Hey all,
Happy Sunday from NYC!
Event marketing is a totally fun, totally crazy way to drive a ton of traffic to your company and brand. Event marketing falls into a few categories. The most relevant:
Experiential: Usually for consumer brands, includes things like pop-ups and activations
Conferences: A gathering of the who’s who of a specific industry; connect with your peers here and prove you’re a winner
Sponsorships: Buying a suite at an event and inviting prospects, hosting a dinner, etc.
Talking about event marketing is one thing. Running it live in Vegas is another story entirely. Events are a special space where brands can compound credibility.
The smartest brands know it’s critical to balance the long-term and short-term goals in their event marketing strategy.
Events ensure you continuously show up where your customers and partners are.
You need to embed yourself in their world. Not just once, but so deeply they forget it ever existed without you.
The success in events marketing is building real relationships over time.
Arielle Russo, Co-founder of Qru (mega mega marketing company and all-around genius), continuously reminds me of this.
The magic always happens where the people are, not just at the booth.
She’s right.
The best connections are spontaneous and organic at coffee, pilates, or 1AM cocktails.
They happen naturally, both inside and around the event, and never feel like meetings.
Here are the top things brands did at Money20/20 to totally stand out, generate pipeline, meet the most important people in the room, and have a clear ROI.
Event Setup:
80% of any company’s success at an event happens in the event setup.
For conferences, this includes inviting people (if you’re hosting or sharing a space) and booking meetings.
Usually, event organizers will share a list of who’s attending beforehand, and your sales and marketing teams can go down the list, filter out people by ideal customer profile (aka ICP), and reach out.
PRO TIP: Reaching out from a female profile on LinkedIn or email, and watch the reply rate double. More than one company is doing this right now, albeit controversial…but effective.
Here are the best ways you can set your company up for success at an event:
Have a clear ROI for your goal: I typically like to follow the $ of pipeline generated / total cost of the event
If you’re goal isn’t pipeline, maybe it's sales, number of target brands reached, meetings booked, etc. Just have a clear goal, and own it.
Know your targets: You should know who the most important people are there and have a plan to connect with them. If you can’t set up a meeting beforehand, do whatever you can to secure 5 minutes of their time there. Who cares if it's cringey – everyone respects the hustle.
Outbound, then outbound more: Steph Barron at Baselayer booked 63 meetings on her own the week before the event by outbounding on LinkedIn and email. Pretty epic.
Get your merch in order: Know where and when you need to give out merch. You never want to come empty-handed.
I made custom hoodies and neck pillows with Allison at Baselayer and had them shipped directly to Vegas. They were such a hit!!!!
Bring sellers + organizers: You want mostly people who are selling. You also need someone highly organized for event setup and take-down.
Crush it at the Event:
Now you’ve spent minimum $10K to get you, your team, and bags of merch to the event.
Here’s how to crush it while you’re there.
Get out on the floor: Stop sitting around at a booth or table. The highest ROI touchpoints are when people are walking around. These “friendly” encounters will generate massive deals and relationships.
Example: We organized a table for Baselayer with LoanPro at SushiSamba to host meetings. 10 other companies were also there.
I stood outside SushiSamab with our branded merch, giving it out to everyone – this 10x’d our connections from this event because I jumped on the opportunity to meet with the VIPs the other brands invited.
Result: I gave a neck pillow to an exec at Fiserv, who connected me via text with their CRO, Arpita (total badass), – the highest ranking target at the company for Baselayer. The next day, Arpita, Jonathan (BL CEO), and I all met for 45 min. This is a meeting that would be nearly impossible to outbound yourself into.
Safe to say the $20 neck pillows paid for themselves.
Schedule follow-up meetings IN THE MOMENT: When you’re face-to-face with someone, put the next meeting on the calendar. Everyone is getting bombarded with emails, invites and texts during and after the event – you’re probs not the most important person to them. Set your next meeting in real time so you’re totally locked in.
Know what your team is doing: They should be booked AF. Every second, literally, someone should be meeting someone important. We had people at Money2020 doing 6AM gym sessions.
Cohost events: Pair up with partners, customers, or favorite brands to share space. This lets you penetrate their network too, split costs, and become closer with a brand you love
If you can get dope people to attend your event and market that they’re going to be there, this is a huge way to attract other dope people.
Make company nametags: Not everyone at BL had an official Money20/20 badge, so we made custom nametags.
This little detail was impactful – I had a “CMO” one (and the rest of our team had ones too), and the amount of conversations the nametag helped me get was so worth the 1 hour of design work + FedEx printing.
People remember your company name more easily, friend you on LinkedIn faster, and understand your role immediately. Sounds simple, but funnily enough, only a few companies did this.
TAKE PICTURES: Every single person on your team needs to take pics, every single day. This will be critical for post-event follow-up step #2, posting online.
You’re going to want to make people feel like your team’s the one everyone wanted to hang with.
If you’re not walking 15K+ steps per day, you’re not working hard enough.
Also, don’t forget to have a great time.
Baselayer merch spotted at M2020
newsletter vs. reality (this was 1/3 of the merch we brought)
Post-Event List:
Okay, cool, now the event is over (phew). Just kidding, the real work begins now.
It’s your job to turn all these conversations, leads, and progress bars into REVENUE BABY. Here’s exactly what you should do:
Be more than a salesperson, become a friend: This is the most critical job you have at an event. Show up as an expert, a vibe, or just a great conversation. People respond to someone they connected with 10x more than someone who was just pitching.
“You’re not entitled to the lead just because you paid to be there,” Arielle says to her high-profile clients like Publicis, Kargo, and Mastercard, who pay her to be in the room with the people they want to do business with.
It’s about showing up.
Get the phone numbers of the most important people there, then text them: Anyone you actually care about should be on a texting basis with you. Don’t be a normie and try to email them.
Pick a day and a 2-hour time range where your entire team posts on socials: Flooding the feeds is a huge consumer hack that you can apply to your event marketing strategy. This ensures everyone important will see something about your company being at this event (and crushing it)
Tell a story: Use this opportunity to paint a picture of your company beyond the revenue. I love talking about vibe, culture, merch, energy at events because you can detail really colorful examples.
Tag 20+ people: Tag literally everyone you met at the event and recently connected with on LinkedIn in your post (I just did this here)
Detail the wins and failures: If you don’t have a list of things to iterate on, you’re not studying the competition closely enough. Assume your competitors are dissecting your every move.
Schedule a 45-min debrief with your team or kick off an async Slack thread to know what worked and what can be improved for next time
Thank the event organizers: Small thing, huge results. These people spent so much time and money putting this together for your industry.
Also, they have a direct line to all the important people who attended. If you want first dibs next year, it’s not a bad idea to become their besides.
I usually go for the Head of Marketing or VP of Sales and send them a connection request on LinkedIn + a nice note.
Well, How’d I Do?
The best part about these events is always the team bonding + deepening of important partnerships and customer relationships.
The priority for going is the pipeline and business expansion opportunity.
Take note of what brands crush it at events and reach out for coffee with the marketers at those companies to learn about their secrets and strategies!
It was incredible to meet so many of you there and bring you into the Knight Vision world.
I hope you have a productive and eventful week!
Julia
