Event and field marketing for security and resilience companies

Security still runs on conferences. Relationships form at RSA, at Black Hat, at regional CISO dinners in ways they do not form anywhere else. That is also why so much of the budget disappears.

How should you choose which conferences to attend?

By whether the people who have to change their minds are in the room, in a role where they can act.

That is a different question from whether the event is prestigious or whether competitors will be there. A 12-person dinner with the right 8 buyers tends to beat a booth at the largest show of the year, and it costs a fraction. The large show is easier to justify internally, which is usually why it wins.

1. Priority audience present, in decision-making roles.
2. A format that allows a real conversation.
3. A reason for them to want the meeting.
4. A follow-through plan agreed before the invoice is signed.

What decides whether an event pays off?

The 3 weeks before it.

Teams that do well arrive with meetings already booked against a named account list, a specific reason each person agreed to meet, and something worth their 30 minutes. Teams that do poorly arrive with a booth and a bowl of branded objects.

Is a booth worth it?

Only with a job for it. A booth as presence produces scans nobody follows up. A booth with a target list, pre-booked meetings and a reason to stop can carry a quarter. Decide which one you are buying before you sign.

Three kinds of room

For iluminr the rooms were where a category got established. Microsimulations had to be a term people used before analysts would pick it up, and that happens on stage and in conversation, repeatedly, well before it shows up in research.

For Fusion Risk Management the highest-value rooms were the company's own community and its partners'. A customer community event and a partner-hosted session reach people who are already assembled and already trust the host, which is a different economy from a booth on a show floor.

For United Effects Ventures the audience was founders and investors rather than buyers, which changes the format entirely. Smaller rooms, longer conversations, and follow-through measured in relationships rather than pipeline.

Same method in all three: decide who has to change their mind, then pick the room that gets you in front of them.

What should you measure?

Qualified meetings with named target accounts, and what moved in pipeline 60 days later.

Badge scans measure foot traffic. Reporting them tends to protect the spend instead of evaluating it, which is how the same booth gets bought each year.

What people ask