Budget-Friendly Event Ideas

Fact: Most attendees don’t enjoy your “networking” events. Fact: Networking is one of the top reasons for attending an in-person event. Can we acknowledge that most attendees are not extreme extroverts? So why are we still hosting networking events where we effectively “dump” 100s of people into a room together for a few hours, hoping for the best and callingl it “networking”? As someone who attends events mainly with the goal of meeting up with my existing network and growing it, proactive networking with people I don’t know (especially solo) is something I dread. If you recognise that many people attending want to network but don’t feel comfortable in environments where they have to proactively approach strangers, it is possible to deliver a far better experience. So, let's take a look at activity-based, interactive networking. These activities will need capacity caps… but from my perspective as an attendee, at least, a more intimate environment makes for better networking. I’ve heard of some incredible networking initiatives recently, including: ➡️ Puppy Networking What a great idea for networking. An activity that will get people smiling and bonding, is great for socialising puppies, too, and also allows ample opportunity to chat. ➡️ Barista Workshops Teaching all those coffee lovers how to make barista-style coffee and getting to know each other whilst enjoying their own creations afterwards is a fab idea for activity networking. ➡️ Braindates Interest-based discussions that involve having deeper conversations with other attendees and learning at the same time. A truly great way to bring people with shared interests together and create meaningful connections. A couple of other suggestions: - Give your standard networking drinks an upgrade by adding an interactive activity such as a mixologist class, a murder mystery theme like “Imposter”, or some other team-based activity. And remember, there’s literally no excuse not to include as many non-alcoholic options as you have alcoholic so that everyone feels comfortable. - Find and give roles to “super connectors” at your networking events. I recently had the pleasure of meeting Phil Mershon - he’s an advocate for better networking and integrating these talented people at your events (and the author of a great new book called Unforgettable - the Art and Science of Creating Memorable Experiences). I know that upgrading your networking events will take a lot of effort, but if it means that a bigger proportion of your attendees leave your event not only satisfied but having created some lifelong connections - it’s worth it, right? Do you have any creative ideas for networking, or have you had a positive networking experience at an event? I’d love to hear them! 👇 #networking #events #eventmarketing #eventprofs I

There's fascinating research on popularity that flips everything we think we know about social success (Lansu & Cillessen, 2015). The finding? The people who are most liked are the ones who like the most other people. This flips the usual social script. Most of us enter a party or meeting thinking: “I hope they like me.” But the real power move, the research-backed one, is: • “Who can I like here?” • “Who can I appreciate?” • “Who can I be curious about?” • “Who can I make feel seen?” That tiny mindset shift changes everything: • You stop performing • You start connecting • And people feel drawn to you because you’re making them feel good So here’s your next-event goal (and it’s surprisingly fun): Walk in thinking, “How can I like more people in this room?” And then actually show it with these tiny habits: 1. Look for one thing to appreciate about each person A quick, “I love that idea,” or “You have such great energy,” goes a long way. 2. Lead with curiosity Ask simple warm questions: • “What brings you here?” • “How do you know the host?” • “What’s something good from your week?” 3. Use my favorite “liking cues” • Head tilt = warmth • Eyebrow raise = interest • Soft smile = safety • A tiny lean-in = engagement 4. Give micro-validations • “Oh, that makes sense” • “Tell me more about that” • “That’s interesting” 5. And follow up with my favorite line If someone stood out, send a quick: “I was just thinking about you and our conversation…” It’s the fastest way to stay memorable and it feels really good to receive.

If your LinkedIn and Instagram feeds are being flooded 🌊 by Think Tank posts and wondering how BIG this event was, it was only 50 people. Pound for pound, the sheer volume of LOVE and enthusiasm for what happened at this event is sure to translate to massive marketing VALUE that is disproportionately greater than traditional conferences. And here’s the thing… Not only is everyone cool with it, they’re IN on it! 🤩 How do you create an event like this that people love so much that we spend $0 in marketing every year and yet keep growing? Rule # 1 - Foster BELONGING ✅ be clear about who it’s for (Head + Heart leaders who are dissatisfied with the status quo) and who it’s not for (people pushing for sales) ✅ we do prework, group work, and virtual meet ups BEFORE the event ✅ find like-hearted people with shared or complimentary motivations (their WHY) ✅ mix up seating, create small group exercises and discussions, and give enough reasons for people to talk together about things that matter. Don’t leave it to “networking” (most people hate it). Give them real things to discuss. People bond over IDEAS not bios. Rule # 2 - Be Transparent ✅ Let them know the cost upfront, the agenda, the role of sponsors, the way you’ll create content, what parts are experiments and everything else about your goals of the business. Rule # 3 - Deliver the Goods! ✅ Surprise and delight your audience that begins with EMOTIONS and ties together practical solutions to help them achieve success ✅ Work with your facilitators ahead of time. Rehearse. Practice. Improve. MOST conferences allow speakers to basically wing it up there. 😳 We didn’t. Rule # 4 - Make the small details count ✅ Venue, food selection, music, workbooks, swag bags, soft t-shirts, name tents and every other little detail should let them know one thing very clearly —> you value their time and appreciate them. ✅ We didn’t wear our shirts or do group photos until the last day when we’re at PEAK trust and rapport. When people seek out your branding so they can take photos with it, you’ve captured their hearts. Rule # 5 - Be Human ✅ Show your fun side, your vulnerable side; your professionalism; the REAL you. People care about the people behind the brands. Our group members are sharing long form posts, multiple posts, videos, photos and more. They’re sharing what they learned and more importantly how they FELT. They’re commenting on and sharing each others’ posts and supporting each other. THEY are generating a huge deal of curiosity and interest by people for next year’s event(s)! Here’s the not-so-secret SECRET: Give them your full preparation. Your full heart. Your full measure. Not only will they reward you with their appreciation, they’ll share it with anyone who will listen. 💜 #thinktank2024 #headandheart #lighttheway Think Tank 2024 Sponsors 🫶: Markentum Angie Gray Viking Pure Solutions Dash Media KARE Bella Groves Dual Path Connected Solutions

Most creators obsess over the product. Few obsess over the rollout. The release is part of the art. Not an afterthought. Taylor Swift understands this. Midnights hit 1.4 million equivalent album units in 5 days. Fastest-selling album of 2022. Spotify record for most-streamed album in a day. Radiohead proved it differently with In Rainbows. Pay-what-you-want strategy. Made $3 million instantly. Sold 3+ million copies total. Compare this to most launches: Only 40% of tech products hit their launch goals. Companies that run pre-launch campaigns see 30% higher engagement. Yet 68% of creators launch with less than 2 weeks of planning. The difference? Strategic rollouts. Here's the 7-step framework that turns launches into breakthroughs: 1. Build anticipation, not just awareness Swift's cryptic countdown posts drove millions into detective mode. Create mystery before revelation. Tease features, don't announce them. Let your audience solve the puzzle. 2. Treat timing as a creative choice Radiohead released when the industry said "impossible." Their timing made a statement about value. Your launch date is part of your message. Choose it like you choose your words. 3. Plan for the long arc Most creators go silent after launch day. The best ones create seasons, not moments. Map content for 90 days, not 9 days. Think campaign, not event. 4. Map your content ecosystem One launch needs multiple content formats. Behind-the-scenes videos for YouTube. Process breakdowns for LinkedIn. User stories for testimonials. Each piece feeds the others. 5. Build community before you need it Swift had Swifties before she had albums to sell. Start building relationships today. Engage in comments, not just posts. Your launch audience should already know you. 6. Design feedback loops Launch, listen, adapt, repeat. Every comment is data for your next move. The best launches become conversations. Plan how you'll respond, not just how you'll speak. 7. Create momentum multipliers Design each piece to generate the next piece. User-generated content campaigns. Media coverage from early adopters. Referral programs that reward sharing. Success should snowball, not plateau. Your creative work deserves a creative launch. Stop treating the rollout like an obligation. Start treating it like an opportunity. ♻️ Share this with someone ready to launch their work strategically 🔔 Follow Kabir Sehgal for frameworks on creativity

It’s off-site season… and here’s the uncomfortable truth: A slick agenda won’t make it a success ... if only five people do all the talking. Your ExCo won’t rave about it. Your team won’t remember it. And your bonus won’t thank you. My top tip. If you want people to speak up ans contribute, you have to design for it. Harvard Business Review (HBR) has said this for years. Meetings shape culture, trust, retention… and yes, your leadership reputation. If you don’t make meetings inclusive, they won’t be. We all know the 'usual suspects' who grab the mic first. But what about everyone else? The introverts. The new joiners. The shy-but-brilliant thinkers. The colleagues from minority or underrepresented backgrounds. The people whose first language isn’t English. They’re sitting on insights that could make your strategy sharper and your team stronger. Now here’s the kicker: HBR found that only 35% of employees feel able to contribute “all the time” in meetings. That's two-thirds of your team... sitting in silence. Imagine what that’s costing your business £$£? Imagine what it’s costing you. So here’s the fix. - Don’t go to the loudest voice. - Deliberately give the first question to someone who wouldn’t normally speak. - Agree it with them beforehand so it feels supportive, not like a live ambush. And yes ... the research backs this approach. Leaders who intentionally make space for quieter contributors get better ideas, stronger trust, and higher leadership ratings (Bain et al., HBR). You can also use tools like Mentimeter where people submit questions anonymously (in real time) and the room upvotes what they want answered. HBR’s been saying for years that anonymity boosts participation.... especially for introverts, multilingual colleagues and people dialling in remotely. The moment you do this, the power dynamic shifts. You signal that every voice matters. And slowly but surely, those who usually stay quiet start stepping in. Good facilitation isn’t about blasting through slides. It’s about creating a room where people feel welcome, valued, and confident to contribute. HBR calls it “inclusive meeting design”. I call it a smart career move. Because leaders who run inclusive off-sites? They get better ideas, better decisions, better feedback… and usually a better bonus. So when you run your next off-site or townhall… pass the mic with intention. Bring in younger colleagues, older colleagues, multilingual colleagues ... everyone with the different ideas your strategy needs. Talk soon, Annette P.S. was this a useful post? Worth sharing with someone planning their off-site right now?

I’ve been having a lot of conversations with clients that need help with creating VIP experiences on tighter budgets. Sound familiar? I’m going to share some strategies for “smart luxury” so you can create more of those win-win premium experiences while keeping you on-budget and driving the results you want! But first…I love this quote: “Luxury means just giving more; hospitality means being more thoughtful”. Powerful, huh? But what does that mean? Example #1: Rather than spending $100 more on caviar for every attendee, investing in an “event concierge” who will sending a personalized email to every attendee before a special dinner to ask them if they have any special requests, share with them who they can expect to meet, the format, how much you’re looking forward to making personalized intros to them...  Why does this work? If you take the time to invest in getting to know your attendees and showing you’re invested in their personal experience, they are more likely to show up, be engaged, remember to take the action you want them to take after the event. Example 2: Rather than providing fancy but generic gifts, do a little time “researching” guests and personalize a welcome amenity to set the tone for the event. I once bought-out a hotel for an event, and they sent up a “blind tasting” wine experience to my room when I arrived since I had recently passed the Court Master Sommelier exam. They had researched that about me. It was so fun to have a playful moment where I got to taste wine and guess what they had selected for me (it was a Robert Sinsky pinot gris and yes, I still remember 10 years later because it was so personalized and unique!) Why does this work? That bottle of wine cost them roughly $30, but the thoughtfulness that they put into covering the bottle, printing out a blind tasting test from the Court master sommelier site, and delivering it with some nuts/olives and a fun note made such an impact on me, I’ve shared this story so many times! They could have instead sent up a $150 bottle of champagne, but I probably wouldn’t have opened it and also probably wouldn’t have remembered it from all the other bottles of champagne I’ve received. Fancier isn’t always better and thoughtfulness counts! Example 3: Listen and respond. I was once managing a Google Executive event and I noticed in our event app’s chat one attendee was complaining that he was really craving his afternoon Diet Coke fix. So I went to the nearest vending machine, and bought one to hand deliver to him. That Google client was so surprised/delighted that we had delivered what he was craving in the moment, that he booked a meeting with our SVP afterwards, and we closed a major deal! Hospitality is about making your guests comfortable, anticipating their needs, and then delivering a personalized and delightful experience. It can involve luxurious treats, but doesn’t need to. All it takes is time, intentionality and good old fashioned hospitality.

Panel discussions don’t work. Here’s what to do instead 👇🏼 Whether you're hosting 50 or 500 people, panels often fall flat: they’re dry, overly scripted, and painfully one-way. And here’s the real missed opportunity: The conversation stays on stage, while the audience, often a room full of insight, stays silent. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Whether you're online or in-person, here’s a tried-and-tested format I use for large conferences and meetings to unlock participation and spark better dialogue: 1. Start by learning who's in the room Before anything else, invite the audience into the space. Use interactive check-ins, stand/sit questions, hand-raises, or, for online, a Mentimeter, to surface who’s in the room and their interest/knowledge on the topic. 2. Invite each panelist to give a tight 5-minute presentation Give each speaker 5 minutes to present their case or position. Then, ask them to share one challenge they’re currently facing in their work. This makes it real, not theoretical. 3. Turn the tables, literally Ask the audience to form groups of 3–4 (in-person or online). Give each group one of the challenges the speakers just shared. Have them discuss: How would we approach this? What follow-up questions do we have? (Pro tip for in-person: Print the panelists’ challenges and place them under chairs ahead of time for faster starts.) 4. Bring the speakers into the audience Let the panelists roam the room or hop into breakout groups. They listen, ask questions, offer quick context, but mostly, they observe and absorb. 5. Capture insights collectively Use tools like Mentimeter to gather group takeaways, or (for smaller groups) have a few people share key insights live. 6. Come back together Now bring the panel back. But instead of asking more questions, ask them to respond to the audience's insights and reflections. This isn’t a Q&A. It’s a conversation. ✅ What you get is a format that’s energising, participatory, and memorable. People feel heard. And speakers walk away with fresh thinking. Curious to try this at your next event? Let’s talk. ♻️ Repost if you’re ready to retire the tired panel format. 👋🏼 Hi I'm Perle Laouenan-Catchpole I share ideas on how leaders can design online gatherings that feel human, connected, and energising (even at scale). 🎥 Video source: @domanizer on Instagram

I'll never bet $100k on a marketing strategy without first risking $1500. Call it cheap, but that has saved me from a lot of GTM fails like this... I see it all the time: A team gets excited, they build a full product. They plan the $20k conference booth, hire the agency, and launch into dead SILENCE. They bet the farm before they knew if the soil was fertile. My method is different. It's not about being cheap. It's about being smart with risk. Here’s the exact playbook: Step 1: Shrink the Bet. What’s the smallest, fastest version of this idea? Launching a new product? → Build a pre-order landing page. Entering a new market? → Sponsor one small event where your ICP actually hangs out. (Cost: ~$1,500) Testing a new channel? → Run a micro-campaign for two weeks with a minimal budget. The goal is to learn first. Step 2: Define the "Signal." What will tell you this is working? It's not revenue at this stage. It's: - Email sign-ups on the landing page. - Quality conversations at that small event. - Engagement rates on the micro-campaign. Step 3: Run the Scrappy Test. This is where you get creative and frugal. Test a new employee travel benefit by going to local HR meetups, not global conferences. If the signal was weak. Lots of "cool idea," zero "let's do this." That was the data. Step 4: Decide with no emotions. Pivot: If you get a strong signal, double down. Kill: If you get crickets, have the guts to walk away. Your job isn't to be right on the first try. Your job is to find out what's wrong as fast and cheaply as possible.

Here is how you should use event apps to drive engagement. See, a branded app is a time saver. It can simplify finding the right people, setting up appointments, scanning badges, enabling live chats, and capturing leads. Event apps, done well, can shorten the time to value for attendees - which is why they're a must-have, especially for large conferences. HOWEVER, launching a mobile app only doesn't mean an increase in engagement. First, a mobile app isn’t adopted until the merits are sold to an audience. The biggest mistake I've seen is planners assuming people will download the app and innately know all the benefits. There will be plenty of first-timers. Thus, you need to intentionally market the mobile app hard to your audience. It’s also important to realize that you need a certain critical mass to have adopted the app to reap the networking benefits. If less than 20% of attendees have the app on their phones, you’ll have a hard time driving engagement through it. Therefore, it’s wise to keep tracking downloads too. The best channels to promote an app that we’ve seen include:  ✅ Post-registration confirmation emails  ✅ Dedicated pre-event email campaigns  ✅ Social posts with promo videos  ✅ Prominent flex banners at the event itself And no - your callouts shouldn't just say "Download here." You need to explicitly brief what the app will do for attendees. But the tech piece is only part of the engagement puzzle. Other areas that need attention: 👉 Market your event to the right ICP audiences. Having focused attendees builds stronger networking circles (better than just high numbers). 👉  Create dedicated onsite spaces where like-minded attendees can converge and have downtime to naturally chat. It’s hard to connect when you just have an auditorium or lobby to play with. 👉 Use highly readable badges with "interests" clearly printed to spark conversations. 👉 Realize several introverts won't directly approach others. Teach them to use the live chat to create soft intros that can warm into coordinated onsite meetups. 👉 Collect "interested in" info during registration. Surface that on attendee app profiles as icebreakers. Highlight that in your pre-event collateral. 👉 Don't overload the agenda - schedule enough buffer time for attendees to explore and make new connections organically. 👉 Use timely push notifications to surveys and polls connected with a speaker topic that just wrapped up to get people to participate. In other words, event apps aren’t plug-n-play engagement drivers. Instead, plan the ideal attendee experience and leverage the app to facilitate and accelerate that journey.

When I was a founder, conferences were one of my most impactful GTM channels. I think a lot of early-stage startups today underestimate the value of conferences for brand and lead gen — and overestimate how much you have to pay to stand out. My team tried to approach conferences in really unique ways – and I was often amazed by how much they’d pull off on a tiny budget. Here are just a few of the things we did to help us stand out and get high ROI from attending conferences: First, we always wanted to stand out from all the generic B2B booths, and in the early days we knew we couldn’t afford the biggest or nicest booth, so we got really creative with our booths. One year, we turned our booth into a dorm room, furnished with a cheap ikea bed, a fake keg, and posters (we even bought Animal House-style “COLLEGE” sweatshirts to wear!)... As a reminder, companies used WayUp to hire college students, so this one felt on brand. And when we did just do a plain banner (maybe we didn’t have enough time to get creative), we at least tried to have the messaging on the banner stand out and be memorable. As with everything we did, we tried to make sure it was memorable. - For example, we'd try to avoid wearing boring logo t-shirts – instead, our shirts would strike conversation or at least a smile. - When it came to swag, we tried to give out items that were actually usable. No conference attendee wants another pen, notepad or t-shirt. Trendy, fun socks were a huge favorite (some of my old customers still send me pics when they wear their WayUp socks!).... Chip clips are another great one I’ve seen (everyone needs a chip clip!)... We also got great feedback when we gave out chapsticks that said “Jobs on WayUp are the (lip) bomb.” - Another tactic I enjoyed – which may be a bit petty, but it’s a fun memory of mine... One year, a conference we were attending was in a hotel. So my team called up the bars in that hotel (where we knew people would grab a drink in between or after sessions), and we asked if we could provide them with 2 days’ worth of coasters, and pay them $100 to use our coasters exclusively during those two days. The bar said yes, and for two days, all coasters in that bar were branded with WayUp’s logo. (Fun fact: one of our competitors hosted a happy hour at one of those bars, so every single drink was served on our logo. 😉) Of course, there’s so much other advice I could give on conferences… like ensuring you always schedule meetings/demos at your booth in advance of the conference. Or having competitions for your team for who can collect the highest number of prospect emails. Or planning a fun dinner with top prospects and customers during one of the evenings. And the list goes on. But I hope this post will inspire more founders to consider conferences as a great b2b marketing and lead gen tactic, an awesome way to talk to many customers at once, and a fun opportunity to bring your best creativity (and scrappiness!)