The buzz of the exhibit hall, the natural flow of in-person conversations, the sound of leads being scanned — marketers sure do love a good tradeshow.
But they’re expensive, time-consuming, and (if we’re being honest) draining. And as a stand-alone tactic, they aren’t enough to bring someone through the buying journey. Buyers today expect bespoke experiences in exchange for their time, and that can be a difficult thing to do at a conference with thousands of attendees.
It can be done, though.
The secret is using an event-led growth approach and building third-party events into your holistic event strategy.
You can’t expect to attend one summit every year and reach the right people, at the exact right time they need you. You need to approach conferences, tradeshows, and other third-party events as another touchpoint — not the only touchpoint.
Let’s say you’re onboard with this. There are still a ton of open questions.
In this guide, we answer all of these questions. To get us going, let’s take a look at how we think about third-party investments at Splash.
We use the table below every time there’s a third-party investment opportunity. It’s a tiered approach, so we identify which tier the event would fall into. To do this, we look at things like budget and investment level, number of attendees, percentage of attendees in our ICP, and more. Then, we start planning our predefined activations.
No matter the industry you work in, there are probably dozens (or more) of conferences and tradeshows you could sponsor. And with them being so costly, you have to choose the ones that’ll net the largest ROI and help reach your goals.
So how do you know which ones will move the needle? We asked event professionals how they decide which events to sponsor, and here are the four common things they said.
Once you go through these steps to explore your options and pick which events make the most sense for your company, it’ll give you a better idea of what you’ll need to spend. At that point, you can start figuring out how you’ll get buy-in for the investment.
Pro Tip: It’s not always feasible, but if you can, try to attend the events you’re evaluating as an attendee first. This gives you a chance to explore the event, sessions, the exhibit hall, other sponsors, and the audience for a much lower cost. If it’s a fit, you’ll be more confident making a larger investment the following year.
When it comes to cost, conferences and tradeshows are the Rolls-Royces of events. You’ve got booth space (plus all the branding and activations that come with that), wraparound events, and team travel and expenses, among other things.
How do you justify this large cost? The answer comes back to setting goals — and doing a little math.
The example we provide below is a simplified version of what most event marketers will actually have to do. But no matter what your numbers look like, there are a few general business metrics you need to identify first.
Now, let's start to break down the math for a tradeshow we’re investing $200,000 into.
Investment x Desired ROI = Target Revenue
$200,000 x 5 = $1,000,000
To realistically get that revenue, we need to target that 3x pipeline coverage of the target revenue we mentioned earlier.
Target Revenue x Pipeline Coverage = Pipeline
$1,000,000 x 3 = $3,000,000
Knowing that each meeting could lead to an ACV of $50,000, we need to set the appropriate number of meetings where the total potential value equals that $3,000,000 pipeline.
Pipeline / ACV = Total Meetings
$3,000,000 / $50,000 = 60
At this point, it’s time to dig deeper to determine if you’re prepared to set 60 quality meetings at this particular event. The following questions can help you:
But here's where things get trickier. If you have 60 meetings set, but only 75% of those meetings actually turn into opportunities and your close rate is 20%, you won’t hit the $1,000,000 revenue target for this event. If this is the case, you can work toward improving the number of meetings scheduled and conversion rates to reach your goals.
On the other hand, if your numbers are showing that you’ll hit your revenue target, it’s time to start thinking about how to maximize your presence at this third-party event — and we’ll talk about that next.
As an event marketer, so much of your work happens before the event. And for these large-scale conferences and tradeshows, you’re probably planning a year in advance. You have to use that time wisely.
While you’re planning for your third-party event presence, there are a few things you can focus on to make sure you get as much out of the event as possible: event branding, event staff, and event promotion.
Whether you’re putting all of your energy (and money) into a booth or spreading your investment across multiple touchpoints, your event branding is what everyone will see. If you are showing up in multiple areas — such as a booth in the exhibit hall and a speaking session — make sure your branding is consistent throughout both.
Let’s talk specifically about booth branding. This is arguably the first and most important thing to consider because it’s where you need to put in the most work.
Even if you have the biggest booth space available, it’s likely you’re still one of dozens of other companies — some of which are your competitors. That’s why it’s so important to stand out, and there are two primary ways to do this.
Most importantly, you can also stand out with the experience you create at your booth. We’ll talk more about the on-site experience in the next chapter.
Having the right team for your event staff can make or break how successful the event is. Team members should be engaging, professional, and highly informed on the company, and the roles we recommend having on-site are:
But we hear from event marketers a lot that it’s hard to get people to staff those third-party events. Some people are less inclined to travel. Others, especially salespeople, may not be able to afford being “out of office” for a few days.
As the person from the marketing team responsible for planning a successful event sponsorship, it’s your job to get your team on board with staffing a tradeshow booth. The best way to do this is with proof. If you’ve done this before, show them the tangible results: the leads you generated previously and what that meant for pipeline and closed-won business.
And don’t stop there. Translate that into what those numbers mean for them personally, especially if they’re in sales. How many qualified leads can they expect (and what does that mean for their commission)?
Once you have your on-site team in place, host tradeshow training and provide playbooks so it's clear how the team can hit your goals. Schedule meetings to make sure everyone is aligned on roles, expectations, schedules, and event goals. Host your first meeting four weeks before the event, follow up two weeks later, and make time to formally meet while on-site and afterwards.
Pro Tip: If the third-party event you’re sponsoring spans multiple days, host a quick, 15-minute standup with your booth staff every morning. This serves as a reminder of your roles and goals, and can boost energy among your team.
How can you build buzz that you’re showing up to an industry conference or tradeshow, but without a list of people attending?
Most of the time, this is the situation you’re given as a conference sponsor. It’s obviously not an ideal one — so we asked event marketers for both go-to ways and outside-the-box ideas for promoting third-party event sponsorships.
Pro Tip: If you find people through last year’s lead list or a lookalike list who are a strong fit for your product, but not attending the conference, offer them a discount code or a free ticket if you have any available.
Once you’re on-site, drawing people into your booth is both a top priority and a top challenge. You’re there to reach as many (of the right) people as possible, but so is everyone else. So aside from your booth messaging and colors, what else can you do to stand out?
Speaking of the post-event experience, there are two very important things you must do after a tradeshow, conference, or other third-party event: continue the conversation and measure ROI.
This is all about fast follow-up. What do you do once the leads are uploaded into your CRM? Most likely, you hand them over to sales. Do you have insight into how they use those leads? Often, sales teams will use one, pre-created template for post-event outreach. And that approach doesn’t work like it once did.
Empower your sales team to deliver better follow-up communications. Help them create more customizable sequences that actually leverage the notes the event team took on-site. And split the outreach into two groups: a high-touch sequence for those who requested follow-up and a drip nurture (this can be more generic) for those who simply visited the booth.
The other thing you can do is plan a webinar relevant to that audience. Waiting six weeks ensures conference activity dies down, and at the same time, you can start bringing leads back to life if they’ve started going cold. If they visited your booth and attended your webinar, this could indicate you have a high-intent lead.
Pro Tip: In the days following a large conference or tradeshow, attendees will get dozens, or hundreds, of follow-up emails. It can be overwhelming for them, and you'll get lost in the clutter of everything. Don't be afraid to wait a week or so for that first post-event email.
First things first: What did you define as your goal at the beginning of this planning process? Are you focused on brand awareness, lead generation, pipeline generation, or something else? That’s what you’ll be measured on.
Choose the goal you’re focused on right now to review common KPIs and where to track them.
Reporting Pro Tip
Brand awareness KPIs are often spread across disparate data sources. Ideally, you'd create a single view in your business intelligence dashboard or a consolidated tracking spreadsheet.
Reporting Pro Tip:
Define an inactivity period (e.g., 30, 60, or 90 days) to track the number of leads reactivated by your event.
Reporting Pro Tip:
Remember to consider different opportunity types, including net-new, expansion, renewal, or others. Track this alongside your opportunities to better understand what kinds of events to double down on.
Reporting Pro Tip:
Compare the length of your sales cycle for event attendees versus those who don't attend events. This will give you a good understanding of the lift you get from events rather than looking at the sales cycle more generally.
Reporting Pro Tip:
If you don't already have set stage-weighted probabilities, consider calculating those first to help give you an earlier view into program performance.
A whopping 84% of deals are won by the company that reaches a buyer first, according to 6sense’s 2023 B2B Buyer Report.
This can be hard to do, though. You have to get in front of your buyers where they are, and many marketing channels are simply saturated. You need to offer unique experiences that set you apart from the competition, and wraparound events are an effective way to do that.
A wraparound event is an owned event that you host adjacent to a larger, third-party event. Wraparound events can be an effective addition to your lineup of activations if you’re sponsoring a third-party event. They can also be an effective way to reach that third-party event’s audience without sponsoring the larger event.
Wraparound events are often small in size and meant to reach a very targeted audience. Sometimes they’re exclusive experiences that are by invitation only or require your team’s approval for admittance. For example, at the 2024 Adobe Summit in Las Vegas, Splash hosted a wraparound event for a handful of event leaders in a private suite at The Sphere.
But wraparound events don’t have to be extravagant. An intimate dinner or happy hour can drive just as much ROI as the fancy experiences. No matter what kind of wraparound event you host, we’re sharing a few of our top tips.
Marketers and event attendees alike love conferences and tradeshows, and for good reason. Having so many like-minded people in the same space creates opportunities for connection and knowledge sharing — things all buyers (and sellers) crave these days.
But with how pricey these third-party event investments can be, it’s critical to prioritize and select the right ones. It’s also important to make sure the third-party events you invest in align with your greater event strategy and will contribute to your event-led growth.
Are you able to justify the cost of the investment with the expected return?
Is the audience the right one for your company, right now?
Do you have the resources available to really make your brand stand out?
These are just a few of the questions you should be asking when considering a third-party event sponsorship and/or a wraparound event.
And remember: If you decide to have a booth, don’t put all of your excitement into the sound of those leads being scanned. The work doesn’t stop there.
