You spent $50K on a conference booth. You scanned 200 badges. Three months later, you've generated zero pipeline from it.
Event marketing is one of the highest-cost demand gen channels, yet most teams can't prove ROI. The problem isn't events as a channel—it's that most teams optimize for vanity metrics (booth traffic, badge scans) instead of business outcomes (qualified conversations, pipeline created).
Here's how to run events that actually generate pipeline.
Why Most Event Marketing Fails
Let's start with the common failure patterns:
No pre-event targeting. You show up hoping to meet the right people through chance encounters. That's not a strategy—that's gambling with your marketing budget.
Booth-centric thinking. You design your entire event strategy around getting people to your booth. But booths are interruption marketing in a sea of distractions. The best conversations happen outside the booth.
Badge scanning as success metric. You scan 300 badges and declare victory. But 80% are students, vendors, or people who stopped by for swag. That's not pipeline, that's a contact list.
Generic follow-up. Everyone gets the same "nice to meet you" email and a demo request. No personalization, no context, no value. Response rates crater.
No sales alignment. Marketing attends the event, sales doesn't. Or sales attends but isn't coordinated with marketing. Either way, you're leaving pipeline on the table.
The teams that generate pipeline from events do everything differently.
The Pre-Event Strategy That Matters
Events are won or lost before you arrive. Here's the 6-week pre-event playbook:
Week -6: Identify target accounts attending. Pull the attendee list (sponsor benefit) or use LinkedIn event pages to identify who's registered. Filter for accounts that match your ICP and are in your TAM.
Build a target account list: Tier 1 (must-meet accounts), Tier 2 (should-meet accounts), Tier 3 (nice-to-meet accounts). Focus 80% of effort on Tier 1.
Week -5: Research and personalize outreach. For each Tier 1 account, research: What's happening at their company? What challenges are they likely facing? Which sessions are they speaking at or likely attending?
Week -4: Outbound campaign to target accounts. Don't wait for booth visits. Proactively reach out: "Saw you're attending [Event]. We're sponsoring—would love to connect while we're there. Coffee Tuesday morning?"
Use multi-channel: LinkedIn message from your rep, personalized email, and if you have their mobile, a text. 30-40% response rates are achievable with good targeting.
Week -3: Schedule meetings pre-event. Book coffee meetings, dinner reservations, or lounge time slots outside the exhibit hall. These conversations convert at 10x the rate of booth drop-bys.
Week -2: Promote your presence. Social posts, email to your newsletter list, blog post about what you're doing at the event. The goal: ensure anyone considering visiting knows you'll be there.
Week -1: Finalize logistics. Confirm all scheduled meetings, brief your team on target accounts and what to discuss, prep booth staff with qualification criteria.
This pre-work is the difference between reactive booth duty and proactive pipeline generation.
Booth Strategy That Doesn't Suck
If you're sponsoring and have a booth, make it strategic.
Location matters. Corner booths near high-traffic areas (bathrooms, food, main entrance) get 3x the traffic of inline booths in remote corners. Negotiate placement aggressively.
Design for engagement, not branding. Interactive demos, live product experiences, or valuable giveaways (industry salary report, not branded pens) attract quality traffic. Giant logos and generic signage attract tire-kickers.
Qualification at the booth. Train booth staff to qualify before scanning badges. Ask 3 questions: "What brings you to [Event]?" "What challenges are you trying to solve?" "Are you evaluating solutions now or just researching?"
If they're not a fit, have a friendly conversation but don't scan their badge and add them to follow-up lists. Quality over quantity.
Tier the experience. Casual visitors get a quick conversation and self-serve resources. Qualified prospects get scheduled follow-up time with a senior rep. VIP accounts get escorted to a private meeting space.
Capture context, not just contact info. Don't just scan badges. Record notes: "Interested in pricing for 200-seat deployment, evaluating in Q2, concerns about integration with Salesforce." This context drives follow-up relevance.
The Off-Booth Strategy
The best pipeline comes from activities outside the booth.
Speaking sessions: Submit proposals to speak. Speaking positions you as a thought leader and attracts interested prospects to you. One good speaking session generates more pipeline than two days at a booth.
Hosted dinners or events: Invite 15-20 target accounts to an exclusive dinner or evening event. Intimate settings build deeper relationships than 5-minute booth conversations.
Sponsoring networking events: Sponsor the opening party, after-hours mixer, or breakfast session. Your brand gets visibility and you create natural networking opportunities.
1:1 meetings: Schedule back-to-back meetings in a hotel lounge or nearby coffee shop. 30-minute focused conversations beat hours at a booth.
Walking the floor: Don't staff the booth all day. Assign team members to walk the exhibit hall, attend sessions, and network. Chance encounters at other booths or in hallways often turn into pipeline.
The exhibit hall is just one channel. Use the full event.
Sales and Marketing Coordination
Events fail when sales and marketing aren't aligned.
Pre-event alignment: Weekly planning meetings starting 6 weeks out. Marketing shares target account list and outreach plan. Sales adds accounts they want to connect with. Together, build meeting schedule.
Role clarity: Define who's responsible for what. Marketing handles booth staffing, swag, and lead capture. Sales handles 1:1 meetings with target accounts. Both collaborate on hosted events.
Shared success metrics: Agree on what success looks like before the event. X number of meetings with Tier 1 accounts. Y number of qualified conversations. Z pipeline created within 90 days.
Real-time coordination during event: Slack channel or group chat for immediate coordination. "Just met [Name] from [Company]—they're interested and walking by the booth in 10 minutes, who can grab them?" Speed wins.
Post-event debrief: Within 3 days of event end, debrief together. What worked? What didn't? Who needs follow-up? Assign owners immediately while context is fresh.
When sales and marketing execute events together, conversion rates double.
The Follow-Up System That Converts
Most events fail in follow-up. Here's the system that works:
Tier 1 follow-up (scheduled meetings, high-intent conversations): Personalized email within 24 hours. Reference specific discussion points. Include promised resources. Propose next steps (demo, pricing call, intro to your technical team).
Tier 2 follow-up (qualified booth visits, good-fit prospects): Personalized email within 48 hours. Reference the event and their stated challenge. Offer 1-2 relevant resources. Soft CTA: "If you'd like to explore this further, let's schedule 15 minutes."
Tier 3 follow-up (general interest, early-stage): Add to nurture campaign. Send event recap content (session recordings, key takeaways). Monthly touchpoints with relevant content.
No follow-up (not qualified): Don't add to lists just because you scanned their badge. It wastes their time and your resources.
Timeline matters: Follow up while the event is still fresh. Day-of or next-day follow-up gets 50% response rates. Week-later follow-up gets 10%. Month-later follow-up is ignored.
Event ROI Measurement
If you can't measure ROI, you can't justify the investment. Here's what to track:
Total cost: Booth fee, travel, team time, swag, dinners, hotel, shipping. Capture everything. Most events cost 2-3x what marketing initially budgets.
Qualified conversations: How many meaningful conversations did you have with ICP accounts? Not badge scans—actual qualified discussions.
Meetings scheduled: How many follow-up meetings were booked as a result of event interactions? These are leading indicators of pipeline.
Pipeline created: Within 90 days of the event, how much pipeline was generated from event-sourced leads? Track opportunities that can be attributed back to the event.
Pipeline influenced: Some prospects were already in your pipeline but the event accelerated their decision. Track influenced pipeline separately.
Revenue generated: What percentage of event-sourced pipeline closes? At what deal size? Track this over 6-12 months depending on sales cycle.
CAC by channel: How does cost-per-customer from events compare to other channels? Events should be competitive on CAC or deliver higher ACV to justify higher costs.
ROI calculation: (Revenue from event - Total event cost) / Total event cost. Target 3:1 ROI minimum. Below that, reconsider events as a channel.
Virtual and Hybrid Event Strategy
Virtual events have different dynamics than in-person.
Virtual events:
- Lower cost, higher volume, lower engagement
- Optimize for content quality (people attend for learning, not networking)
- Interactive elements (polls, Q&A, chat) maintain engagement
- Follow-up immediately (people forget virtual events faster than in-person)
Hybrid events:
- Hardest to execute (coordinating in-person and virtual simultaneously)
- Create distinct experiences for each audience (don't just livestream the booth)
- Virtual attendees need structured networking opportunities (virtual meet-ups, Slack channels)
Virtual event best practices:
- 45-minute sessions max (attention spans are shorter)
- Interactive every 10 minutes (polls, Q&A breaks, chat prompts)
- Record and share replays (many people register but watch later)
- Post-event nurture sequences (virtual attendees need more touchpoints)
Event Selection Framework
Not all events are created equal. Here's how to decide which to attend:
Criteria 1: Attendee quality. What percentage of attendees match your ICP? A niche event with 500 target buyers beats a massive event with 10,000 attendees and 50 targets.
Criteria 2: Competitor presence. Are competitors sponsoring? If yes, you may need to be there to not lose mindshare. If no, you might dominate the category.
Criteria 3: Cost relative to alternatives. Could you generate the same pipeline for less by running your own executive dinner or regional roadshow? Sometimes yes.
Criteria 4: Past performance. If you attended last year, what ROI did you see? Double down on events that delivered, cut events that didn't.
Criteria 5: Strategic value. Some events don't generate immediate pipeline but build long-term brand and relationships (tier-1 industry conferences). Balance pipeline-generation events with strategic brand-building events.
The Reality
Events are expensive and operationally complex. For most B2B companies, events are the second or third highest marketing investment after headcount and digital campaigns.
But for teams that execute strategically—pre-event targeting, sales alignment, qualification discipline, personalized follow-up, rigorous measurement—events generate some of the highest-quality pipeline in the demand gen mix.
The key is treating events like a full-funnel motion, not just booth staffing. Win events through preparation, not through chance.