With today’s technology, finding information is easier than ever since you can review all of the world’s knowledge from the comfort of your office or home. However, getting all that information isn’t enough to develop an outstanding product, attract new investors, or build a profitable venture.
In this sense, business conferences play a crucial role in helping grow your business, since they provide a number of direct and indirect business opportunities. For small business owners, holding a meeting can be a time- and money-sucking expense.
Underestimating the effect of such events, however, may be a bad call for your business, as well. Yes, to clarify your thoughts – “Conferences or Events –Are they worth to invest it”, VeeSpaces have curated the word of mouth from the top most marketers. Let’s find out what these 13 marketers say.
Word of Mouth from Top 13 Event Marketers – Events or Conferences – Are they worth to invest it?
Liam Barnes – Technical Growth Marketer, Bionic
People think of events as ways to connect with net new folks.
Sometimes events can be the best for retention and closing open opportunities because they are a way to get face to face with people.
If you think of events as sales-driven, rather than marketing driven, this will probably change the outcome and the returns you see
Andrew Davies – CMO, Paddle
Before committing to an event, businesses should consider whether it will help them build relationships with senior buyers or segments that are hard to reach through online channels.
Additionally, they should evaluate whether they have the resources to make the most of the investment and how they can derisk the event budget by adding value that extends beyond direct generation.
Liudmila Kiseleva – CEO, Rampiq
The importance of in-person events for listening. The value of these events often lies in conversations with the audience and other industry professionals, which cannot be replicated in virtual settings.
Mikkel Kiarulf Plaehn – Head of Demand, Growblocks
99% of the conversations at large conferences/tradeshows won’t become opportunities the week after. They become relationships.
Unlike most marketing touch points, you’ve actually met in person and that can be pretty darn valuable in the long term.
Jason Bradwell – Co Founder
Activate the event at a smaller scale to build confidence and minimize risk against a larger spend next year? e.g, private dinner vs. booth
Turn the event into a content creation opportunity and measure ROI that way.? Conferences have a high concentration of potential podcast guests or contributors – recording 3 months of episodes in 3 days is a tangible way of justifying spend.
Steve Burg – Marketing & Strategy Lead, Powtoon
I believe that events have two different goals: brand awareness and hyper-qualified deal generation. When deciding whether to attend an event, businesses need to ask themselves whether there are more cost and time-efficient ways to achieve the same goal in other ways. They should evaluate the number of qualified leads they will bring back and how much pipeline revenue they are likely to generate.
Laura Lilienthal – Freelance Marketing Consultant
Ultimately CAC and events’ contribution to it are key for me – numbers don’t lie! Calculating event related CAC can be an eye opener.
Personally I prefer events where I have a speaker or panelist first, and can add a booth if I need to – educational content has had more impact than feet at the booth.
Emelie Linheden – VP of Marketing, Younium
I emphasize the importance of having a clear project plan and step-by-step process for everyone representing the business at an event.
I have seen so many bad examples when companies invest a lot in events But don’t even do the minimum job to make it ok.
It is hard work but money wise I’ve so far got it back in deals.
Karin Haussmann – Marketing Adviser
I see an event attendance as just one of many touch points in your customer life cycle. The internet has its place but it’s hard to replicate what you get out of meeting people face to face. But you need to plan and have clear KPIs set – not necessarily closing NB right after but adding lots of great contacts to the top of your funnel.
Aleksandra Panyukhina – Marketing Lead, Pixelz
I suggest that businesses should be creative in building a campaign around events to maximize ROI. Rather than always sponsoring events, they should consider other approaches and factor in different considerations for each business.
Sander Buitelaar – Product Marketing Manager
One way you could test this is not to sponsor the conference itself (they’re usually very expensive) but to do an event during those days of the conference in the city. e.g., book a restaurant or a venue and have a separate event for your customers/ prospects. I’ve seen this work well at big conferences like Dreamforce and SaaStr.
Kritarth Mahalwal – B2B Marketer
I believe that events and conferences can be rewarding when businesses have a high-priced ticket and a micro-niche that is very specific, one-to-one meetings can be valuable for building personal relationships.
Simon Ruben Hemph – CMO, Telness
Events, conferences. A dilemma.
Worth it? It depends on how you look at it. Your experience is that you are not feeling great about the ROI. Don’t focus on ROI or transactions. Start with a different mindset. Consider impact, connections, potential. Look beyond ROI.