SpicyOps: Booking Meetings Before, During and After Trade Shows and Events

We like to drink our own champagne at Chili Piper. One of the most fun ways we get to use our own demand conversion platform is at events!

Last year we wrote about how we booked 97 meetings at a single event (INBOUND), and got a lot of follow up questions. Here’s a peek behind the scenes for you marketing ops folks:

How we use Concierge to book meetings ahead of events

If we’re hosting an event (like a happy hour): 

First, Marketing pulls a list of target ICPs based on geo. We prioritize differently, depending whether they are a customer or a prospect. 

• If they’re a customer, we prioritize based on ARR, the renewal date, and whether there are any open opportunities. 
• If they’re a prospect, we prioritize based on potential opportunity size and stage of sales cycle. 

Then, we send out invites from our exec team. Or, if we want a more personalized approach, from the Account Owner. 

• If we’re trying to get them to register for an event, we send them a landing page link to RSVP
• If we’re booking directly on behalf of the exec, we send a scheduling link. 

For both methods, we update the field based on contact field update. 

• When the contact field updates, we trigger a Slack notification to the Account Owner via Distro. The rep can then pull together some talking points — so the Pipers who are attending have some context before meeting them.

If we’re attending an upcoming event

1. Review the event site and any sponsor lists. Run a report based on the same variables we noted above:

• If they’re a customer, we prioritize based on ARR, the renewal date, and whether there are any open opportunities. 
• If they’re a prospect, we prioritize based on potential opportunity size and stage of sales cycle. 

2. Send an email to Chili Piper customers who will be attending and CC the Account Owner. 

In this email, we include an event-specific meeting link to connect during the event. This is very important for tracking purposes.

For reps attending, they can set their availability schedule to only receive event-related meeting types.

     3. Book time to meet prospects at the event

At INBOUND last year, we used Concierge to allow prospects to book self-serve time slots with the photographer at our booth. 

How we book meetings during events (at the booth)

First, we equip our team on the ground with iPads. They can book a meeting on the iPad right then and there. But you could also use laptops, tablets, smart phones or even a QR code on a business card.

Here’s how we set that up in Chili Piper:

1. Duplicate an existing Concierge router 

In our case, we duplicated the Chili Piper router we have on our demo page. No need to set up your routing rules all over again!

2. Modify as needed 

In our case, we changed the lead source to Event and added to a campaign in Salesforce.

3. Get embed code for use on your new landing page

Grab this code snippet and add it directly into your landing page — or in the form code itself.   

4. Make sure to update Reminders so messaging is relevant for each event 

You can change the subject to something like “Great Meeting you at {{event name}}” or add info about the event in the body of the reminder message. 

‍Side note about reminder best practices: We usually set up 3 reminder emails: One day before, one hour before, and one minute before. 

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5. Publish your new landing page

We create a copy of our ‘book a demo’ landing page in Webflow and make a small tweak to the form. Namely, we add a new form field “Booked By” to track who is booking meetings (for credit/attribution).

If you run SPIFFs for reps who book meetings at events, this makes it very clear who booked which meetings — and we all know how much reps love a good competition 🔥

Other ways we stand out during events

1. Post-event swag

Rather than bringing tons of swag with you to each event, you can send gifts to those who book meetings using gifting tools like Sendoso. 

This can help you to stay top-of-mind post-event, when everyone else is sending generic email cadences to attendees.

2. Make it easy to connect with speakers
   

QR codes are still cool, right? 😅

We like to include them in session slides for a quick way for attendees to connect with us/our speakers. 

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We link them to a custom landing page:

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From there, event attendees can easily follow Alina on LinkedIn — and also get a quick blurb about Chili Piper. 

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     3. During happy hours and networking

We use ChiliCal for personal meetings ChiliCal for personal meetings: this is useful for people in all roles, including partner and marketing folks who don’t often have Concierge licenses.

You can also: 

• Use QR codes on a phone screensaver 
• Add a ChiliCal link in LinkedIn connect invites
• Update your “Book an Appointment” LinkedIn bio with a ChiliCal link CTA

The event is over! Here’s how to do follow up post-event with Distro

Even if you send your most charming reps to work your booth, they won’t necessarily be able to book a meeting with everyone you want to speak with at the event. That’s where Distro comes in. 

We use Distro to route prospects and customers to the right reps post-event. We upload all types of lists post-event: party attendee lists, VIP event registrations, and even badge scans.

With Distro we’re able to route based on lead scores, add to follow up campaigns, and assign and alert each rep of who was at the event so they can follow up.

In this example, we’ve set up separate routing rules based on industry. For each rule, Distro assigns and updates ownership to the proper team and update “Lead Status” field in Salesforce as “Assigned”.

Then, Distro creates a Task in Salesforce for the rep to follow up within the next day. Distro also automatically adds the new lead to the “Events” Campaign, marking them as “Attended”. 

In this example, we’ve set up our SLAs so that if after 5 working hours, the Lead status hasn’t changed (i.e. is still without ownership), Distro will notify the Assignee via both Slack and Email. 

Finally, we’ve set up a lead conversion flow — so if the lead is marked as Sales Qualified, Distro will automatically create an Opportunity in Salesforce. 

Here’s that whole flow again, but zoomed out: 

(We just like to show off our flow builder 😜)

That’s it!

That’s everything the Chili Piper team does to book meetings pre, during, and post-event! 

Ready to start driving ROI from all types of events and tradeshows? Get a demo of Chili Piper today:

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