Product positioning, knowledge and brand awareness are your first ports of call in the early days. Unlike other functions that you have (or will have) in your company, staging events can directly connect you to four audiences at once: your customers (the people who pay you), your users (the people who use your product), your prospects (people you want to become customers) and the rest of the industry. That\u2019s a big opportunity waiting for your attention, so why doesn\u2019t everyone just jump off of the ledge?<\/p>\n
![\"Staging](\"https:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Staging_Events_1_1248.png\")
<\/p>\n
During the first few years of building your business events are hard to justify. They cost a lot when money is tight and they\u2019re difficult to measure. While it\u2019s easy to be suspicious of business activities that don\u2019t translate well on a spreadsheet, it doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re not worth doing. Your business relies on having customers that are going to last, so relationships matter.<\/p>\n
Of course, talking to people and building relationships is harder than sitting at your desk. You can\u2019t just lock yourself in a room or outsource it to some agency. Staging events might be a lot harder than some other tactics, but nobody said marketing was easy.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s never too early to build events and it’s never too early to meet and conquer.<\/p>\n
Meet your audience where they already are<\/h2>\n
Once you start building your product, there\u2019s a whole audience out there waiting to hear about you and your product. That means from day one, your strategy to meet and spend time with your audience is about dividing and conquering.<\/p>\n
Get comfortable traveling to your audience rather than expecting them to come to you<\/p>\n
To do this, you should dial-in your company\u2019s philosophy (who you are and what you care about), your product philosophy (why your product exists and where it is going) and make your first set of goals about how you\u2019d like to meet and best spend time with your audience.<\/p>\n
An essential part of starting out is creating a moving target for your company. Get comfortable traveling to your audience rather than expecting them to come to you, whether that\u2019s conferences related to your product or meetups organised by like-minded people. That\u2019s likely going to be your most significant resource and finance drain at the start of building your events strategy. Invest enough time in staging events<\/a> and eventually they’ll be willing to fly to you, but not on day one.<\/p>\n Finance can feel like a blocker to getting started but lack of funding is a forcing function to putting thought-first. If your budget is low \u2014 it should be for events in the early stages \u2014 use channels that others have created before you and paths that have already been cleared.<\/p>\n The most obvious carrot in many cases is a tech conference that fits your target customer audience. While most events are about mutual buy-in between you and attendees, know that conferences are not. They\u2019re an indirect partnership where the cards are heavily stacked in the conference\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n You can gain a lot for free, and you can give a lot for free<\/p>\n With the wrong mindset or context, a conference will take your money and leave you hungry. It\u2019s not a conference\u2019s job to do a good job for you. It\u2019s your job to buy their audience and do something with it. Don\u2019t spend your precious early dollars on them and don\u2019t spend your last \u00ad\u2014 you won\u2019t get them back. Start spending big money on conferences only when they allow you to be specific, aggressive or competitive. That\u2019s impossible when you\u2019re small.<\/p>\n Until then, host spin-off events during the conferences that may be in your town, or those you\u2019re speaking at, pitching at or attending already. At least 50% of most tech conference tickets are given away for free to attract a large crowd \u2014 make a plea, trade or friend, there are ways to save here, so find one. When you’re there, tap into the conference\u2019s press attendance and pitch them a story ahead of time or ask them to meet you. You can gain a lot for free, and you can give a lot for free. That\u2019s what conferences are about.<\/p>\n A bad version of this opportunity is spending half of your annual marketing budget on sponsoring a conference closing party. Sure, your logo will be on a balloon or napkin, but no one will care. People at this stage are tired, thirsty and up for one last dance \u2014 they\u2019ve had a long week. They won\u2019t care because they\u2019re not attending the event on account of your product, to meet you or to gain something from your company.<\/p>\n If your audience doesn\u2019t share your goals from the first moment of your event you\u2019re wasting your time and money. You can\u2019t expect to host a regional drink up and collect 1,000 leads. If you\u2019re ever in doubt here\u2019s a sanity check. If a conference isn\u2019t willing to pay for it themselves it\u2019s not valuable to them, or a milestone deal breaker for them or their audience either. Don’t be that person that gives them the extra thing that doesn\u2019t add value.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re using paths others have laid down before you, it’s best to do something that you can control e.g. host office hours with customers you\u2019ve never met, that could be using your product in a better way.<\/p>\n These moments define how people think of you and your company<\/p>\n Meet them in a quality coffee or tea shop near the conference that\u2019s on-brand for your company, has a generous amount of space and has good Wi-Fi. Be sure to let the store know that you\u2019re showing up ahead of time and will be spending time there. You\u2019d be surprised by the kind of setup they\u2019d be happy to organize for you.<\/p>\n You could also host an invite-only meetup in the hotel bar that everyone is staying at for the conference, or somewhere nearby, which matches the company brand. Make it personal by dropping a handwritten note for them at the front desk.<\/p>\n Starting small means intentional focus, resourcefulness and driving interactions with your company\u2019s personality. As you grow, that should never change. These moments define how people think of you and your company from personal memory.<\/p>\n When you\u2019ve started to see some success in your early events, it can be tempting to outsource your events to ramp things up. Outsourcing can mean anything from relying on a conference to deliver your branding need to paying an events company to \u201cwow\u201d your customers on your behalf. Don\u2019t do this.<\/p>\n When you outsource anything from your company you pay someone with different goals than you to represent you and carry a brand they\u2019re not a part of. Your events will never grow or scale well if you do this.<\/p>\n Events are 50% idea, 30% promotion and 20% execution<\/p>\n For the longest time, theatre companies and venues have been tightly aligned with and owned by promotion houses. Apart from acknowledging the different skillsets at play in events and the importance of alignment between those functions, this classic structure highlights something we all too easily miss: events are a success or a failure before they ever happen.<\/p>\n Events are 50% idea, 30% promotion and 20% execution. Any company\u2019s first events team member will need to be a curator, then a promoter and lastly a producer. Companies that are successful at building brand experiences never outsource their ideas or their voice. They can, however, outsource their executors.<\/p>\n The sooner you introduce speakers, personality and creative control to your events, the better. Don\u2019t dive in alone to your first \u201cfrom-scratch\u201d event. Co-market and share the effort, the creative and the expense with another company or meetup group that you respect and want to be seen with. Use tools you already have. Your office can be your venue, your team can be your thought leaders and your customers your first audience.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re starting to think about what events might look like for you, think about what you respect, what’s missing, the things you don’t like and what you can do that no one else can. There\u2019s so much out there waiting for somebody to grab it. No one is nailing this. That\u2019s your opportunity.<\/p>\n Speaking to people is hard but you have to do it<\/p>\n When building brand experience, you must commit to humanizing your company and embracing its roots. It\u2019s not about tricking anyone. It\u2019s about making sure your audience stays focused and that your company stays real, all of the time.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve begun to build what an event means for your company, you’re in a strong position to take a leap and build it out<\/a>, make them bigger and grow your audience. That’s an inherent risk many startups don\u2019t take, but we took it and it works.<\/p>\n Speaking to people is hard but you have to do it. Do it in a way that\u2019s strategic and puts your company first. Start small, delivering the message that\u2019s important to your company on the very first day. Start listening to what your audience needs and what you have to say that\u2019s different to what everyone else is talking about. Spend time with the people that matter: your audience, your opportunities.<\/p>\n This is a space that you can use to define your business today. Nobody has what you have, so ask yourself and your company \u201cWhat\u2019s the risk in us not doing this?\u201d I bet it\u2019s higher than you going ahead and making it happen.<\/p>\n Events are an opportunity waiting for you, the moment you have someone using your product. Don\u2019t ignore it.<\/p>\n![\"Staging](\"https:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Staging_Events_2_1248.png\")
<\/p>\nUse existing channels to your advantage<\/h2>\n
And then build your own<\/h2>\n
Make sure you\u2019re in control of the experience<\/h2>\n
Build big and be risky<\/h2>\n
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![](\"https:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Intercom-on-Marketing-blog-CTA.png\")
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