20 Field Marketing Resolutions for 2020

Making your 2020 field marketing resolutions begins with defining 2019’s marketing successes and failures. How’d your events do? How about customer relationships and pipeline generation? Analyze where you were strong and where you were weak to set the right goals going forward.

Once you know where you want to improve, set your budget. This will make it easy to determine what kind of goal (or goals) are feasible. This doesn’t mean not to shoot for the moon, it just gives you an idea of where you might land. Field Marketers will always be asked to prove ROI so there’s no point in running from it. Keep this in mind and adapt your goals as necessary. This could be as simple as tracking outreach engagement or comparing regional event attendance rates.

If you’re the team leader, consider setting individual goals outside your team goals, possibly a goal that will help them achieve theirs. Remember your organization’s overall business vision and begin planning your 2020 field marketing resolutions!

2020 Field Marketing Resolutions

1. Increase the distribution of responsibilities among your team.

Who creates content on your team? Who talks to customers? Who puts on events? The new year is a great time to bring the whole team into the brainstorming circle to see what people want to do and how their skills can be useful, and how you can help them grow in their career.

2. Host top-tier speakers at your events.

Secure expert, recognizable speakers for your 2020 events. Hosting decorated keynote speakers and panelists will boost credibility and increase registrations.

3. Improve event attendance rates.

Measure 2019’s average event attendance rate and set a new metric to reach by the end of 2020. Considering your budget and the 2020 goals of the business, design an event schedule with your new metric in mind.

4. Improve influencer engagement.

Set up a social media schedule to keep yourself constantly connected to your network. Reach out to influencers and see how you can help each other. Consider extending your reach of channels.

5. Host your own unique original event.

Bring your team together to create an original event outside the norm. Take your budget and schedule into account and bring in other departments to help brainstorm, design and put on your event. Consider hosting a whisky tasting, an axe throwing competition or a game night.

6. Host a new kind of event for your team.

What kind of events do you normally host? Maybe 2020 is the year to step out of your comfort zone and try something new like a 2-day conference or a virtual event. Whatever you choose, find a way to connect with your network on a new level.

7. Start an annual event.

Refinery29 hosts their 29Rooms event every year with a unique experience held in each of their 29 rooms. Consider creating version 2.0 of your most successful 2019 event or design something totally new that lines up with your 2020 business goals.

8. Increase marketing event reach.

What part of your target audience are you missing out on? How can you reach them? In planning your 2020 calendar, make sure you’re thinking about the different ways your audience likes to be reached. Maybe you need a stronger presence on social media or more blog content. Maybe you need to host live events. Find out where your engagement was lacking in 2019 and focus on improving those areas.

9. Expand geographical presence.

Host events beyond the standard downtown scene. Professional audiences grow weary like any other audience so think outside the box. Instead of delivering your quarterly update with a happy hour at the most well-known chic restaurant in town, do it with an outdoor excursion.

10. Begin a UGC initiative.

UGC or User Generated Content is a great way to enhance your thought leadership and engage your network. One of a marketer’s biggest (and often most neglected) resources is their network. Use your speakers, influencers, partners, and customers to help you create content, facilitate discourse and expand your reach.

11. Increase social engagement.

Being present on social media isn’t enough, you need to be constantly engaged. Post long form content that will keep people visiting as well as short-form daily posts. This will keep a loyal audience engaged and a new audience coming. Consider using social ‘stories’ and creating new accounts for up-and-coming social sites.

12. Optimize SEO.

Learn what your target audience is talking about and what topics are important to them. Use Google and Bing to find out what people are searching for. Try searching a keyword and checking the ‘top searches’ section at the bottom of Google for a list of potential event topics!

13. Expand your team.

Maybe your new year needs a new team member. Take the beginning of 2020 to analyze where your team is, where it’s lacking and where it could use support. You never know how much help might come from a new mind, an assistant or even a great, part-time contractor.

14. Increase and improve your video marketing strategy.

If you haven’t started using video in your event marketing strategy, 2020 is the time. Video simply empowers you to do more.

15. Embrace new tech.

Embracing new tech doesn’t mean running out to buy all the new gadgets and software to try them all at once. It means taking some time to experiment with new types of marketing tech like chatbots, personalized messaging and AI, and seeing what connects with your customers.

16. Collaborate with other departments.

The more expertise you have, the more customers will come to you. So why not use all the expertise available? Working in marketing doesn’t mean living in a bubble. Talk to your engineers to get insights about your product, talk to leadership to learn about the company’s vision, talk to customer service to learn how customer relationships have shifted over the years and please, talk to sales so you can get on the same page. Two heads are better than one and the same applies to departments.

17. Increase customer appreciation, loyalty and awareness.

Take stock of your customer relationships as the year begins. What’s strong? Where are you lacking? When you see where you have strong versus weak engagement, it should become clear where to focus or shift your efforts. Consider the benefits of strong two-way relationships with partners, sponsors and attendees.

18. Build and develop new relationships.

Which customers/partners did you land at the end of 2019? Consider them high priority for 2020. Keep consistent engagement and communication with these new customers and partners throughout the year to cement them as part of your network.

19. Increase number of leads converted to SQLs.

Track your net new leads, where they originate and what they sign up for (i.e. demo, newsletter, etc.). When it comes time to present that all-important ROI, you’ll at least have a starting point.

20. Improve conversion rate of SQLs to customers.

The next step, and even more important, is to track how many SQLs eventually became customers. This is where marketing and sales should work together on developing a follow-up strategy for post-event engagement to maximize referrals and upsells.

It’s important to remember where marketing falls in the overall mission of the business. Often being the first face potential customers see, marketers have an important and powerful role to play. Consider your organization’s goals, plan your 2020 resolution and start driving pipeline.