Events are your best way to build pipeline
There are better ways to build pipeline than asking for discovery calls and POCs
Looking to build top of funnel? Events. Developers are your target persona? Events.
A common frustration I hear from Founders is the cost of events or the experience of "spending a ton of money on a booth, getting a bunch of leads, and gaining nothing from it." Like any good workout regimen or diet, success is about consistency. It’s also about being at the conferences where your actual target audiences are. A good example of a "hit or miss" conference is RSA. It’s typically filled with buyers and executives, which can be useful, but not if you need developers to be excited about your product. Black Hat and other conferences that attract people more interested in hands-on work may be a better fit for your needs. Alternatively, you could complement your strategy by attending both types of events to engage both users and buyers.
Note: events are awkward and uncomfortable for both extroverts and introverts. The way to improve upon this is to start doing it more and make it feel more comfortable for you. As you improve this muscle, you’ll also make others around you more comfortable. Awkward is hard, not impossible…! :)
Events are one of the best ways to build face-to-face connections with customers and prospects and this can be done on any budget. The main goals are to build brand reputation, gain trust, and foster familiarity with your target audience, while consistently following through. You need to be in the watering holes of your target users and buyers as often as possible. Companies like Datadog may now have the largest booth at re:Invent, but even when they were just getting started, they participated in dozens of small-budget events throughout the year. As they saw results, it justified the larger spend.
What we’ll focus on in this post is how to start building pipeline activities to justify attendance for an event and/or how you can start building more rapport with your target prospects. Future posts will break down how to leverage a budget regardless of your company size (you can be incredibly successful with just the purchase of a plane ticket and hotel room near the venue).
How to start building pipeline with events:
Find all of the upcoming events this fall and winter where your target users and buyers will be attending
First, you should have a sense of who your most influential decision makers are in your sales cycles (the end user, the buyer, or both). If you’re still trying to validate the hypothesis, then find ways to meet with both.
To find people, you should start looking at conferences your audience typically go to. Thanks to ChatGPT, Anthropic, Perplexity, and others, you can now do something as easy as the following prompt to find the right events:
“help me find developer conferences where i'm most likely to find people who would be interested in my software based on my company description: [paste a simple description of your company or past your company URL for reference]”
“This is great. What about if I'm trying to find executives and buyers based on my company description. where could I likely find them?”
Create outbound sequences mentioning you plan to be at the conference and asking if they will be there. Share a brief overview about what you do to get the prospect intrigued. You’re aiming to manufacture responses like:
“I plan to be there, but not sure of my schedule, we are actually looking for a solution like this, so let’s plan to meet.”
“I don’t plan to be there, but Stephanie cc’d will be joining this year to represent our team. Maybe you two can meet during the event.”
“Our team is not attending this year, but we are actually looking for a solution in this space. Let’s schedule time in the coming weeks for a demo.”
Tell your investors and network you’re planning to attend – seek intros, and also piggyback their budgets and events. Most will be willing to help you when you position the ask and do the leg work on who you want to meet with and why (more on this later)
Things to keep in mind:
You don’t need a booth. You won’t be at the booth most of the time anyway, so focus on filling your calendar with meetings around the venue
Do you need to purchase a conference badge? Debatable. Buy one if you need to talk to people at their booths or where all the vendors are. Else, you can probably schedule all of the necessary meetings without stepping foot in the conference venue itself
Alternatively, or in addition to the above, find all of the best parties and sign up. Conferences and parties can feel awkward when attending alone, but a good way to take advantage of them is by asking others if they are also attending. This creates another touchpoint and gives people an opportunity to tell you they'll be there if the timing works. Else, they might invite you to join or visit another party. Perfect!
Note: Very aware this too can be uncomfortable. It’s why trying to prepare early and handle over email, text, etc. puts you in the position to show up to events and parties expecting to meet others vs. gazing and badges asking “what brings you to this event
Asking people if they plan to attend a conference is a better way to build a pipeline than asking for a demo. People want to hear from founders and learn about the latest cutting-edge ideas
Whether digital, remote, or in person, people buy from people. They seek connections with the brands and companies they purchase from, so be the face of your brand to delight prospects
Get out there, start prospecting, and pound the pavement. Events are the way to build your pipeline quickly.