How to Maximize Your ROI at an Industry Conference

Conferences are a fantastic way to promote your company and products and to build valuable connections… if you leverage them properly. Too often, founders attend conferences without a definitive strategy or goals in mind, and leave wondering whether it was worth their time and money. Here are a few tips to help you maximize ROI at the next conference you attend.

Karan Mehta

Published in

Octopus Ventures

5 min readJun 29, 2018

Define your goals

What do you want to achieve? Writing out a strategy will help you determine how to spend your time. Are you looking to generate buzz about your company? Create brand/product evangelists? Meet potential customers or VCs? Or perhaps seek advice from an attendee or keynote speaker?

Do your homework

Most conference organizers will provide the full list of attendees and speakers prior to the conference; if they do not, contact the organizer to request a copy of the list. Scan the list and highlight the people you may want to speak to. Look them up on LinkedIn — consider purchasing a Premium account if you don’t have one for more in-depth information on how you are connected and how they might be able to help you. Also take a look at their social media profiles — specifically Twitter — to see what topics are on their mind so that it gives you some ideas for conversation.

Request meetings

This is the part most people loathe: soliciting meetings through cold outreach. But in this case, you already know that you and the person you want to meet with will be in the same place at the same time, so the “ask” is much less burdensome. Comb through your attendee list and prioritize outreach based on whom you most want to meet with. If the conference did not provide contact information for the attendees, you can ask a mutual connection or use a tool like Vocus.io to find someone’s email address based on their name.

Be thoughtful and direct in your outreach. Lead with the fact that you are both attending the same conference, establish who you are and what you are emailing about and then provide a direct call-to-action.

Here’s an example of a good pre-conference outreach email:

Subject line: The [trigger event that makes me want to reach out to you — i.e. Your article on Forbes about XXX on [date]; The session you’ll be leading at [conference X ] on [topic Y] on [date Z]

[First Name],

[One line about them on the trigger event that makes you want to talk to them — do a direct reference to event you’re quoting, or a visible and public way in which their expertise in the topic has been demonstrated.]

Saw that we are both attending the upcoming [conference name] and that you are speaking at a panel on XXX.

Our work at [insert your company] [how it connects to said topic.]

Could I get 5 minutes of your time to [specific topic of conversation] during the conference? Does 12pm on Tuesday at Lunch Station B work for you?

Regards,

[Name]

[Company Name]

It’s important to remember that 50% of spam filter algorithms focus on the subject line and some of the big no-no’s are:

Caps on all words
“greeting”, “follow up”
Name on subject line

Also, a lot of filters are on links, so it’s best to avoid hyperlinks on a first, cold email.

Don’t be afraid of rejection…and don’t be discouraged if you do not receive a response.

Communicate the agenda prior to the meeting

Once you have (hopefully) received some meeting acceptances, follow up a day or two before the meeting to communicate the agenda. This step is critical. Once the conference starts, both you and the person you are meeting with will be busy attending lectures and networking so you want to make sure the meeting does not get derailed. Write a short email confirming the meeting time and 2–3 bulleted items to discuss in the meeting. It’s not uncommon to get a few last minute cancellations, so have some potential replacements ready that you want to reach out to.

Be present and take notes

It’s easy to get distracted at a conference by email or by work; remember to stick to the goals you defined prior to coming there. In any meeting you have, take notes. It shows you are engaged and value the other person’s time. Plus, you will be meeting so many people and absorbing so much information, you’ll likely forget details from an interaction that you may want to come back to later.

Network, network, network

The tech industry is in some respects a very small world and people will remember the interactions they have with you. While it’s good to pre-schedule meetings, 50% of your time should remain open for networking. There are undoubtedly attendees you will meet who will be helpful to you now or at some point in the future. Meet as many people as you can, ask them questions, and of course, be yourself and have fun.

Do a conference post-mortem

An important yet often overlooked step of attending an industry conference is doing a post-conference review of the information you gleaned and people you met. You will likely have met some valuable connections whether for now or in the future. Follow up with them within 24 hours either to say “nice to meet you, let’s stay in touch” or to request a follow-up meeting. It is crucial to act within 24 hours after a conference concludes while it is still fresh in their minds and before everyone goes back to their regular workday.

Be sure to update your own CRM and to disseminate any important takeaways from the conference to your team.

Conferences can be an expensive endeavor, in time, energy and money, but the above tips should help you plan maximize your ROI.