Veterinary Marketers, Level Up Your Live Events
How to Make a Splash (Not Just Show Up)
Let’s be honest, we’ve all seen an event strategy that consists of a social media post with a booth number. Ta-da! *Marketer dusts off hands, sips coffee, and checks off the box for “event promotion complete”.*
Perhaps that latte-loving marketer was unaware that leads from live events are the most costly leads a brand generates. That’s right. If you evaluate your cost per lead (CPL) of conferences compared to every other source, you’ll find they are the most expensive. They are also probably the most qualified leads. These crucial touchpoints bridge the distance between your brand and the people you want to earn their trust. Leads from live events often have shorter sales cycles and are more likely to become raving fans.
In this blog, we’ll give you tips to make the most out of these live-connection opportunities to ensure your most expensive lead-generation opportunities don’t fall flat. Spoiler alert, you have to do way more than throw an organic social post on Facebook that will be liked by 10 people (6 of which are employees at your company).
We’ll also share some alternative ways to connect with prospects live between the big conferences of the year, because let’s face it, you need leads all year long, not just during the months where VMX, WVC, NY Vet, and the Fetch shows take place.
First: Decide What Success Looks Like
If your only event KPI is “how many scans did we get?” you’re setting yourself up for post-conference conflict. I don’t know about you, but pointing fingers at our sales partners doesn’t feel like a good way to foster collaboration. Maybe you’ve been in a conference room with a post-conference conversation that sounds like this
Sales: “These leads are not great. There are loads of veterinary technicians who just came by to fill out their scavenger-hunt cards. We can’t tell who is worth following up with.”
Marketing: “But we got 437 scans! Our goal was 350 MQLs, and we smashed that number!”
Sales: “Most of the scans are not leads.”
Marketing: “By our lead definition, these are MQLs. This is what you said you wanted: go do your job and turn them into SQLs.”
Everyone Else: Stares into the middle distance, wondering when the argument will be over, and starts furiously googling the difference between an SQL and an MQL.
Try this instead. Before the event, have a cross-functional meeting between all key stakeholders (sales, marketing, and whoever ‘everyone else’ was sitting at that fictional post-conference table).
Agree on conference goals, for example:
Database growth: We want to scan as many people as possible (including the scavenger hunt technicians) to expand our database. We realize a small subset will be MQLs and SQLs. We will ask them a qualifying question on the lead form or the badge scanner to make it easier to decide who sales should follow up with.
Testimonials: We want to connect with happy customers on the show floor to get video testimonials.
Show floor sales: We want to host a targeted promotion with show specials to drive at-show sales.
Education: Our goal is to drive as many people as possible to our podium talk. We find this is the key sales entry point. We’ll follow up hard with people after the show and offer an incentive to visit the booth after the talk.
Yes, you can have secondary goals. But you need one guiding star goal, or you’ll do everything and nail nothing. Having sales and marketing alignment pre-show also enables you to discuss post-show follow-up strategies, which may include inside sales outreach, email nurturing, post-conference show specials, etc. Speed to lead post-conference is crucial to ensure you don’t lose momentum on sales conversations.
The Four Live-Event Lanes
(and how to not blend into the ’90s laser beam carpet)
So far, we’ve been singularly focused on conferences, but that’s not the only way to connect with prospects “live”. Here are four swim lanes to consider when establishing your live event strategy.
#1 The Big Industry Conferences
VMX, WVC, AVMA, etc.
These are the Super Bowls of veterinary marketing. Everyone’s there. Everyone’s tired. Everyone’s carrying a tote bag full of branded regret (except yours, of course, yours is their favorite!). These act as anchors for live event plans for the year, and in vetmed, the biggest events of the year are clustered in Q1, making for a frantic re-entry after the holidays.
The point here: plan early. You don’t want to go into the biggest events of the year half-baked and coming down from your holiday cookie sugar high.
Your job isn’t just to “attend.” It’s to be remembered. How to make a splash:
Establish a booth driver.
This might be a post-lecture incentive. It might be a giveaway. It might be a pile of cat stickers that people are super excited to paw through. Whatever the booth driver is, it needs to be simple, so people quickly understand why it’s exciting. If you have to explain it…it’s not exciting. Ideally, the booth driver is closely connected to your brand and leaves them with something they can look at every day and remember you fondly.Pre-promote.
Many brands use these large conferences as launch times for their biggest new products. If nobody knows you have big news, you’re counting on prospects to stumble across your booth and your exciting new product amongst the hundreds of other booths. Whether you are doing a booth game or launching an innovative new product, you must pre-promote. Loudly, and everywhere you can.Prepare your team.
New products and booth games mean new talk tracks for your sales team. Train them thoroughly to ensure the team understands conference goals and how to execute in the booth.Make sure you look good.
Your display is important. Make sure it looks good. You only get one time to make a good first impression.
What to avoid:
A booth that tries to explain everything (aka the “wall of text” strategy)
Swag that screams “we had budget left” instead of “we understand you”
Complex promotions that nobody understands
Messaging that assumes they know who you are
#2 Live Virtual Events
Webinars that engage and delight
Webinars are the “we can’t all fly to Orlando” solution. They’re still a live event if you treat them like one. You can host giveaways, provide incentives, and create a highly interactive experience that progresses prospects down the buying path.
Here are a few ways to improve engagement on your live webinars:
Polls
Ask the audience what they think at key points of the webinar to make sure they’re paying attention.Quizzes
Show them videos or images and ask them what they think is going on. Veterinarians love testing their knowledge.Video
Use video content and real-world case studies to keep presentations interesting.Post-Webinar Survey
Ask attendees to self-select if they want to connect for a sales conversation in a post-webinar survey.
#3 Smaller Industry Events
VMA meetings, local associations, and niche groups
These are the underrated indie films of the event world. Smaller audience, higher intimacy, and often, better conversations. These events are often also less expensive to attend. Many brands allow sales reps to manage these events more independently, since they often know the organizer, the speaker, and half the veterinarians in attendance.
How to win at smaller events:
Show up as a contributor, not just a vendor. These smaller live events are always looking for qualified veterinarians to present to the group. Collaborate with a customer in the area to speak on the podium.
Do fewer things, better. These events are often staffed by only one or two people. If you plan to have some kind of booth promotion, make sure it’s simple enough to be run by a single person who is also trying ot have conversations. Typically, no booth driver is needed for these small events. Podium time is the biggest traffic driver.
The display. Equip reps with retractable banners and table drapes that can be used across all industry events. We’ve all seen the rep sitting at a table with nothing branded to show who they are or what they do. They’re lonely waiting for a prospect to work up the nerve to ask what they do.
#4 Company-Hosted Educational Events
Own the content
Want to deepen relationships fast? Host something educational that’s genuinely worth a clinician’s time. This is where brands stop feeling like brands and start feeling like partners.
You’ll need a dedicated event manager at your company to make the most of these company-hosted events. They take a lot of planning, and you’ll want to make sure you have plenty of time for marketing to promote them.
Formats that work:
Lunch & learns
Hands-on workshops or wet labs
Customer educational summits
Dinner meetings
CE events
How to make it not feel salesy:
Lead with education and let your product appear as the “tool in the story.”
Have a veterinarian host the talk.
Include CE with the talk
If you’re trying to influence prospects, make sure there are some happy customers in the room.
Bottom line: live events aren’t a line item — they’re a relationship engine
When you’re sitting in the year-end budget meeting, trying to decide what to cut, think twice before reducing your footprint at live events.
Big conferences help you get seen and build lasting relationships.
Webinars help you educate at scale.
Association events have great ROI and can be a major sales driver.
Company-hosted education helps you deepen relationships and build the brand.
Pick the lane (or lanes) that match your goals, create achievable memorable moments, and then do the part most teams skip: execute flawless sales and marketing follow-through.
Want help building an event strategy that actually feels like your brand?
Red Brick Partners helps veterinary and animal health brands turn live events into measurable momentum, before, during, and after the show.