Community building, event ROI

I’m at Open Source Summit EU in Bilbao this week, which is a great opportunity to think about event ROI. I recorded a podcast episode with Brian Proffitt of Red Hat about event ROI just now, and it’s worth thinking about. Some thoughts:

• Events are the best place to test and refine your messaging (and the positioning that is behind your messaging). Brian brought this up, and I’ve also noticed that my clients a) often contact me after an event in which their messaging fell flat, and b) often bring up an event as the most important data point in determining that their messaging was improved.

• Ideally you’d be able to track specific deals to an event, but the reality is often that you can't, even events you go to specifically for lead gen (thought it does happen!).

• Events are good for community, though — you’re more likely to be able to track new community users than you are to be able to track specific commercial deals to an event.

• Obviously, you choose your events based on where your target audience is going to be.

• If you’re actually thinking about your event ROI, you’re ahead of the game — a huge number of companies don’t put much thought into how an event is going to contribute to business outcomes. But obviously you should.

• I see events as a long game, and largely an awareness play. You speak at events, sponsor events, and as long as they are well-targeted, you’ll be building the company’s brand and awareness among people in your target market. It just won’t immediately translate into signed deals.

What do you see as the main reason you go to events?