How to Maximise Your Events and Sponsorship Investment
This post was originally published on the Canterbury Tech website.
Are events a part of your marketing mix? This post is for you especially if you are sponsoring or exhibiting, but also some tips even if you are simply an attendee.
Whether you are sponsoring or exhibiting at the Tech Summit, heading into conference season in the US, or tripping over the ditch to meet clients and prospects in Ozzie, there should be some key things you consider.
Events can be a great part of your toolbox. Although lots of business went online during covid, events are back and it’s great to meet people in real life. You can reconnect with existing clients, meet and build relationships with prospects, touch base with suppliers, check out competitors and even get to position yourself for potential great employees.
Events can be great places to pick up market intelligence - what’s hot on peoples’ minds (worries and opportunities); you can test and get feedback on your offering; see what’s changing and, if the event organisers have done a good job in curation, there should be interesting key themes coming through - picking out challenges and opportunities of today and the future.
But it ‘aint cheap!
Aside from the cost of attending (anything from a few hundred dollars, to a couple of thousand), prices for sponsorships or exhibiting can also be a big part of your marketing budget. Not to mention, travel, accommodation and time out of the office.
But what gets me, is that many businesses focus ALL of their attention on the day of the conference/event and fail to maximise the value of their investment.
Now more than ever, don’t waste your money.
I want to challenge (encourage) you to think about these 5 points - and get more value from the investment you’re making in sponsoring, boothing, or attending events and conferences:
Strategic alignment
What are you doing before the event
Maximise the day
Follow up & next steps
Was it worth it?
1. Strategic alignment
Before committing to an event sponsorship or expo booth, think about the following:
Does this event support your strategy; how specifically?
Reality check - calculate how much you are investing. I have seen organisations allocate not much more than the cost of the event booth itself, but the costs add up; so it could be double the budget you initially allocated
Do you think this is the best way to achieve the objectives with this pot of money, or could you achieve your objectives more cost effectively in other ways?
What are your objectives for the event - set some metrics (this links with the next point)
How will we know we are successful and it was a good investment (think about how to measure before the event)
I’m not saying don’t do it, but just want to encourage you to think strategically before you commit.
Now you have agreed this is the right thing to do - it’s time to do it well. And I promise, it doesn’t actually have to cost a fortune.
2. What are you doing before the event?
OK, admit it - most of you are spending time thinking about your booth - collateral, swag and competitions.
But there’s other opportunities too.
Gaining profile. How are you showing your support / attendance at the event - well before you get there?
A good sponsorship / expo package should include options for you to promote and message to attendees
Think also about how you can communicate through your own channels too. Your website, newsletters, social media, email signatures….
What’s your message? How can you communicate to prospects and clients that you are going to be there & the value /alignment you have identified
“We’re proud to be sponsoring...(why)”
“We’ll see you there….(so that???)”.
Who are you looking to meet with? Be explicit. If your objective is to gain new prospects, you want to be targeting the ones that have the best fit
“we’re especially looking to meet people who are interested in ABC”
“If you are struggling with XYZ we’d love to chat ..”
Is there a direct message you can send to some of your contacts? Are you going to try and have side meetings with prospects & clients. If you have the attendee list you can prioritise, but you might have to review your own CRM and make some ‘educated guesses’ about who might be going, eg if you are looking at the Tech Summit, you might exclude you Australian contacts (“it depends” is generally the answer!)
Internal comms - don’t forget to tell the rest of your team what you are doing and why. Can they help - even by sharing your social media on the day?
3. Maximise the day
I won’t focus on this section too much, as this is the bit most people have been thinking about: what’s the backdrop, do we need banners, imagery, a video? What is the team wearing? Have we got a competition to get people’s names? Do we have information to give people? Swag?
Some things I have sometimes seen missing include:
Who is on your team? This might seem super obvious…..but pick those who are great at engaging with strangers and can keep their energy going all day, as well as your technical experts. This can apply to those standing on booths, sponsors or attendees.
If you have an expo booth, it can be super helpful to split the team, with those who can stand in the aisles and engage with prospects, triage the tyre kickers (eg “here’s a brochure”) and introduce the hot leads to your key people who can have a meaningful conversation
How are you capturing & prioritising your leads so it’s easy for the team to follow up?
Not everyone carries business cards anymore…what’s the plan if not?
Elevator pitch & objectives - get the team together beforehand and make sure everyone has a good level of understanding of your whole offering and what you are trying to achieve at the event.
My perspective: most of us are not great at having succinct elevator pitches (please prove me wrong!)
Sometimes some of your team may not be as familiar with your whole story or product mix as others, so make sure they have the ‘whole picture’
Don’t forget the employee branding messaging if that’s a part of your play
Share on social media
Use the event’s # as this will get shared and amplified by other attendees and the event team
What you do depends on your strategy, and alignment with your brand, from shout-outs as a sponsor or exhibitor, to focusing on the learnings, or interactions you have
Take photos - with people
These can be used for social posts (on the day / after), other marketing activities, internal communications, reports and presentations
I say ‘with people’ as an expo booth or banner on its own is not very engaging, whereas we humans still are!
4. Follow up & next steps
Phew! That was great, we had a fabulous time and have a whole heap of leads.
Now what!?
You should have planned this before the event, especially ensuring there is time and resources allocated to follow up.
Don’t be the team that gets back after a ‘day out’, gets right back into ‘normal’ work and the leads get older, the energy to follow up with them diminishes and the value of your investment is wasted.
Prioritise your leads and follow them up with urgency
You might have different levels of leads and urgency here, eg hot sales opportunities versus a marketing lead
Upload relevant leads to your CRM
Post event comms - Is there a blog, video, social post, website update etc that needs doing?
5. Was it worth it?
One last step - have a review.
Was this investment value for money?
Did we achieve our objectives?
What were the metrics?
What was the final budget?
What went well?
What did we learn?
What needs improving?
Would we do it again?
Checklist for your next event
To help with your next event I have created an Event and Sponsorship Checklist. Download your copy here.
Have I missed anything?
What else have you found works? I’d love to hear from you, or bowl me up at the Tech Summit.
See you there 😊
Who do I want to connect with?
Tech & innovation companies - that’s my jam to help you:
If you are struggling to grow effectively, including moving beyond word of moth
You are already super successful, but are at a pivot point in your business that needs some additional direction and support - new market, new product
You have a technical sale and need help to make sure it lands better with your prospects
Get In Touch
I provide leadership, support and direction for growing Kiwi tech and innovation companies as a ‘virtual’ (remotely) or 'fractional' (part-time) Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) - an affordable way to get senior thinking and direction for businesses.
If you could do with some help to grow your business, get in touch
Helen Shorthouse
Virtual / Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)