Making Business ‘Event’-ful

The world continues to evolve, meaning businesses must do the same in order to survive. Such evolutions are multi-faceted, dynamic, and challenging. Revenue is no longer linked solely to products sold or services rendered. Because of this, marketing, advertising, demand generation, and lead nurturing must also diversify in terms of techniques. Yet, some aspects of business marketing remain the same and hosting business events will continue as an essential tool for your business into the foreseeable future.

Sure, you can host virtual events, and during the pandemic, virtual was the only option available if you wanted to attract a broad range of prospective buyers. Still, nothing beats the value of in-person business events as a marketing tool. As the recovery from the pandemic is nearly complete, organizations plan on attending and hosting in-person events and conferences in order to ensure their brand, products, and services are visible to their target markets. Globally, the business of events and conferences was worth $1.6 trillion last year. Below is some more information on company events and sponsorship.

Which companies host business events?

There are many different types of company events, some in-person and some virtual. Depending on the type of event, you may find that individual companies host some, and some are hosted by more prominent event organizers, such as organizations and trade groups. Some events, like CES (the consumer electronics show) held in Las Vegas last week, had over 140,000 attendees, while others are much smaller, with only a handful of folks showing up.

Another example is SITS, which is a global organization that hosts an event in London each year with a focus on IT Service Management technologies. Organizations then attend the event to showcase their offerings, with attendees representing organizations that purchase these types of products. Some organizations spend big on these industry conferences with elaborate prizes, giveaways, and expensive booths, while others are much more modest. Large organizations like Cisco, Salesforce, and Atlassian host their own conferences to present the broad range of products offered to different market segments without the distraction and competition that comes with industry conferences.

The emphasis here is on organizations that partner with the host to demonstrate their capabilities by showcasing their skills in booths and on-stage presentations. Think of a vendor showcase and conference, and you will get a general feel for the layout. In order to showcase, though, organizations are expecting to provide funding in the form of sponsoring events.

Applying for sponsorship

The sponsorship process for events is generally relatively complex and long-winded because sponsors get a variety of benefits, including marketing on all event publicity and a prime spot for their booth or on-stage presentation. Often, the process comes down to a tiered approach with varying quality gates that companies must meet in order to receive the highest tier of a sponsorship package. Generally, organizations are expected to demonstrate what they are capable of by way of talk submission, event plan, and overall approach in order to gain a higher tier of sponsorship.

The tiering system varies significantly from conference to conference, but rewards may include a more prominent branding presence, more on-stage talks, and key attendance at company announcements. Sponsors may also get access to the attendee mailing list or other perks. Sometimes, however, the awards process is done by way of the highest bidder first, and benefits are limited only to branding and booth size.

Event types

There are many variations of possible events to sponsor in the business world. The most prominent are in-person conferences held in various locations. Often, these take on the appearance of large trade shows, but some organizations hold smaller events in their offices or other venues. For instance, in larger cities, vibrant groups may sponsor various events, such as pitch events attended by venture capitalists, product demos, and training sessions. Individual companies might sponsor a launch event for a select audience of potential buyers.

Generally, in-person events require funded sponsorship, which can range from a few hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. These sponsorships help cover the costs of renting the venue, publicity, staffing, and incidentals such as food for breaks.

Another event type may include hybrid activities where the in-person elements of conferences are broadcast online. Again, sponsorship is generally costly. Some companies, especially tech companies, host a virtual trade show with all the bells and whistles of an in-person one, such as booths, stage presentations, and networking opportunities. However, there is an increasing propensity for companies to hold webinars and online broadcasts where sponsors provide knowledge, small gifts, and prizes rather than sponsorship dollars.

Possible Locations

As you can imagine, with the variety of event types, organization types, and sponsor types, there comes a wide variety in terms of location possibilities. Some organizations host in small hotels, their offices, or restaurants, while others go big by renting out an entire conference facility. This all depends on the scale and budget for such events. One of the most popular locations for large conferences is Las Vegas, Nevada, in the United States of America. The conference scene is incredibly lucrative and popular with attendees globally.

A recent Amazon Web Services conference saw over 100,000 attendees, with four separate venues hired to accommodate the sheer scale of the showcase that came with it. South By Southwest, a major tech and entertainment conference, is held in Austin, Texas, with venues all over the city. Some of these include elaborate stand-alone installations located between conference venues, such as the one below.

Activities on site

Variation is a definite theme of this article and occurs again in terms of the activities available on-site in the vast array of conferences held globally. More often than not, each sponsor is given a booth to showcase their offerings and services. A booth is staffed by employees trained to engage attendees with demonstrations of their products, answer questions, and collect information for follow-up after the event. Companies might have working prototypes of their products, offer samples, or simply provide brochures. I once attended a conference where IBM had a working robot strolling the trade show area. Many companies hold contests for attendees who fill out a form or drop a card in a bowl with prizes ranging from a t-shirt to an iPad or even more expensive prizes.

Alongside this, more significant events have stage space for talks and presentations. Some standard formats for these talks include fireside chats (multiple speakers in a more intimate setting), panel discussions (generally talks between suppliers and customers on specific topics and success stories), and keynote presentations. Meeting rooms are often set aside for organizations to discuss specific topics with customers in a more private setting and it’s common for companies to host elaborate meals in restaurants or entertainment activities for select attendees.

Event formats

Event formats are crucial to event success. The organizers will almost always have an agenda, with private company hosts presenting developments in their new offerings. There is often a keynote session held by the organizers where they make significant announcements about the future of the organization. Steve Jobs of Apple was a master of the product launch, a tradition that continues today.

To get an idea of this, think of Google and Facebook announcements with large crowds, senior executives speaking, and groundbreaking developments announced.

Fulfilling sponsorship requirements

In order to be successful when applying to sponsor an event, organizations and individuals are expected to commit to specific criteria and success metrics. As you can guess, these vary depending on the event. Still, most conferences have a key performance indicator against the number of new deals/licenses sold to attendees and another on the number of customers invited.

Post-event follow-up

Events and conferences are always entertaining, but they only last two to five days. Primarily, the actual events are irrelevant to performance and are only necessary to generate future pipelines. Indeed, it is the follow-up to any event that is the most crucial aspect. Your sponsorship is only meaningful if you have a clear strategy on how to convert new contacts into meaningful pipelines. That often means a lead nurturing program through a solid email marketing strategy. Not only does this ensure you get all you can from your sponsorship, but email marketing has the highest ROI of any marketing program, as you can see in the image below.

Conclusion

Business events are often expensive and time-consuming, but the rewards from implementing a sound events strategy are well worth the cost. In this post, you learned about some key aspects of participating in business events. I hope you found what we shared valuable.

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