Events are once again one of the strongest channels for creating real connection and driving real pipeline. 85% of event professionals say 2026 will bring more in‑person meetings and conferences, the highest level in five years, according to American Express Global Meetings and Events Forecast.
Why? Because people want to meet again. They want to shake hands, see product in action, and talk to someone who understands their problem.
So, you got your booth picked, logistics are set. Now it’s time to get value out of the money and time you’re putting into this event.
Here are a few tips to getting the most out of it:
Should you even attend this event?
Not every event deserves your budget. Before you commit:
- Are your buyers there? Check last year’s attendees, exhibitors, speakers. If your ICP isn’t represented, attending becomes a branding exercise with no pipeline.
- Does the event help attendees accomplish something? Thin agendas lead to thin conversations.
- Can you show up well? Half‑hearted presence doesn’t cut it. If you can’t staff it properly, promote it, and follow up, skip it and reinvest.
- Is this the right type of event for your goals? Big conferences aren’t always the best answer. Regional and niche events may offer more intimate, higher‑quality interactions.
- Do you have something worth talking about? A point of view, a demo, a new feature, a customer win. Something to make people stop and talk.
The event passed these checks? Now it’s worth planning for.
Pre-event promotion & planning
- Decide your level of investment. Make sure your spend matches the importance of the event, and potential ROI.
- Lock in your messaging. If the event caters to a certain segment, make sure you align your messaging.
- Confirm booth materials. Finalize signage, screens, demo gear, adapters, printed materials.
- Ship materials early and confirm arrival. Let’s not risk it.
T minus 30: time to start promoting your participation. Here are some things you could get started with:
- Promote your participation on all social channels like LinkedIn. Keep it simple and relevant. Show what you solve and why attendees should stop by. Utilize the company page and personal accounts of those attending.
- Set up a new booking calendar page with tools like Calendly or Microsoft Bookings (included in Microsoft365). Provide options like ‘Schedule demo’ or ‘Book a Consult’. Create a QR code for the booking page that can be used for booth side traffic.
- Create an event landing page on your website. Include a short pitch, a booking link, and a visitor contact registration form where details go directly into your CRM.
- Add the event information to everyone’s email signature. Still one of the easiest wins.
- Announce something. A new feature, new customer, anything new. Create a little bit of buzz around the event. Distribute on a low cost web wire service.
- Send a marketing email to all contacts that are likely to attend. It’s okay to overshoot on this one. It could be a list of association members, prospects/customers in the area, etc. Call to action, “let’s setup some time to meet”, or “come by booth 123”.
- Have sellers send a short sequence to their contacts, even if they are not attending.
- Set goals! Number of new opportunities, Number of new contacts, assign someone to competitor insights. Whatever your goals are, document them for your post mortem review. Gamify goals as a team, celebrate some wins!
- Set a booth schedule. No one wants to be on their feet all day. Maximum presence during exhibit hours, but otherwise reduce booth duty to one person at a time. Use downtime to scope out competitors, go to sessions, meet customers or prospects.
- Get into uniform, make sure your presence extends beyond the booth. One easy way is to make sure everyone is wearing the same thing on the same days. It doesn’t have to be whacky, but the brain of your buyer unconsciously remembers these things.
- Internal team meeting. Get everyone on page. Agree on:
- a penetrating question to start conversations.
- 7-word description of what you do.
- no one should ever be sitting or working at the booth. If you need a sitting area, build it into the booth presence or have access to a meeting room.
- Create a Campaign and Event record in CRM. Track your campaign costs, and relate campaign responses and event participants to these new records. This will track your attribution for later.
It’s Go Time!
Here comes the easy part:
- Attend all social events, encourage at least one representative to attend each session and report back on what was covered. Turn that rich content into blogs that offer your company’s perspective on the problem at hand. This will give you content for months.
- Post Post Post! Hit all the social channels you are on with happy pics, session pics, videos of your team in action – everything you’ve got.
- Setup a QR code: Visitors can scan the code with their own phones. They can drop their email and name into a form right from there. As well as access any valuable content. You could put that content behind a form wall.
- Setup a contact logging form for sellers. Same idea, simplified form so they can add contacts to CRM instantly. Those new contacts will get created and have a campaign response automatically created.
Post event
Here comes the most important part:
- Assign all inputted contacts to a seller. Do this fast.
- Send contacts to a marketing email. A simple “Great meeting you, here’s what we talked about” goes a long way.
- Assigned contacts should be added to a follow-up sequence with an email, auto reply email, LinkedIn touch, and phone call.
- Track activity and engagement one week later. Make sure follow-ups were done.
- Ensure all contacts have a campaign response and event participation to their record. This will help with attribution later.
- Schedule a post mortem the very next day.
- Make sure to tag all newly created opportunities to this specific event.
- This last step is pretty critical as it will answer the inevitable question: “Was it worth it?” Ideally you find new opportunities at the event, but in addition you want to track other benefits of events such as:
- How many new contacts did you meet?
- How many customers did you meet?
- Any new opportunities created? Were they attributed to the event?
- How many impressions did you create with your pre-event marketing?
- What industry insights did you glean?
- What did you learn about competitors?
- What would you do differently next year?
Answer the question, “Would you do it again next year?”. Sometimes that impulse decision is the right one. Document the answer for next year’s sober look.
Conclusion
Live events represent one of the last ways to form authentic connections. For B2B software companies, not every marketing action has a linear and related path to opportunity creation. It’s important to build brand awareness and educate potential buyers. If planned right, events are a great way to do this.
The hard part isn’t usually the event itself, it’s everything wrapped around it. Building the lists, getting the messaging out, capturing the right data at the booth, routing leads properly, and making sure follow‑ups actually happen. All the unglamorous operational pieces that determine whether the event produces real pipeline or just good photos.
Most teams are solid once they’re at the booth. The harder part is keeping the systems around the event running smoothly. And when those systems aren’t tight, it’s almost impossible to show the value of the event afterward.
If you want the operational side of this to run cleanly – the campaigns, the tracking, the follow‑up, the attribution – we can help. Our Marketing Services are built to take on that part of the work so your team can focus on the conversations that actually move deals forward.
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