This week some of the Circa team attended the SaaStr Annual event in San Mateo, California to learn from B2B exhibitors on what activities and techniques they are starting to apply to their sponsored in-person events. Business development representative Dan Heron went around and took some pictures with the exhibitors. 

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Here are our 7 event marketing takeaways from SaaStr Annual:

Your experiential marketing must have a personality

Prospects want to know your company’s personality and story so consider having an activity that can bring out an emotion such as fear or joy. Or both! Like we are doing with our hot air balloon during Elevate 2021. 

Must have additional ways to capture leads

Badge scanners may or may not work leaving you without your promised leads. Be ready with your own registration tool to sync with your company’s CRM. 

Quality swag > Branded Trinkets

The exhibitors that put effort into their swag with quality, utility, that were on-trend and targeted to their ICP did the best from talks in and around SaaStr. No one wants to lug around bags full of trinkets. Especially as we become more sustainability-minded in business. 

Marketing and Sales need to be in sync on who is working the event

Nothing worse than a prospect trying to connect with people at your company and the event staff doesn’t know who is there or what is going on. Calendar visibility is crucial so your event staff can connect prospects with the right team members. One way you can do this is by connecting their calendars and RSVPs with your events dashboard. Also, it is nice to send them all an event brief which can greatly help the coordination of large teams.

If the in-person event is outdoors, then plan to use up physical space beyond the booth.

Have event staff and reps engage with attendees outside of your booth. Bring people to your booth to chat and learn more about your product and register for follow-up consultations.

Must report immediately on the business impact of the event

You need to take time to collect all your data from the different channels and analyze the impact your event had on the company. You need to be able to show potential revenue quickly. If you don’t have time for that because you are exhausted from the event and already starting work on the next one, you might consider getting a tool to help out with the post-event ROI reporting such as Circa.

When in doubt, take a selfie!

Capturing a moment in real life with a prospect or future partner allows you to build a relationship that continues online once you leave the event. 

If you have a growing event marketing strategy with tradeshows and webinars, sign up for a product demo with us to chat with you about how Circa may help you get the most impact out of your sales and marketing events.