Boost Your Conference ROI with This Step-by-Step Playbook

Conferences have long been a key component of B2B marketing, serving as fertile ground for building new relationships and nurturing existing ones. Despite the digital age transforming many aspects of business, nothing quite replaces the impact of in-person interactions. After all, sales is fundamentally a relationship-driven endeavor. Conferences offer a unique opportunity for your sales teams to connect face-to-face with potential clients, partners, and industry peers.

However, let's not sugarcoat it—conferences can be expensive. But that doesn't mean you need to empty your coffers to develop an effective conference strategy. In this playbook, we'll explore how to maximize your return on investment (ROI) by approaching conferences strategically. From selecting the right events to meticulous planning and diligent follow-up, we'll guide you through every step to ensure your conference participation is both impactful and profitable.

So grab a cup of coffee (or your conference swag water bottle), and let's dive into the ultimate guide to making conferences work for you!

What This Guide Covers

1. Setting the Foundation: Why Conferences Matter

2. Building a Winning Conference Strategy

3. Pre-Conference Planning Essentials

4. Maximizing On-Site Opportunities

5. Lead Management and Post-Conference Follow-Up

6. Advanced Tactics for Conference Success

7. Tracking and Maximizing ROI

1. Setting the Foundation: Why Conferences Matter

The Role of Conferences in the Modern B2B Landscape

Let's face it: while we live in a digital world, B2B sales still thrive on personal connections. In-person relationships can accelerate the sales process in ways that online interactions often can't match. Conferences are the perfect venues to initiate and strengthen these relationships. A casual chat in the exhibit hall can lead to deeper conversations during cocktail hours or dinners, laying the groundwork for a successful business partnership.

Benefits: Lead Generation, Brand Exposure, Thought Leadership

Attending conferences gives you a head start in your sales efforts by ensuring your brand is known in the industry. Many of us have heard of the "Marketing Rule of 7"—the idea that a prospect needs to see or hear your brand at least seven times before taking action. Conferences help you tick off several of those touchpoints in a condensed timeframe.

Beyond brand exposure, conferences are excellent for lead generation. The proximity to potential buyers allows your sales team to start conversations and build relationships. And let's not forget thought leadership. By participating in panels or hosting workshops, you position your company as an industry leader, adding significant value to your brand.

2. Building a Winning Conference Strategy

Aligning Conferences with Business Goals

It's common knowledge which conferences are the "must-attend" events in your industry. However, it's crucial to be thoughtful and disciplined about which ones to sponsor. As your product focus evolves, aligning the conferences you attend with your current business goals is key. This ensures that the events resonate with your target audience and amplify the products or features you're promoting.

How to Select the Right Conferences for Your Audience

Depending on your company's stage, conferences can serve different purposes. For early-stage businesses, conferences are an excellent playground to test messaging and explore new markets. They allow you to interact with a high concentration of individuals who fit your ideal customer profile (ICP) or even adjacent professionals you haven't considered before.

For established businesses with well-defined ICPs, selecting the right conferences becomes more straightforward. However, when exploring new events, it's wise not to go all-in with a big sponsorship unless you're absolutely certain it's the right fit. Instead, test the waters with a smaller sponsorship in the first year.

Conference organizers usually provide demographic information, which is helpful. Still, conducting independent research and even talking to past sponsors can provide valuable insights to ensure the event is right for you.

Annual Planning and Budget Allocation Tips

After setting your field marketing budget, clarify your goals. What ROI should this channel bring to your marketing investments? Then, define which events you'll sponsor and how. If you've participated in events before, ensure you have the right analytics to decide your approach:

• Which events will you repeat?

• Which ones will you drop?

• Where should you invest more?

This analysis helps allocate your budget smartly. A good rule of thumb is the 80/20 rule: allocate 80% of your budget to repeat events and 20% to new ones. This keeps your event strategy fresh and ensures you're not missing out on high-potential opportunities.

3. Pre-Conference Planning Essentials

Preparing Marketing and Sales Teams for Success

Often, marketing teams handle all the coordination for events, which means they must communicate effectively with organizers and sales teams. Work on messaging, prepare announcements for any new features or products launching at the event and develop pre-conference drip campaigns to warm up leads. Coordinate with sales to start setting up meetings. The key to a successful conference and high ROI is preparation.

Setting Measurable Objectives

ROI is one of the most important concepts in this channel (and all marketing channels, to be honest). Your investment and expectations from the conference are crucial. Determine:

• How much are you investing in this conference?

• What should the conference bring in return?

Set clear goals for your marketing and sales teams. This ensures everyone is laser-focused on achieving specific outcomes, whether that's generating a certain number of leads, securing meetings, or enhancing brand visibility.

Creating an Effective Pre-Conference Campaign

So, what is a pre-conference campaign? It's a coordinated effort to maximize your impact at the event. Key elements include:

• Aligning on Messaging: Ensure everyone is on the same page regarding what you want to communicate.
  

• Warming Up Leads: Use email campaigns, social media, and other channels to build anticipation.
  

• Setting Up Meetings: Proactively reach out to attendees to schedule one-on-one meetings during the conference.
  

Who needs to be involved? Typically, product teams coordinate with marketing and sales to align on messaging and product releases. Clear communication is vital to avoid any confusion about roles and responsibilities.

4. Maximizing On-Site Opportunities

Designing an Attention-Grabbing Booth or Sponsorship Presence

Booth placement is the most basic yet crucial factor you should focus on. Most events allow you to provide preferred locations. Understand the flow of the exhibit hall—the location of food, snacks, or coffee stations—and position your booth accordingly. If you don't have that information, ask the organizers.

Your booth doesn't have to be the massive, super-expensive setup that big companies bring. But do ensure your setup is clean with clear, up-to-date messaging aligned with all your materials. Be thoughtful about what to bring so your booth grabs attention with the right amount of info.

And swag? Well, let's just say I've got a particular view on that. Swag is often a waste of money and can contribute to environmental waste. If you want to offer something at your booth, consider consumables like branded chocolates—they're inexpensive and definitely attract people. And don’t forget a downloadable brochure through a QR code.

Capturing Data On-Site

There's nothing as powerful as capturing attendees' information during the event. Be ready to do this in multiple ways:

• Business Card Exchanges: The classic method still works.
  

• Digital Downloadables: Have an iPad or laptop at your booth with a landing page where visitors can download valuable content in exchange for their information.
  

• QR Codes in Presentations: If you're presenting, include a QR code at the end with a downloadable asset. It's a great way to collect leads in real time.
  

Get creative with other methods, and don't forget to share your successes!

5. Lead Management and Post-Conference Follow-Up

Organizing Leads for Follow-Up

Preparation pays off here. One tactic that succeeds repeatedly is having your marketing ops or sales ops team take ownership of this critical step. Effective follow-up is key. You'll have leads you met personally and leads provided by the event organizer. Spend time with marketing and sales to go through these contact lists and ensure everyone knows who is responsible for each lead.

The approach for contacts met in person will differ from those received in a list. Ensure the messaging aligns with the conference's themes and that your follow-up strategies are coordinated.

Crafting Personalized Follow-Up Campaigns

Follow-up campaigns can be time-consuming, but the effort is often well worth it. Be thoughtful about which campaigns to send, what the message should be, and which leads will be handled directly by sales. As a rule of thumb, prioritize your sales team to conduct outreach to people they met in person—it’s far more impactful. The marketing team can assist by providing high-level messaging and content for the sales team to customize. Trust me; they'll thank you for it.

Measuring the Success of Your Post-Conference Efforts

The results of your conferences won't be immediately apparent; it may take weeks or even months. Ensure there's a monthly follow-up involving your marketing ops manager and events lead. Setting up scorecards to track progress makes everyone's life easier. Your team should view an event as a living organism. Depending on your sales cycles, the results will evolve over months, sometimes even years. More on this topic below.

6. Advanced Tactics for Conference Success

Hosting Breakout Sessions, Panels, or Workshops to Drive Authority

Early in my career as a B2B CMO, I learned that the ROI of an event where you have a speaking slot is substantially higher than when you don't. Usually, the cost is only marginally higher—say, 20% to 30% more. Nowadays, I don't sponsor an event unless the investment includes a presentation.

But securing a speaking slot is just part of the battle. The topic must be a good fit for the event and should not come across as overly salesy. Sales pitches disguised as educational presentations are a major turn-off. By providing genuine value and sharing insights from your business, you position yourself as a thought leader.

And don't forget to take advantage of your live audience! Include a QR code at the end of your presentation for a downloadable asset. You'll likely get more leads this way than by trying to sell your product throughout the presentation.

Leveraging Feedback to Refine Future Strategies

We've talked about rigorously tracking quantitative results from conferences, which is obviously key. But what about qualitative feedback? How do you gather it, and what's important?

Marketing teams often plan and analyze conferences but don't always attend them. First, I recommend that marketing staff attend conferences when possible. Organizers often know that marketers manage conference budgets, so if you ask, they'll likely allow a marketer to attend in addition to the purchased spots. This experience allows the team to interact with prospects and clients firsthand.

Capturing qualitative feedback from your attendees is crucial. In addition to requiring sales attendees to provide the leads they captured, ask them to fill out a short survey with questions like:

• How would you rate the event?

• Should our company sponsor the event again next year?

• How was the exhibit hall experience?

• How was the networking experience?

These data points help inform the level of investment for the following year.

7. Tracking and Maximizing ROI

Defining the Key Metrics for Success

The north star metric at a conference should align with your overall marketing goals, whether that's MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads), SQLs (Sales Qualified Leads), or opportunities. However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't track other metrics:

• Number of Leads Generated

• Number of Pre-Conference Meetings Arranged

• Downloadables Accessed

• Increase in Website Visits

I also like to track "influenced opportunities" and, ultimately, clients. What are influenced opportunities? It's common to encounter leads at an event who have been in your pipeline but were dormant. The interaction at the conference can reignite the conversation, making them valuable influenced leads.

Using Post-Event Surveys and Data to Calculate ROI

As mentioned earlier, ROI won't be defined at or even right after the conference—it'll take time, depending on your sales cycle. However, you should have some early indicators of the conference's success. Just measuring how many leads were brought in and how many opportunities (meetings scheduled) can give you a good idea.

Your conference scorecard should be updated monthly to reflect leads moving down the pipeline. Define a cutoff point for each event—say, six or twelve months—depending on your sales cycle.

Conferences can be a goldmine for B2B marketing when approached strategically. By aligning events with your business goals, meticulously planning, and executing thoughtful follow-up, you can significantly enhance your ROI. Remember, the key is not just to show up but to stand out.

In-person interactions accelerate the sales process by building trust and fostering relationships that digital channels can't replicate. But success doesn't come by chance; it requires careful selection of events, aligning your team, setting clear objectives, and measuring outcomes diligently.

So the next time you're contemplating that hefty conference sponsorship fee, remember this playbook. With the right strategy, conferences won't just be an expense—they'll be one of your most lucrative investments. As always, reach out to the evolveIQ team if you need help with these or any other marketing strategies. Happy conferencing!