Why Events Are One of the Most Effective GTM Channels in 2026

A tactical guide to building event strategy and infrastructure that compounds pipeline and relationships

This post is sponsored by vFairs.

vFairs is a flexible event management platform that powers everything from event registration and ticketing to event apps, badge printing, and hybrid events. The platform can be configured for any type of event—from conferences and trade shows to job fairs and virtual experiences. As a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader and three-time Gartner Peer Insights Customer Choice winner for Event Platforms, vFairs has earned industry recognition for excellence.

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Dear GTM Strategist,

Something has been puzzling me since November 2025. When we did a survey with my all-time favorite GTM buddy Kyle Poyar, “big product launches” were crowned as the next big thing for 2026.

I was like cool (orange iPhone just took over the world) - but what does that mean for our slightly less photogenic businesses where we can’t just have Steve Jobs deliver a keynote?

Does it mean you have to take over Domino’s sugar factory in Brooklyn for a day and buy a billboard on Times Square, like our partner Miro did?

Is it taking over LinkedIn like our friends at Attio did last week with their “Ask Attio” launch?

Or is it those secret Ahrefs or Clay launch events in Silicon Valley with a stellar speaker lineup that I am still FOMO-ing about because I couldn’t attend last year?

Is it all of these? But wait - I don’t exactly have the budget and people power to pull these off.

How can “average” businesses bring the power of “big product launches” to their relatively boring industry without breaking the bank?

Something clicked when I began to explore this topic … High Alpha Capital just crowned in-person events as the most powerful SaaS GTM channel in 2026 👑 and I was like - really? Then I saw this breakdown:

Link: https://www.highalpha.com/blog/why-in-person-events-are-still-your-most-effective-saas-gtm-channel-in-2026

It made sense as I started to reflect more on it. Our ICP decision-makers are being bombarded with AI-generated outbound messages, cringe LinkedIn comments, and blogs that are written for AIs, not humans. Suddenly, seeing a genuine person face-to-face and consuming some proprietary insights is actually becoming mega-valuable and personally fulfilling.

But there is another “but”. I was never a social butterfly working a room at events, harvesting 200 business cards. As a self-declared introvert, I prefer to hang out with 2-3 people that I actually know, and honestly, the catering looks more tempting than approaching a stranger for small talk (even though event food usually sucks) …

Plus, organizing or even attending events is pricey. It’s not just the venues, staff, and booth prices. It’s the opportunity cost. People who go there cannot work normally for at least 3-5 days when you factor in international travel.

Knowing that we are onto something here, but also being pressured for the ROI of everything that we are doing, I said enough is enough.

I invited my long-time friend Aatir Abdul Rauf, VP of Marketing at vFairs, to teach us how to organize ROI-positive events that don’t suck. He is going to show us how to squeeze more value from event investments and exactly what tactics we should be borrowing from mega-brands like Amazon, Unilever, Microsoft, Nestle, Toyota, and many, many others.

Aatir, bring it on, brother - cannot wait to learn from you!

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Redefining Events: What’s Actually Possible

Before joining vFairs 12 years ago, I viewed events as an overhyped money pit.

I thought flying a sales team to Vegas to man an $8,000 booth was a waste of money. Firing off another email campaign from the couch felt a lot safer.

But I learned the hard way that I was wrong.

Working in an event tech company gave me an appreciation for the infrastructure involved and allowed me to learn a few event chops along the way.

Last year, my team attended 5 industry events and hosted 10 intimate customer dinners. We generated $510K in new sales pipeline and an equivalent amount in retention and expansion revenue from existing customers.

But here’s what I keep hearing from marketing leaders: “We tried events. We did 52 webinars last year and got zero leads.” Or, “We spent $50K on a tradeshow booth, collected 200 business cards, and generated 3 qualified leads.”

The problem isn’t that events don’t work. The problem is that most teams are operating with an incredibly narrow definition of what an “event” even is.

When I say “events,” most people picture one thing: a live webinar. Maybe they’ll add “trade show booth” if they have a budget. That’s it. That’s their entire mental model.

But there’s an entire universe of event formats that most B2B teams have never explored. Each format serves a different GTM motion. Each one creates different outcomes.

Before we get into how to execute events profitably, we need to expand your definition of what’s possible.

Webinar vs Virtual Events: Know the Difference

Let’s start with what you already know: webinars.

Webinars are the most well-known event format. A live or pre-recorded online presentation, typically 30-60 minutes, focused on education or thought leadership. One speaker (or a small panel) presents to a passive audience who watches and maybe asks questions in a chat box.

Attendees consume content but rarely interact with each other. There’s no networking, no exploration, no community building. You get leads, but you don’t get relationships.

Most teams stop here. But there’s a massive leap between a webinar and a virtual event.

A webinar is a single presentation in a conference room. A virtual event is the entire conference center. You can do so much more than a video conference. Think: multi-session online experiences with keynotes, breakout sessions, networking lounges, exhibit halls with sponsor booths, gamification with leaderboards, chatrooms for attendee-to-attendee interaction, and on-demand content libraries.

T-Mobile used vFairs platform to host a virtual employee conference for 9,000 attendees with interactive booths, gamification, and chatrooms. The event created internal alignment on a product launch and generated on-demand training content used for months afterward.

Virtual events work when you need attendee-to-attendee networking, sponsor activation, multi-track agendas, or immersive brand experiences. Webinars work when you just need to deliver content efficiently.

Speak at In-Person Event

Instead of paying $15K for a booth where you’re one of 200 vendors, what if you were on stage in front of 500 people?

When you’re on stage, you’re positioned as the expert, not a vendor. Attendees seek you out after your session. You collect leads without a booth.

We weren’t into founder branding before, but last year our CEO spoke at events like Event Tech Live and SaaStock. He got a flurry of LinkedIn DMs right after, and a few materialized into either deals or referrals.

How to get speaking slots: Submit early (6-9 months before the event). Pitch a topic that solves attendee problems, not a product demo. Offer workshop formats or hands-on sessions. Partner with a customer to co-present a case study.

Sponsor Table Talks and Roundtables at Industry Events

Trade shows are noisy. Booths are transactional. But roundtables are intimate, focused discussions with 8-15 people who opted in because they care about the topic.

You get mindshare with exactly your ICP in a setting where they’re engaged and asking questions. You’re facilitating, not pitching. You capture high-intent leads who voluntarily joined your table.

How to make it work: Choose a topic your ICP cares about deeply. Facilitate the discussion, don’t dominate it. Capture context during the session (who said what, what challenges they’re facing). Follow up within 24 hours with resources that address their specific pain points.

Host Your Own Virtual or In-Person Conference

Why exhibit at someone else’s event when you can host your own?

You control the attendee experience, own the sponsor relationships, and position yourself as the hub of the industry. You monetize through sponsorships while building community.

Cadence Design Systems hosted CadenceLIVE Silicon Valley with 2,100 registrations and 1,400+ in-person attendees. They used a mobile app with AI matchmaking, session tracking, and real-time sponsor lead capture. Sponsors saw immediate ROI dashboards and renewed for the following year. Customer NPS post-event increased by 18 points. Expansion pipeline generated: $2.3M.

There’s a full spectrum of events, each serving a specific business outcome. Here are more event types you can consider based on your business goals.

Hosting Intimate Customer Dinners & Meetups

This is one of the highest-ROI formats if you execute it well.

You’re creating peer networks, not selling. You’re facilitating valuable conversations. Attendees leave with relationships beyond just your company.

We hosted around 10 dinners in Australia, the United States, and England last year. This is by far the best way to deepen relationships. We were able to nab multi-year contracts and also talk about expansion by getting referrals from one subsidiary of a company to another.

Curate the guest list carefully. Mix existing customers (60%) with high-value prospects (40%). Avoid anyone who won’t engage or who you wouldn’t want in the room.

Organize Customer Awards, Hackathons & Contest

Plan an awards program that recognizes customers for exceptional use of your product, innovative implementations, or outstanding results.

We host the Eventeer Awards every other year to recognize the best events that people have created using our platform. Customers submit entries explaining their event strategy, execution, and results. Winners are announced at a virtual ceremony.

Key considerations:

• Create clear award categories tied to business outcomes

• Capture nominations with a form on your event website

• Decide winners through public voting or a panel of judges (voting creates more buzz)

• Showcase finalists and winners in your marketing (with permission)

• Turn submissions into a content library

• Recognize winners publicly (ceremony, social media, swag)

Customers love recognition. They share why their event/campaign/project was successful. You capture rich stories that become case studies, testimonials, and social proof. You create community and friendly competition among customers. Prospects see what’s possible.

Beyond traditional awards, contests, and hackathons, create hands-on engagement. Challenge participants to build something using your product in a limited timeframe. The competitive format drives deeper product adoption. Participants learn advanced features as they build portfolio pieces. You gain fresh use cases and creative applications you hadn’t considered. Winners become advocates who’ve publicly demonstrated expertise with your platform.

Event Selection Framework

Most teams pick one event format and try to force it to deliver every outcome. That’s why they fail. A webinar won’t close an enterprise deal. A customer dinner won’t generate 500 MQLs. You need different formats for different jobs.

Build a portfolio. Mix formats based on your GTM priorities. Start with 1-2 formats, measure what works, then expand.

Here’s how to think about it:

How to Select the Right Events (And Avoid Getting Burned)

ICP Density Check

Before you commit budget, answer this question: Will a high concentration of your ICP actually be there? You can verify this by doing the following:

Attend as a participant first: If you’re uncertain about a new event, attend as a participant before you commit to a booth. Walk the floor. Observe the crowd. Talk to attendees. Then decide if it’s worth exhibiting next year. We did this with several events we wanted to add to our portfolio.

Ask your top 5 customers: “Where do you go to learn about [topic]? What events do you attend every year?” If three customers mention the same event, that’s a signal.

Review the attendee list (if available): Many event organizers share attendee demographics with sponsors. Request this before you commit. Look for job titles, company sizes, and industries that match your ICP.

Check LinkedIn activity: Search the event hashtag on LinkedIn 2-3 weeks before the event. Are your target accounts posting about attending? Are they organizing side events or meetups? If the community is active, your ICP is engaged.

Talk to past exhibitors: Find companies that exhibited last year and ask them honestly: “Was it worth it? Would you do it again?” The best intel comes from people who’ve already spent the money.

Assess Venue & Logistics

Even if your ICP is there, logistics can kill your results.

Look at the floor plan: If exhibitor booths are tucked in a basement away from the main sessions, coffee stations, and food, your foot traffic will be zero. Prime locations near high-traffic areas are worth paying extra for.

Check the schedule: If all the keynotes and main sessions run back-to-back with no breaks, attendees won’t have time to visit booths. You want built-in networking breaks.

Evaluate competing attractions: If there are 200 other booths and 50 of them are your direct competitors, you need a strong differentiation strategy or you’ll blend into the noise.

Assess satellite event feasibility: Are there good venues nearby for dinners or breakfasts? Can you realistically host a satellite event, or is the conference in the middle of nowhere?

Check Timing & Commitment

Does the timing align with your GTM calendar? If you’re launching a product in Q2, an event in Q4 won’t help. If you’re trying to close deals by the end of the quarter, an event 3 weeks before quarter-end gives you no time for follow-up.

Can you commit to pre-event promotion? If you’re booking the event 2 weeks out, you won’t have time to build pre-event momentum. You need at least 60 days for proper promotion and meeting scheduling.

Do you have the team capacity? If your best AEs are slammed closing deals, they can’t staff a booth effectively. If your product team is heads-down on a launch, they can’t support a customer conference. Timing matters.

Red Flags to Avoid

Walk away if:

• The event organizer won’t share attendee demographics or past attendance numbers

• Past exhibitors give lukewarm reviews or can’t cite specific ROI

• The event is brand new with no track record (unless you’re getting a steep discount as an early sponsor)

• The booth cost is more than 20% of your total events budget (you’re putting all eggs in one basket)

• You can’t pre-schedule at least 15-20 meetings with target accounts attending

Events are expensive bets. Be selective. It’s better to skip an event than to waste budget on the wrong one.

15 Plays for Building a Profitable Event Program

Build The Foundation Before You Execute Anything

Play 1: Set Clear Goals & Success Metrics

You can’t optimize what you don’t measure. Start by asking: What GTM motion are we trying to advance?

• Pipeline generation? Set a dollar target.

• Deal acceleration? Track how many opportunities moved stages.

• Customer retention? Measure expansion ARR or renewal conversations.

• Brand positioning? Track share of voice or speaking slots secured.

Write this down. Share it with your team. Get leadership to sign off. This number becomes your North Star.

Play 2: Get Internal Alignment

Events fail when Marketing plans them in isolation and expects Sales to execute. You need cross-functional alignment before you book the venue.

Involve Sales early. Ask which accounts they want to meet, which deals need acceleration, and which reps should attend. Sales has a relationship context that Marketing doesn’t.

If you’re exhibiting, request access to the exhibitor portal, where you can review the attendee list. Look for target accounts. Discuss strategy: Which accounts should we prioritize? Who should own each relationship? What meetings can we pre-schedule?

Loop in Product if you’re hosting a customer event or launching something new. Product needs to prep demo environments, handle technical questions, and gather feedback.

Assign clear owners. For example, Marketing owns the pre-event promotion. The event coordinator owns on-site logistics. Sales rep owns post-event follow-up. Hold a kickoff meeting 60 days before the event. Walk through goals, roles, and the campaign timeline.

Play 3: Build Your Event Portfolio Mix

You need a portfolio approach. Different event formats serve different GTM motions and different stages of the buyer journey.

A balanced portfolio might include:

• Monthly webinars for top-of-funnel thought leadership (100-500 people)

• Quarterly intimate dinners for relationship building with high-value accounts (10-20 people)

• 1-2 industry conferences per year where you exhibit or speak

• Annual customer summit, if you have a strong customer base

There’s no magic number. Some teams run 5 events a year. Others run 50. Find the right mix that compounds over time. Each event should feed the next. Past attendees become your database. Session recordings become gated content. Learnings from one event inform the next.

Share your event calendar in advance. People plan around predictability, and attendance grows when they know what to expect and when.

The Playbook for Exhibiting at Industry Events

Play 4: Build Pre-Event Momentum

The event starts 60 days before anyone walks through the door.

4 weeks out: Email your ICP list who registered. “We’ll be at booth #412. Want to grab coffee?”

2 weeks out: LinkedIn DMs to target accounts. “Saw you’re going to [Event]. We’re hosting a dinner Tuesday night—would love to have you.”

1 week out: Confirm all scheduled meetings. Send calendar invites with booth number and contact info.

Day before: Final reminder to confirmed meetings.

The best conversations happen before you arrive.

Play 5: Create Satellite Experiences

The real magic happens in the experiences you build around the main event: customer dinners with 15-20 VIPs at a sought-after venue, executive breakfasts with small group discussions, product previews for high-value accounts, and networking events co-hosted with complementary vendors.

At vFairs, we cross-matched an event attendee list with our CRM to see who, among our customers and prospects, was attending an industry event situated in Las Vegas.

We sent all of them email invitations to dinner 2 weeks prior and got 15 people to show up. Our sales reps were able to talk about expansion conversations and ideas along the way that would never have happened on Zoom.

These intimate settings enable real conversations that a noisy expo hall never will. And the work doesn’t stop at planning and executing; here are a few metrics you can track to assess the success of the event.

Track these in a spreadsheet or CRM. Analyze what works. Double down on high-performing formats and guest mixes.

I have a step-by-step guide for hosting a customer dinner. You can check it here if you’re interested.

Play 6: Staff Strategically

Send people who can have intelligent conversations about the problem you solve and the outcomes you deliver. This usually means a mix of senior AEs, Solutions Engineers, and at least one executive for high-value meetings.

If you’re running a major booth, consider training a dedicated team. Compensate them for booked meetings, not badge scans.

Create a briefing document: event goals, target accounts to prioritize, core messaging, schedule, and FAQ. Hold a team briefing 48 hours before. Walk through the document. Role-play conversations.

Play 7: Stand Out On-Site

Make it easy for people to engage. Think:

• Live product demos that solve a real problem in 3 minutes.

• Interactive experiences like assessments or ROI calculators.

• Branded giveaways that are actually useful.

• Theater presentations every 30 minutes with a clear CTA.

Play 8: Capture Context, Not Just Contact Info

Sales needs context: “Sarah stopped by the booth, watched the enterprise demo, asked about integrations, and mentioned she’s evaluating three vendors.”

If you’re using badge scanners or lead capture tools, make sure the data flows to your CRM with notes about what each person cared about. If you’re old school with business cards, scrub the data each evening and add context notes while it’s fresh.

Play 9: Follow Up Fast

Aim for follow-up within 24 hours. Segment by engagement level:

• High-intent leads (met with you, asked detailed questions, attended your dinner): Personal video from the rep they met.

• Medium-intent leads (stopped by booth, showed interest): Personalized email referencing what they cared about.

• Low-intent leads (badge scan only): Standard nurture sequence.

The Playbook for Hosting Your Own Events

When you’re the organizer of customer dinners, user conferences, regional roadshows, product launches, or virtual summits, you control the experience, which also means you own the risk.

Play 10: Choose Your Format Based on GTM Motion

Match format to what you’re trying to accomplish:

• ABM + Deal Acceleration: Intimate dinners (8-12 execs), exclusive previews, roundtables with industry experts.

• Demand Gen: Virtual conferences, webinar series, regional roadshows.

• Customer Retention: Annual user conference, VIP experiences, executive briefings.

• Thought Leadership: Hosted panels, invite-only summits.

Example: Common Room runs 40+ events a year by mixing formats: hosted dinners (1/month), sponsored dinners (2/month), and ancillary events around massive shows like Dreamforce to draft off their gravity without booth cost.

Play 11: Build Pre-Event Momentum

Treat event promotion like a product launch. 60-day runway:

• Week 1-2: Early-bird announcement to your VIP list (customers, close prospects, partners). Week 3-4: Expand to a broader audience with value messaging.

• Week 5-6: Reveal speakers and agenda highlights to build FOMO.

• Week 7-8: Create urgency as the date approaches.

Segment messaging by persona and account tier. A CEO gets a different email than an end user. Retarget people who visited your landing page but didn’t register—they were interested, they just needed a nudge.

Play 12: Deploy Event Infrastructure

Here’s where having proper infrastructure becomes critical.

When you’re hosting, you’re managing multiple stakeholder journeys simultaneously: attendees need seamless registration and personalized experiences, sponsors need self-service portals and real-time lead data, speakers need frictionless onboarding, and your internal team needs coordination tools.

At minimum, you need:

• Event Website & Registration: Capture pre-event intent, handle payments, segment attendees.

• Badge Printing: Professionalize arrival and secure the venue.

• Mobile App: Guide attendees, push notifications, enable networking.

• Session Tracking: Know which topics resonated and who attended what. Lead Capture (for sponsors): Real-time data, not a CSV exported three days later. When sponsors see ROI dashboards immediately, they renew.

Teams hosting events regularly use platforms that unify these functions. One system means attendee data flows consistently, templates are reusable, and each event takes less time to set up. The infrastructure compounds.

Play 13: Execute Flawlessly On-Site

Your attendees chose your event over everything else competing for their time.

• Smooth arrival: Fast check-in, clear signage, welcoming staff. First impressions matter.

• Relevant content: Sessions that solve real problems. If every session is a demo, people stop attending sessions.

• Structured networking: Most networking doesn’t happen organically. Facilitate it with AI-powered matchmaking that pairs people with similar interests, topic-based roundtables with clear discussion prompts, or speed networking with structured rotation.

• Executive access: Make it easy to meet your leadership team through office hours, fireside chats, or small group Q&As.

• Content capture: Record sessions for on-demand access and post-event promotion. Every presentation becomes gated content you can promote for months.

Play 14: Capture Behavioral Signals

When you host your own event, you have access to behavioral data that tells you what people actually care about.

Track:

• Registration behavior (when they signed up, which emails drove action)

• Session attendance (which topics resonated)

• Networking activity (who connected with whom)

• Q&A participation (what questions people asked)

• Resource downloads (which content they consumed)

This data should flow to your CRM so Sales knows exactly how to prioritize follow-up.

Someone who attended three technical sessions and asked about pricing gets a different follow-up than someone who only attended the keynote.

Play 15: Follow Up Based on Behavior

Session attendees get recap emails with slides and recordings from sessions they specifically attended. No-shows get access to on-demand content and an invitation to the next event. VIP attendees get a personal thank-you from executives and exclusive follow-up opportunities. Sponsors get ROI dashboards showing leads generated and engagement metrics.

Make every follow-up feel relevant and personal.

The companies seeing real ROI from events didn’t start by doing 50 events a year. They started with one or two, figured out what worked, built repeatable infrastructure around it, and grew from there.

The extent of your event program will vary based on your market, your resources, and what’s working. Some teams run 5 events a year profitably. Others run 50. The goal is building something that compounds—where each event feeds the next, past attendees become your database, and learnings stack over time.

Having the right infrastructure makes this possible. Whether that’s event software, templates, or well-documented processes, you need systems that eliminate manual work, capture behavioral signals, and let you scale without burning out your team.

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Wow, wow, wow - wasn’t that awesome?

I am sure you can grasp at least 5 action points for your next event from this.

I was so inspired by this article that I wanted to bring what I learned to life immediately.

Some other updates:

Join my LinkedIn Live with the “Godfather of Outbound” 🔴

For all the Cannonball GTM, Clay, and Claude lovers out there: I am teaming up with the Godfather of high-value outbound messaging, Jordan Crawford (GTM AI OG, Investor in Clay, and the King of high-value messaging).

On Feb 19th, 2026, we will dive into how to launch a GTM campaign that actually delivers value instead of getting you blocked. Come join us, ask questions, and steal the insights you need to build an outbound or account-based campaign that converts 4x better than the industry average.

Register here. Jordan and I cannot wait to hang out with you!

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