annual Leadership Summit includes keynote speakers, Blum and her team will send polls and request questions for the speakers.

As a marketer in a notoriously introverted industry, growth professionals are sometimes called to coach accountants on business development. Though Lemanski shared that their partners are heavily engaged in BD, relevant training sessions are helpful for managers and senior managers. She covers dos and don’ts in networking training and meets with those new to the firm, one-on-one, to create a strategy for success. Her biggest piece of advice for accountants to improve BD skills? “Don’t congregate with your coworkers at a networking event.”

If you are organizing the event, leverage your coordination skills to enhance communication. Jennifer Brown, growth manager at Pease Bell CPAs, used careful organization to foster new opportunities during a dealmaker’s event. Held at Top Golf, she ensured each bay included a banker, lawyer, CPA, private equity professional and a high-net-worth individual.

“We put our people in each bay to meet the right people and we had three to four big deals [from the event]. Although the event was expensive, it paid for itself five times over,”Brown said.

When it comes to non-firm-hosted events, choosing the right opportunity is central to developing a relationship strategy. When you’re deciding which events to sponsor, Lemanski recommends discretion.

“We are picking either organizations or events where we know there’s going to be a rich environment for networking,”she said. She also recommended reaching out to event organizers for their expertise, such as requesting recommendations or asking them to be on the lookout for your team members. If it’s an organization you partner with often, you can ask for their assistance to help one of your team members connect with another event attendee.

Following an event, surveys are an actionable way to engage with attendees, especially for firm-hosted events. Blum said their team reaches out to attendees to understand what went well and what didn’t.

“In doing so, the attendee also feels like their input is appreciated, and when they see changes the following year, they feel like their feedback was validated. In the post-event survey, we also ask for their suggestions for speakers, which I think is fun because everyone suggests numerous people, allowing us to vet a variety of individuals for the next Summit,”says Blum.

Creating meaningful relationships following an event can be orchestrated with the help from marketing. Brown used a mixer with one of their referral sources, a local law firm, to create networking maps for her firm’s partners. She worked with the law firm’s marketing director to pair each Pease Bell partner with a partner from the law firm, analyzing their services and specialties to create the best matches possible.

“[The partners] were excited about it. Their backgrounds really aligned, so they had a lot to talk about,”Brown emphasized. Thanks to research, Brown didn’t receive pushback, and she plans to replicate this formula with their manager group.

Business development can feel uncomfortable for accountants because they worry about coming across as too sales-focused and unauthentic. Education-focused events offer a natural way to follow up with event attendees. For example, Lemanski’s team sends event attendees a landing page following an event with information about their services along with relevant presentation materials. If one of their team members meets a potential client at a networking event and engaged in genuine conversation about a particular niche, PKF will send their corresponding one pager to the prospect.

Quality over quantity also leads to a more authentic message. Blum states that their team limits post-event communication from the firm at large to two follow-up emails.“This way it isn’t too much communication but enough where the attendee feels as though their feedback is appreciated,” she said.

An accounting marketer’s strategy can help nurture relationships, but like most marketing projects, buy-in from CPAs and other firm leaders is key for an event’s success. Marketers can provide tools and expertise, but CPAs must take ownership in their networking efforts, leading to authentic relationships and potential dream clients.

Tara Arrington, leader of marketing, communications, and engagement, Kassouf & Co. Inc.. Contact at tarrington@kassouf.com.