Sponsoring a large-scale event, like a conference or trade show, can seem antiquated for marketers.
But according to our 2024 Outlook on Events report, 40% of companies are still participating in these events — and it’s actually one of the top three event types that generates the most revenue.
There is a part of these third-party events that is antiquated, though: simply buying booth space and scanning leads.
Today’s buyers want customized, engaging experiences, and they expect this at conferences and trade shows too.
Splash’s Haley Kaplan sat down with Gracie Bulleit, Event Marketing Manager at Pendo.io, and Sam Varga, Senior Manager of Global Field Marketing at AdRoll, to learn how marketers can go beyond the booth and maximize their presence at conferences and trade shows.
Read on to learn how Sam and Gracie think through their third-party strategy, from planning and promoting their booth to measuring ROI post-event.
Because they’re often such large investments, a third-party strategy should result in business impact and tie directly into your company goals.
Is your company trying to break into certain customer segments or markets, like the enterprise market or EMEA? Or is your goal to build brand awareness and boost thought leadership with more speaking opportunities?
Once you know your goals, you can find the right events to help you reach them.
Sam and Gracie candidly shared that knowing which events your audience is attending isn’t always easy. Neither is defining your brand’s presence when you don’t have the details you need.
This is why Sam likes to reach out to the conference organizer directly to ask discovery questions and get a clear understanding of which audiences will be in the room.
She added that if she’s not able to get insights from the organizer, she’ll reach out to her network to see which conferences and trade shows other marketers are attending.
Gracie seconded the importance of leaning on the event marketing community and added that it’s often fellow marketers who know which conferences or trade shows are worth attending.
Most of the time, marketers aren’t going to get a third-party attendee list up-front. This often leads to a guessing game of who will be at the event, making it difficult for marketers to know who they should promote to.
If her team attended the event within the last year, Gracie will send the previous lead list to her sales and business development teams to see if those prospects are planning to attend again.
She explained that even if a prospect isn’t attending, they may introduce the sales team to another team member that’s going. Sometimes these conversations can even reignite a buying conversation that has stalled.
If she doesn’t have a prior lead list to work with, she’ll reach out to her network on LinkedIn to understand which third-party events her audience and fellow marketers are planning to attend.
Attendees are often busy rushing through the conference and trade show floor, trying to make their next session on time. Marketers should remember this as they build out their booth messaging.
Gracie has seen many companies try to list out everything they do to draw attendees in, but instead, they end up overwhelming attendees with too many words that they don’t have time to read.
“It really needs to be as short and snappy as humanly possible. Ideally, you have two seconds to capture their attention and digest an overall vibe of what your company does.”
Watch this clip to get more tips from Gracie for creating a stand-out booth:
When it comes to hosting off-booth activities, Gracie explained that marketers need to be realistic about how they fit into the larger conference programming.
“If you’re at a three-day conference, are attendees going to want to attend another event or will their social battery be run down?”
Sam added that if marketers are hosting an off-booth experience, they should always check the event schedule to make sure there isn’t overlap with any special conference events or VIP activities.
Watch this clip to see how Sam worked with her sales team to host a series of VIP dinners at ForEx last year:
Sam shared that, while her team has nurture sequences in place, she also likes to host a webinar about six weeks out from the conference or trade show to re-engage her third-party audience.
When it comes to measuring the success of her third-party events, Gracie most commonly reports on the number of opportunities and pipeline generated and number of deals that were closed and won.
Sam added that performance is relative to the goals that were set for attending the third-party event.
"In terms of ROI for us, I think it varies and goes back to what did we define as our goal at the beginning? Was it thought leadership and brand awareness? Was it lead gen? How many closed-won opps do we have? But if it’s thought leadership, it's how many people did we have in the room? What was the max capacity? Were those people an MQL or a sales-ready account or not? Did we give content that was fitting into what they're interested in? If it's brand awareness, did we have higher site traffic? Did we have really high social engagement?"
The conference and trade show format is evolving. Brands are no longer confining their reach to the restraints of a traditional booth layout. Instead, they’re creating custom, interactive experiences with their buyers on and off the floor. To help define their third-party strategy, marketers like Sam and Gracie are using business objectives as their guiding light. From unique booth activations to exclusive off-site activities, marketers are maximizing their third-party presence to amplify their brand and impact pipeline and revenue goals.
