Event Hacking Advice for Startups

Advice, Events

Event marketing can be a game-changer for startups. But only if you know how to do it right. Greg Kennedy, founder of Vibe Your SaaS and past guest on our Runway podcast, recently shared a brilliant guide on how startups can “hack” events to drive leads, brand awareness, and real conversations. With his permission, we’re reposting his list of advice below. Enjoy!

1) Pick the right events

This seems silly to write, but I’ve been around long enough to see startups double-down on an ill-advised event sponsorship at the last minute and come back empty-handed. Don’t do that. You need to identify the events your customers will be attending. If you sell dental office booking solutions, go to dental conventions. If you see a creative utility for filmmakers, go to a film conference.

2) Plan in advance

Okay, I know this is hard for startups. But it is essential to build out a calendar for the year and get a sense of all the events you think are a good fit for your company. The popular events sell out not just the sponsorships in advance, but hotels and flights will go to the moon if you book too late, and that yo-yo trick guy you want at the booth, well, he will be booked. (JK, we would never do something that lame.)

3) Build (I mean scrape) a hit list

My readers are way too smart to post on LinkedIn something so banal like, “Hey, let’s connect at Europave, Europe’s Preeminent Paving Conference.” Instead, use an AI tool to scrape the speakers’ and attendees’ contact info. Then ask AI to segment and write sequences for those leads. Load that up into an email and social media DM automation tool, and you’re golden.

4) Assign prospects to team members attending

I started in big advertising, where we took sales very seriously. Old timers liked saying that ‘sales is everyone’s responsibility.’ I still believe this today. Anyone senior attending from your company should be assigned a set of prospects that they are responsible for, no matter what team they are on. If you attend an event, guess what? You’re now on the sales team.

5) Buy a low-cost off-menu sponsorship

I’ve knocked it out of the park by developing unique off-menu sponsorships. My favorite was a ‘seat drop’ where they put our one-pager on all the seats in the main hall before everyone sat down, which had a QR and clever call-to-action. This generated a ton of inbound interest, and we had meetings all night. It was affordable when compared to a booth or other package.

6) Hold an afterparty alternative

Create an unofficial after-hours event when people are relaxed and open to engagement. Instead of competing with big-budget stunts, consider reserving a table or room at a popular venue and hosting a small gathering. In my experience, securing a quiet corner where operators can relax and discuss their work has always had the highest leverage. Like I am doing at Disrupt.

7) Organize branded micro activations

Negotiate to brand hotel keycards or the lobby board for a day where the event is being held. You can also partner with a nearby café to print coffee sleeves with a QR code to your landing page and use your pre-event outreach to promote these activations. Subtle and clever in-context gestures land better than aggressive outreach and create memorable brand impressions.

8) Create a conference-specific channel for comms

Create a channel on WhatsApp, Slack, or any other app that you can use to communicate before, during, and after the event. Link all the docs in a pinned post at the top. Basic right? However, this approach makes it easy to help the CRO if they need a different power adapter at the last minute to launch the product demo computer in the German hotel.

9) Practice your pitch and train the team

If you don’t have a team, you will still want to rehearse your pitch in advance. A lot. In front of a mirror, use AI to give you feedback. If you do have a few people going, hold a training session well in advance and allow them to work on their pitches. You will also want to make sure all the details are well communicated to avoid any of the “Sorry, I didn’t know about the happy hour” emails or Slack messages.

10) Don’t worry if you can’t afford a pass

I’ve been there. I was out of work at one point and flew to LA from SF on Southwest points, spending the entire conference in the hotel lobby without buying a ticket. I am not exactly proud of it, but I knew many people attending, so I spent both days meeting with them and networking. Someone lent me their pass, and I was able to do a few sessions. I grew up dirt poor, so being scrappy comes naturally.

11) Negotiate when sponsorships are too expensive

You must be ruthless in negotiating these. Conference salespeople are rewarded for closing fast, and you can ask for discounts if you buy them well in advance. You can also negotiate for additional passes and other add-ons easily. If you can’t get it down to your price point, just set up an adjacent event nearby. This is almost always a cheaper alternative, but you need to be logistically adept to pull it off.

12) Focus on what matters

I’ve seen teams spend way too much effort on pretty email design, elaborate landing pages, scavenger hunts, raffles, or picking a band to play at a bar, but not enough effort on building lists, segmenting them, and thinking really deeply about what to say to a given prospect to get them to respond. Or even worse, all this effort goes into the event, and the founder doesn’t even attend. Big fail.

13) Measure them

Don’t need to go crazy with KPIs, but events are a single point in time that will give you before and after metrics for attribution. You simply track all the customers you interacted with at the event, and how long after that they closed. If you’ve interacted with existing customers, you can use that to determine how it influences retention. As your orgs grow, it’s on the sales team to document this. But the easy solution? If you don’t track, you don’t attend.

Piracy Disguised as Professional Networking

The tradeshow floor is open waters. Big booths are nation-states with their armies and artillery. But you? You’re a pirate ship, fast, scrappy, and hunting for juicy merchant ship treasures. Sail in, steal their best customers, sail out.

The winning crews aren’t the friendliest. They’re the scoundrels who are the most prepared and the fastest to strike. 🏴‍☠️

As seen on Vibe Your SaaS. For more great marketing advice, make sure you subscribe to Vibe Your SaaS on Beehiiv!