How To Get More Value From in-Person Events?

We all know in-person events are a great way for companies to increase visibility and generate new business. For participants, they’re an excellent opportunity to stay up to date on market trends, expand their network, meet prospects, and strengthen relationships with existing customers.

So far, so good.

But what happens after the event ends? How do you make sure you get the most value out of it and see a real return on your investment?

For many marketing and sales teams, proving ROI after an event can get messy, especially when there’s a lack of preparation, planning, and alignment between teams.

The truth is: your return on investment (both time and money) doesn’t just happen after the event. To see real results, you need to be clear about why you’re participating, sponsoring, or hosting an event in the first place.

It sounds simple, right? But once the event is over, that’s usually when teams realize how misaligned they actually were. It often goes like this:

Marketing team: “The event was great! 500 people stopped by our booth.”
Sales team: “Yeah, it was nice, but we didn’t close any deals. Those leads weren’t really interested…”

See the gap? Instead of pointing fingers, it’s better to work together intentionally from the very beginning.

Start With Intent, Not Just Excitement

When the idea of an event comes up, it’s normal for everyone to get excited and jump straight into logistics: booth setup, giveaways, sessions, speakers, and so on. That’s all important, but there are two other phases that can’t be ignored: pre-event and post-event.

It may sound obvious, but many companies confuse intention with objective. Just because “our competitors will be there” or “we need more visibility” doesn’t mean the event will actually bring value.

Before diving into logistics, make sure the event team can answer some essential questions by thinking backward from the outcome you want to achieve:

Define Your What, Who, and How

1. Define Your What

What do you want to achieve with this event?

• What results do you expect by the end?
  
  
• Are you looking to connect with strategic accounts? Schedule a specific number of meetings? Announcing a new feature launch?
  
  
• How does this goal connect with your quarterly or annual targets?
  
  
• Is it part of your existing plan or just a one-off idea?
  
  
• What evidence will you use post-event to prove success? (Pipeline growth, new customers testing a product, etc.)

With those answers in hand, you're ready to define what would actually make someone want to meet with you after the event. What’s the offer that creates real interest? It could be a tailored strategy session, a quick diagnostic, or an exclusive workshop. Whatever it is, make sure it’s relevant, easy to say yes to, and clearly tied to the value your solution delivers. That’s what turns a conversation into a concrete next step.

2. Define Your Who

Who exactly do you want to attract?

• Are you talking to end users, decision-makers, or reseller partners?
  
  
• How will you approach them?
  
  
• What’s the simplest and most effective way to build a real connection before, during, and after the event?

After clarifying these details about your target audience, you’ll be better prepared to start building your ABM (Account-Based Marketing) list or refine the one you already have. This is when your sales team can begin identifying key contacts, exploring connections on LinkedIn, and preparing a personalized approach. 

Building this pre-event ABM list requires some strategic research. Here are a few practical tips to build a high-quality list:

• Ask the organizers for the attendee list: This is the most direct path. It's often included in a sponsorship package or available upon request, so don't assume you have to pay extra.
• Scan your existing pipeline: Identify which MQLs, SQLs, or open opportunities are located near the event. They might be attending, but even if not, you can use your travel time to schedule a valuable in-person meeting.
• Review past campaigns: Look at previous ABM lists or closed-lost opportunities. Finding contacts or organizations based in the event's city is a perfect, low-pressure reason to re-engage them.
• Use LinkedIn Events: If the official attendee list isn't available, check the event's page on LinkedIn. You can often see a list of people who have clicked "Attending" and cross-reference that with your ICP.
• Cross-reference the event's network. If the event hosts or key speakers have robust LinkedIn followings, you can analyze their followers, identify shared connections, and see who fits your ICP.

Meanwhile, the marketing team can start creating tailored content and touchpoints that speak directly to this audience. From pre-event emails and social posts to landing pages and lead magnets like checklists, guides, or exclusive insights. 

The goal is to generate familiarity and relevance before the event even starts, so your brand is already on their radar when the first conversation happens.

3. Define Your How

Now that you know your goals and audience, think about how you’ll attract and engage them strategically.

And here’s the key point: it’s not just about bringing more people to your booth or session. The real value comes from the quality of the connection your audience builds with your brand.

Ask yourself:

• Why would this audience stop and talk to us?
  
  
• What truly matters to them right now?
  
  
• What challenges are they trying to solve? How can we help clearly and objectively?
  
  
• What kind of experience can we create that makes them remember us after the event? (And it’s not about the most expensive giveaway.)
  
  
• What insight or practical takeaway can we offer that they can actually apply when they’re back at work?

Remember: it’s not just about showing a product demo, people can have it online anytime. At an in-person event, it's your chance to show relevance, so make sure to create experiences that connect and convert. 

To stand out from other vendors, think of your booth as a space for real conversations. Depending on your budget, you can invite an industry influencer to host a roundtable, offer great coffee to create a relaxed setting for discussions, bring a customer to share a quick success story, or run express strategy sessions with your team. 

You can also explore light gamification to engage visitors: think quizzes, challenges or giveaways that are tied to your message and attract the right people. The goal is to help them think differently, solve a problem, or walk away with a valuable idea. 

Plan Events For People, Not Brands

What people really want from these spaces is simple, but powerful:

• To exchange experiences with other professionals who’ve tried, failed, succeeded, and can share new ways of thinking.
  
  
• To hear real stories from peers and decision-makers facing similar challenges.
  
  
• To leave with something they couldn’t find elsewhere: a new idea or insight that helps solve a real problem.

All of this works even better when marketing and sales plan together. This alignment ensures everyone is on the same page about the messaging, the audience approach, and what success looks like.

Marketing brings positioning strategy, brand narrative, and engagement tactics.
Sales brings frontline experience, helping shape more effective outreach and building follow-up strategies to continue conversations after the event.

How to Prove ROI

Finally, the hardest (and most important) part: measuring results.

If your team can’t demonstrate how the event impacted the business, it’ll be tough to justify the budget next time. Leadership will want to understand how the event contributed to profitability. That’s why reports showing only attendance numbers or NPS scores aren’t enough.

Here are some examples of what (and how) to measure:

Pipeline Growth

Track participants from registration through at least six months post-event (depending on your sales cycle). Use your CRM to monitor:

• Sales velocity: Did the event help move stalled opportunities forward? Did participants progress through the funnel faster than other leads?
  
  
• Funnel conversion rates: Out of all leads engaged during the event, how many booked a meeting? How many actually showed up? How many were qualified, interested, and moved to the next stage?
  
• Lead quality: What percentage of attendees matched your ICP? How many stayed in early stages vs. those that became real opportunities?
  
  
• Pipeline Influence: Don't just measure only immediate meetings. Even if you can't show "X in new pipeline" right away, your CRM can show the event's long-term impact. If a prospect you engaged with converts weeks or months later, you'll have visibility into that touchpoint and can demonstrate how the event "influenced" their buying journey.

Account Expansion and Retention

People often think of events for getting new customers, but they're super valuable for making relationships with existing clients even stronger. It's really important to see how your events are making a positive difference for our current customer base:

• Did customers who attended renew faster?
  
  
• Did they adopt additional products or services more quickly than those who didn’t attend?

Document What You Learned

Don’t lose momentum. Right after the event, bring everyone together to discuss:

• What worked well? What didn’t? What needs improvement?
  
  
• Compare the attendee list to your target ICP. Did you engage the right audience?
  
  
• Review feedback, partner interactions, and qualitative data: which strategies worked for “audience A” but not for “audience B”?

A great way to formalize this process is to create a standardized "post-event brief" template. Have all team members who attended fill this out immediately and present their findings to the larger Marketing and Sales teams. This ensures you capture crucial ground-level insights.

If your next event already on the radar, come back to this guide, share it with your team, and use it as your blueprint to plan smarter, align better, and deliver stronger results.

If your team wants to move beyond just tracking booth visits and start connecting event spend to real business growth, contact us today to learn how Kalungi can help you build an event strategy that delivers measurable ROI.