Growing Microsoft’s event attendance by 21% in one year

Microsoft Convergence EMEA was an annual conference attracting existing customers, prospects, and Microsoft partners from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. At the time the biggest gathering of Microsoft Dynamics professionals in the world, Convergence EMEA presented an opportunity for attendees to engage with one another and with Microsoft to understand the trends, emerging technologies, and insights that could help them shape the future of their business.

Results

Kitterman’s demand generation campaign, powered by the end-to-end wave strategy, helped Microsoft exceed attendance goals and exceed the previous year’s attendance by more than 21%. The strategy to appeal to a broader group of business decision-makers paid off, with 71% of total registrations coming from first-time attendees.

The campaign delivered strong results from all channels. Paid search was the highest driver of audience interest. More than half of all registrations derived from emails, while social performed strongly by driving 20% of registrations. Offering an early-registration discount lead to 14% of registrations in the campaign’s first two months.

Challenges

With the event in its third year, the Convergence EMEA team saw an opportunity to reinvent the conference, expand its product-centric focus to appeal to a broader group of business decision makers. This shift required careful strategy in order to maintain its alumni, build its new brand, and drive net-new attendees with the power to purchase.

Working with Kitterman, the Convergence EMEA team created and implemented a demand generation strategy that exceeded their registration goals while accurately changing the target audience’s understanding of the conference’s expanded focus.

Solutions

Microsoft and Kitterman created a “wave” strategy for the event demand generation campaign to move the target audience from awareness to engagement to registration. The first wave positioned Convergence EMEA as a premier business event, with a CTA to register early. Subsequent monthly waves were themed with messages that would resonate with the audience and their professional goals.

To engage the field and partners in promoting Convergence EMEA to drive attendance, Microsoft asked Kitterman to create a body of marketing materials – email, social posts, and paid advertising – designed to educate, engage, and drive registration.

Kitterman also helped Microsoft reach and engage partners and the field with emails, newsletter posts, yammer posts, and conference calls. In total, Kitterman created over 115 marketing pieces to support the campaign.

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