Events: expensive, and worth it when staged right

What it’s actually for

Events are the most expensive channel on the map per person reached, and routinely the worst-measured. The stand, the stage, the catering, the team’s two days off the desk — all of it justified by a badge count and a vague sense it “went well”. Staged right, though, events do something no other channel can: put you in a room with high-intent buyers, in person, with their full attention. That is rare, and worth paying for.

The job is concentrated intent: a self-selected audience who gave you their time because the topic matters to them right now. The value is not the room. It is what happens in the three weeks after the room.

Where it fires

Events / webinar → Looks and Sizes up, targeted into named. High cost, high intent — if you plan the after.

A targeted, named channel.

On the marcomms map, events fire at Looks and Sizes up, moving from targeted to named mode. At Looks, the talk frames the problem for a curious audience; at Sizes up, the conversations at the stand or in the Q&A turn anonymous attendees into named opportunities with a next step. An event with no post-event stage plan is a party you paid to host and forgot to follow up.

The numbers that matter

Activity metrics: registrations, attendance, attention during. What lands on the report is opportunities sourced and stage progression — how many named conversations started, and how many moved a stage in the weeks afterwards, against the very real cost of being there. Attendance as the success metric is mistaking the invitation for the outcome.

When not to use it

Where it goes wrong is treating headcount as the win: a full room, a satisfied finance line, and no system for what comes next. And the unscoped freebie webinar that draws an audience with no intent and no follow-up — busywork with a registration form.

One row of twenty

This is one row of the marcomms map: every channel, every stage, every targeting mode, on one page.

The full system lives on the Methodology page.