Driving demand
from B2B trade
shows

SAP is one of the world’s biggest technology brands, with a blue-chip client list of leading corporations. Creating conversations with C-suite client contacts to explore their needs and opportunities together, drives SAP’s growth.

Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the linchpin in SAP’s annual trade show strategy, an opportunity to showcase the company’s latest technology to customers and prospects at the world’s largest mobile industry gathering.

With 110,000 visitors in 2019, including 9,000 CEOs, the challenge at MWC isn’t volume but quality.

SAP had ambitious goals for prospecting during the most recent MWC in Barcelona. With a high target of one-to-one C-suite consultations and solution showcases to deliver, SAP asked Metia to help ensure its investment in MWC returned measurable value to the business.

Qualifying high value prospects

Using Metia’s proprietary methodology for audience Micro Profiling, MWC attendees who matched SAP’s ideal customer profile and were opted in for communications from the company were identified – creating a shortlist of 1,752 individuals in the right roles, the right organizations, and the right industries. Micro Profiling also applies additional behavioral characteristics to assess need, intent and aptitude.

These individuals were engaged through a tailored eight-week program – with up to seven personalized touchpoints being used across online and offline channels.

The Metia Demand team conducted phone and email conversations with senior executives, exploring business drivers, pain points and their motivations for attending MWC – ultimately establishing the business value of a face-to-face consultation at SAP’s conference suite in Barcelona.

End-to-end governance delivers outcomes

Initial acceptance was only the start of the story. Metia provided an end-to-end engagement strategy to mitigate the risk of individuals dropping out.  This disciplined approach paid off, with SAP exceeding its pre-show target for face-to-face consultations at MWC by 24%.

Given the seniority of each contact, the scale of their business, strategic value of customer organization, and, most importantly, the conversational focus around a pre-identified business requirement, SAP is confident that its ROI objectives will be achieved.

According to SAP’s Director of Global Tradeshows, Fernando Sanchez-Mayoral, “Metia was an integral part of the project from the start. They focused on outreach and audience acquisition, discovering customer consultation opportunities around our key focus topics, and assigning the right SAP experts to engage with these customers. Metia helped us maximize both customer satisfaction and ROI.”