How to Get the Biggest ROI from Conferences
Why most organisations burn money at conferences - and how to flip them into lead gen machines.
Let’s be real - conferences are a big investment & gamble at the best of times.
You're often spending $5K–$50K+ on tickets, booths, travel, and merch with no guaranteed return.
And yet, you keep seeing photos of founders posting about “great convos,” “amazing takeaways,” and “flagship clients” they met at [insert big event here].
So what gives?
The truth: most people treat conferences like a vacation or a vanity play. Like a plug-and-play option that is guaranteed to deliver results (given how much they are).
When in reality, conferences are just another lead gen channel.
No different from cold email, paid ads, partnerships, or webinars.
They’re just offline.
But what makes them so valuable is that they’re places where your ideal buyers gather in one place for 1–3 days straight. A hub of ideal personas. That’s rare. And incredibly valuable - if you play it right.
Here’s how to treat conferences like a revenue channel, not a cost centre, to give you the highest chance to generate the most amount of leads.
First, what a conference actually is
Let’s simplify - a conference is just a temporary hub of your ideal customer persona (ICP).
99% of the time, your goal is to maximize targeted conversations. That’s it.
Everything you do, every dollar you spend should be engineered towards targeted conversations.
Not brand fluff. Not vague “exposure”. It must be focused on conversations with the right people.
There are the 4 commons ways to be part of a conference:
1. Attending
You’re a delegate. You walk the floor, go to sessions, and network. Cheapest option, but lowest control over visibility.
An example of lead gen via attendance - You’re a B2B FinTech startup targeting CFOs. You attend a finance leadership summit.
Instead of waiting for coffee chats to happen, you identify CFOs on LinkedIn attending the event and message 20-50 of them the week before:
“Hey, I saw you might be attending XYZ Summit. I’ll be there too and keen to meet more of the industry, so if you have 10 mins would love to meet you for a chat and a coffee?”
This works. Because very few people do it. Sadly proactiveness is rare. But those who do it, reap the benefits. It can be uncomfortable but it works.
2. Exhibiting
You have a booth. You're now visible and can create inbound conversations (if done right - more on this later).
This will require designing your walls, your furniture, you collateral content (e.g. brochures) to hand out, as well as merch and more.
This is more of a inbound channel. You will get traffic past your booth to turn into leads, but don’t bet the farm on it. You will need to deploy some bait and be drive as much traffic as you can for the best ROI.
3. Sponsoring
You pay to have your logo, maybe host a dinner or slap your brand on the lanyards.
Great for brand awareness, bad for direct ROI unless you’re big. Like really big. Like Tesla, Microsoft, etc.
In my experience, small to medium businesses should avoid these at all costs, as they typically are a cost centre with little to no return.
However, if branding is offered for free as part of your involvement… Take it… Exposure is good, but this stuff just isn’t worth spending money on.
Tip: Avoid sponsoring the coffee cart unless you already have brand recognition. If you’re a Series A startup with zero name recognition, no one cares that your logo is on a latte. However, Microsoft trying to get the word out about their new co-pilot product, this might be a good option.
4. Speaking
You get on stage. This is by far the highest-ROI move - if you’re smart about it, and use it to become a thought-leader. Not a salesperson.
Treat speaking like your golden ticket. A 15-minute talk can outperform months of ads.
Here’s a basic script structure:
Start with a stat or problem your market feels deeply.
Tell a short, real story of someone who struggled with it.
Show the path they took to fix it (hint: that path = your product)
Share you experience in how you’ve solved this and what you’ve found works for people like them.
End with a simple call to visit your booth to chat/learn more (This can be used as a LEEP - Lowest Effort Entry Point)
Example: At a SaaS event, a founder speaks on “Why 73% of sales demos fail.”
The audience leans in. They subtly reference a diagnostic tool that helps avoid these failures, but also how to solve this without it. Then invites attendees to try it at their booth.
They walk off stage with a dozen qualified leads that follow them to the booth to chat more with their team.
Stage 1: Before the Event – Set the Stage
This is where 80% of your ROI is determined. Most organisations wing it. Don’t.
Research the Attendee List
Ask for it. Speak with your conference contact and ask directly for the list of attendees. Failing that, ask for the list of last years attendees. Good chance many will return.
Tip: Tell them you need the list to justify the spend to your boss and show the types of people you’ll be meeting. Without it, you may not get budget to attend…
Even if you only get company names and job titles, it’s gold. You can use dozens of platforms like Apollo, Clay, ZoomInfo to enrich the list to form a mailing list.
Send Pre-Event Emails (Cheap + Effective)
5-3 days before the event, email your segment:
Where your booth is
What you’ll be showcasing
Why they should stop by (something helpful, fun, or interesting)
Example:
If you’re targeting Heads of Operations, filter the list and send a pre-event email:
“Saw you might be heading to [Conference]. We’ll be handing out [relevant merch] and chatting with Ops teams about improving reporting. So if you’re near Booth 21, stop by for a chat and we can show you a sneak-peek at our upcoming [new release].”
Now they have a reason to come find you. More than just “come by so I can pitch you”.
Just like making content, people don’t care about your product. Stop talking about it. Talk about something they care about and can benefit from immediately.
“We’re giving away workflow teardown templates and running 5-min audits at Booth A12. Come say hi.”
This alone can 2x your traffic, and will lead the right people towards your product discussion.
Design your booth for a 3-second pause
Your booth design is NOT the place to show every feature. So many organisations fall down on this point.
You have 3 seconds to make traffic stop walking. Something intriguing.
Example:
Instead of cluttered graphics and “AI automation for enterprise teams,” use:
“Onboard your next employee in 10 minutes.”
Large. Bold. Dead simple. That’s a conversation starter.
If someone stops, you’ve won the first battle (and frankly 90% of the war).
Practice your 10s and 30s pitch
Every team member should know exactly how to introduce the company/product.
10-sec pitch (Hook):
“We help HR teams automate onboarding without annoying IT.”
30-sec pitch (Context):
“Most HR teams rely on patchy tools and shared spreadsheets. We built a no-code workflow that plugs into your existing systems and handles the heavy lifting.”
You’ll repeat this hundreds of times. Get it right.
Here is a quick hack on nailing the narrative in 6 simple steps (click here).
If don’t have it right, Don’t worry. The best place in the world to refine your pitch and positioning is at a conference. You get access to dozens of ICPs that you can rapid test, reflect and iterate from. Get direct feedback on the fly.
By the end you should know exactly what to say to excite you buyer 90% of the time.
Merch = handy tool, not a silver bullet.
Merch can be a great tool to start a conversation. But it’s not going to sell your product for you.
When it comes to merch, make it:
Relevant
Useful
Memorable
Examples that work:
A branded landing pad for drone operators.
An iPhone mount for execs so they can monitor their phone whilst at their desk.
A key bound mat with coding shortcuts for developers.
These are items your ICP will likely use regularly, get value from, and will see your logo in a positive like on a regular basis.
Stage 2: During the event – go on offense
This is where the rubber hits the road.
Actively Pull People In
Don’t just sit behind your booth. Stand out front. Smile. Shake hands. Ask questions.
“Ever had a report crash the night before a board meeting?”
People stop when they feel seen.
Even just the simple “hey, are you enjoying the conference? Where are you from?”
Prioritise Buyers, Not Partners
Every conference has people selling to other vendors. You’ll hear:
“We should totally collab!” or “Let’s explore a partnership.”
Unless it's your ICP or a very strategic partner - pass. Most of these will go nowhere. Focus on potential buyers.
Many lonely and bored exhibitors will approach you. Be nice, but move them on quickly. I’ve found 99% of them go no where, and are just people trying to use you for easy wins (or to feel like they are doing something).
Book calls during the event
Don’t say “let’s catch up next week.”
Pull out your phone and book it:
“I’ve got time Wednesday at 11am or Thursday at 2pm. Which works?”
That small act will save you from weeks of ghosting. Because, people WILL ghost you.
You are 1 of 100 vendors approaching them at this conference. In a week you’re forgotten.
Take notes IMMEDIATELY - or you will forget!
Use your CRM, Notion, or Notes app. Include:
Who they are
What problem they mentioned
What to follow up with
Where they’re based (for future in-person outreach)
Trust your memory? You’ll forget 80% of convos by the end of Day 2.
Without context notes, you’ll have no option but to end them generic follow up email.
People hate this and have little to no effectiveness.
A targeted follow up to a specific conversation they cared about, is 10x more effective.
Stage 3: After the event – keep convos going!
Don’t follow up too fast
Everyone floods inboxes the day after the event. Instead, wait 5–7 days.
Then send a specific, value-driven messages:
“You mentioned struggling with onboarding. Here’s a quick Loom of how we solved that for another team in your industry. Want to try it out?”
Not “great meeting you.” Not “let’s connect.”
Be direct. Be helpful. Be Authentic.
If you have their number, use it!
A quick call will cut through the noise, and be far more authentic to keep the conversation going.
“Hey Alex, just following up on our convo at XYZ Conference - you mentioned [topic] was a priority for you next quarter, still keen to try the onboarding demo?”
Fast. Authentic. Relevant.
If there’s people you didn’t get time with but want to chat with? Use the remaining collateral and merch and mail it to them. Try sending them an info prior:
“Hey [name], sadly we didn’t get a chance to meet at the conference. I was hoping to meet you, so thought we’d send over our [merch] for you to use an our guide on [relevant topic]. If appropriate, what would be the best address to send this to? If [your topic] is relevant, I’d love to catch up in the coming weeks if you have time?”
Any positive response to this is great. You will definitely stand out with this process. Be conscious of who you do this to. Save it for the big fish.
Score. Your. Leads.
Rank every lead from 1–5:
5 = High-fit buyer, strong interest
3 = Fit, but lukewarm
1 = Not your buyer
If you spent $10K and got 5 x ‘4s’ and ‘5s’—those leads cost $2K each.
Track ROI like you would from ads. If you are converting your best clients from a particular conference, then allocate more time and money to that event next year.
Also, tag by location for future road trips or events.
E.g. if you’re traveling back that way again in the coming year, reach back out to all of them to say you can stop by for coffee to catch up. Again. This is highly effective as it is relevant, authentic and unique in the market.
TL;DR: Your Conference Checklist
Pre-event outreach (email + LinkedIn)
Clear booth design (1 benefit, not a paragraph of features)
Practice 10s/30s pitches
Merch that doesn’t suck. Use it as bait, not a silver bullet.
Log convos in real-time
Follow up 5–7 days later with VALUE
Score leads and track ROI
Reconnect after 1 month and 3 months
Conferences aren’t magic.
But when you treat them like a structured lead gen channel, they can easily become one of your highest-ROI marketing bets.
Let others chase “exposure.” You’re chasing quality conversations.
I’m always curious to hear what others think - so comment what you think works best in your conference lead gen 👇