But she began her career as a graphic designer – a skill she says is critical in today ’ s event marketers .
First on her list of marketing strategies , is knowing your audience . That will help you decide the best channels to approach them , she says .
“ With exhibition marketing you always follow the same channels it is just how you manipulate those channels . Because we do B2B and B2C exhibitions , different channels may be more or less relevant , whether it ’ s TikTok or LinkedIn .”
She says it is important to identify the right platform for the audience . The B2B Marketing Expo audience may be on TikTok , but possibly not the barristers attending LegalEx .
Naidex , which promotes independent living for the disabled community has three separate audiences – each of which has their own tailored messaging .
“ Even before the event happens you have the community of people ,” she says .
“ We have different messaging personas depending on what ’ s relevant to them .
“ For Naidex ’ s social channels because we have three sets of audiences we manipulate the social channels based on the audience . For example we use Facebook for public messaging because more of our disabled audience is on Facebook and there are a lot of community support groups . Then LinkedIn would be aimed more towards the professionals as well as Twitter . And Instagram more for public audience .”
Measurement Measuring what works is critical , to the success of any marketing campaign . Your CRM is the key , says Villanueva .
“ We use Hubspot – it ’ s important to have your campaign set up there . You can do digital marketing and paid ads and you can track everything on a day- to-day basis as you get closer to the event .
“ I like to have a big chart of our followers , website visits , where we are getting registrations from . Now you can see where registration is coming from . If you can track them , that ’ s the easiest was of getting your ROI .
“ With our events they are mostly annual . You don ’ t want to keep doing what you were doing last year if it ’ s not working . So we can see what ’ s working and add more money and effort to the channels that are working and leave the other ones behind .”
But the CRM does present GDPR difficulties .
“ Sometimes we have people who have previously unsubscribed then registered again for an event .
“ With the CRM if they have unsubscribed you can ’ t reach them and convert them .
“ We are the face of exhibitions . Without us , you won ’ t know about it , your exhibitors won ’ t know about it . They won ’ t invest and operations won ’ t need to build the show . ”
“ Obviously we buy data , but how do we know it ’ s up to date and will the CRM let us send emails to them ? With Hubspot if you get too high a bounce rate it will stop you sending emails . It can ultimately just lock your account . With our setup , all 16 events go into one Hubspot , so if something goes wrong we could lose all our capabilities .”
Changing perceptions Like many marketers , Villanueva recognises the ongoing battle between sales and marketing departments . The pair are a partnership like gin and tonic - perfectly complementing each other but there can be trouble in paradise . “ There ’ s sometimes disconnect between sales and marketing ,” she says . “ Sales will sell stands and promise a big number of people attending . Marketing will say ‘ this is the number we can get based on numbers we have ’. It ’ s managing expectation .
“ We are used to getting thousands and thousands of registrations , but have we trained our sales people to say ‘ no . our numbers are stronger than ever because we have more people willing to invest ’?
“ Three years ago we might have had 18,000 but only 9,000 buying . Now we have those 9,000 people , but they are all buying .”
Be organised “ It ’ s crucial to have a schedule . You need to know what your focusing on this week , your communication blocks , what you ’ ve promised to partners , otherwise you ’ ll miss the chance to send a post that is relevant and topical today or annoy sales because you haven ’ t posted something you ’ ve promised to a sponsor or lose that relationship with them .
“ You can communicate with your team it ’ s disability week next week – is there any speaker or sponsor that will tie into that ?’”
Ed Balls A prime examples was harnessing the viral power of Ed Balls day .
On 28 April 2011 ex-shadow chancellor Ed Balls accidentally tweeted his own name while searching for himself . It became a bit of a viral hit and now annually Twitter trends are awash woth the polititian ’ s name in celebration of the awkward faux pas .
It was a perfect opportunity to announce Balls as a keynote speaker at Care UK .
“ It ’ s important to make the most of it ,” she says . “ If people are looking for Ed Balls then they will see your post .”
July — 11