is all that effort worth it?

I get asked some form of this question almost every time I talk about going to events and conferences:

How do you measure the ROI of an event like that?

Here's my answer:

I don't.

Of course it's more nuanced than that. There are lead counts and subsequent sales. There are relationships started, tracked in the CRM.

But spending hours to come up with a formula to measure conversation quality, brand awareness, "reach", or other metric that we can't really track is a waste.

In-person events are important. Show up. Make an impression on someone. It's hard to draw a direct line between these things and revenue. But those impressions matter.

And for that, I have a story.

This happened to me at Saastr (big Saas conf in San Francisco) last week:

A random guy came up to me and said "Your Peter from Accoil? Will you be here in 3 minutes? I have a gift for you."

I had just met a friend, Scott. I looked Scott in the eye, made a face, and told Random Guy "Ok, I'll be here."

Off he ran. Literally. He ran away.

Scott and I traded another confused face, then carried on chatting.

In a blink, there were two gentlemen standing next to Scott and I. We paused and then it happened.

The co-founder of ​​​Scalekit​​​ introduced himself and handed me a gift. As I opened it, I found a handwritten card with my name on it. I found a wireless charger with the Accoil logo on it.

There was a freakin AppleAirtag with my initials on it!

I love good marketing.

Was I going to stand there and listen to the Scalekit pitch? Damn right I was.

What Scalekit pulled off was surprising. It made me stop and notice them. It made an impression. It worked.

I'm talking to my teammates about it this week. We're a lead now. Even though I know I was targeted and this is what they want.

Will Scalekit measure the ROI of this stunt? Probably. Will it be accurate? Meh. Doesn't matter.

Because as I type this, the CEOs and Co-founders of a bunch of companies (much bigger than Accoil) are commenting on LinkedIn posts about these gifts. Scalekit is getting free shoutouts and happy comments from influential people in Silicon Valley.

Is all that extra effort worth it?

Yes. We may not buy, but Scalekit is on our list. They hustled and made a great impression.

We're even stealing the gift idea for when we go to SaaStock in Dublin next month.

Go make some noise. Be creative. Get attention. ROI will come.

Peter

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PS: What's in my ears today? ​​Everything That Happens will Happen Today​​ by Brian Eno and David Byrne.