Event Marketing Dos and Don'ts

I just recently came back from Black Hat 2022 and shared my thoughts in a quick post. Got overwhelming response (17K impressions and counting) from analysts, customers, prospects, and vendors, which probably means this is a common pain point. Thought of summarizing my thoughts on Black Hat 2022 in this article to help marketers get the most out of all future events.

1. Unfortunately, there is no Yelp for you to check if you should invest in an event or not. Look at past attendees, titles, number of attendees, pass them through your funnel to estimate the impact on pipe generation after multiplying the number of opps by your ASP. Is that number at least 10 times of the investment you are making at that event? WORTH IT
2. Are you a sub $10M revenue company and you are spending north of $0.5M (all things included) on just one event? NOT WORTH IT
3. Are you just showing up at the event without booking any pre-meetings using the networking app or your BDRs because you think people will flock to your booth because of the cool giveaway? NOT WORTH IT
4. Have you asked your investors to co-sponsor the event? Because, every $ they put in, will likely bring $20 back to them? WORTH IT
5. Do your giveaways have nothing to do with the messaging of the product or the company? NOT WORTH IT
6. Does your booth look super closed from most sides maybe because you are a paranoid security company or you think it will make your brand look exclusive? Attendees will continue walking. The only wall should be the one that the demo screen goes on. NOT WORTH IT
7. Did you try to pack every single buzzword and feature in the booth graphic? NOT WORTH IT
8. Are you talking about yourself, your company instead of talking about the customer pain-points? NOT WORTH IT
9. Do you have screens with high res, high impact graphics, customer logos, awards, testimonials and demo continuously looping throughout the show in your booth? WORTH IT
10. Is your team talking among themselves at the booth because they have not seen each other for so long or checking their phones / emails at the booth? NOT WORTH IT

These are my quick thoughts. Would love to hear yours and I promise to continuously update this article to help other marketers get the most out of their events investment. Let me know if this helpful and I can look into writing similar experiences on SEO, PR, Product Marketing, Social Media, etc.

Startups need two things - innovation and marketing. I like to do both. Be creative, be scrappy, be experimental and be wise with money.