In most conversations with marketers, marketing leaders at companies of different sizes, the one recurring theme about events is: You spend thousands getting your booth at a major industry event, your sales team has great conversations... but somehow those warm leads turn cold before you can get them on a proper sales call.
The reality? Those first 24 hours after meeting someone at your booth are crucial. But the traditional "I'll have someone reach out to schedule" approach is leaving a pipeline on the event floor.
The Hidden Cost of Post-Event Scheduling
Here's what typically happens:
- Your team collects business cards or scans badges
- Someone manually enters data into your CRM
- SDRs start reaching out to schedule meetings
- By the time you get through the back-and-forth, your prospect is back to their daily grind
- That amazing booth conversation? Just a distant memory
Why Events Are Different
Event leads aren't like your typical inbound traffic. They've already met your team. They're already interested. Making them go through your standard demo request flow is like asking someone to fill out a dating app profile after you've already had coffee together.The other challenge? Your sales reps are actually AT the event. Their calendars are blocked. Your standard round-robin setup breaks down. You need an event-specific scheduling system.
Note: There of course is the added complexity of being able to first identify the right events, the right messaging and the right approach to getting them interested to want to talk. If you’ve managed to crack all that, you still have a massive drain when you don’t get those meetings on calendars right away.
The New Playbook: Instant Event Scheduling
When we built event scheduling into RevenueHero, it was a no-brainer decision. When your field marketing and field sales teams have put in the effort to get folks to the booth, more friction is meaningless.
If you’re able to provide that consumer grade experience for your prospects to be able to just put time on the right person’s calendar, without having to play email ping pong a week after, chances are you turn at least a part of those conversations into pipeline.
So how do we enable this?
Pre-Event QR Codes
- Generate unique QR codes for each sales rep
- Prospects scan and instantly see available times post-event
- Just the name and email, RevenueHero handles all the routing complexity
- Meetings get routed to the right sales rep, while crediting the SDR on the floor
- Booked meetings when intent is high
Event-Specific Availability
- Sales reps who are part of the event get their calendars blocked for the event duration
- Ensure meetings route only to reps who were at the event or are associated to the SDRs at the event
- Balance meeting load across your event team
- Match to the right Sales rep’s calendar even if you prospects end up providing their personal email address and company name
Event-Mode Meeting Distribution
- Automatically detect which reps are at events
- Route meetings to available reps back at base
- Re-balance meeting loads when reps return
- Keep pipeline moving even during event season
Making It Work: The Technical Details
For the RevOps folks reading this, here's exactly how to set this up:
1. Create an Event Meeting Type
- Set specific date ranges
- Configure post-event availability
- Add event location details to calendar invites
- Enable automated reminders optimized for event leads
2. Configure Event Distribution
- Set up event-specific rep groups
- Enable flexible round-robin for your event team
- Add weighting for senior reps if needed
- Configure fallback routing for overflow
3. Track Event Pipeline
- Tag meetings with event source
- Monitor conversion rates by booth location (meeting type/router)
- Track time-to-meeting for event leads
- Compare performance across different events
Beyond Basic Scheduling: The Full Event Stack
But great event scheduling isn't just about calendars. The most successful companies build a complete event conversion system:
Pre-Event Prep
- Generate rep-specific QR codes
- Set up event-specific landing pages
- Configure booth location tracking
- Brief team on scanning protocol
At-Event Experience
- Instant calendar access via QR scan
- Mobile-optimized booking experience
- Automatic lead enrichment
- Real-time meeting notifications in Slack
Post-Event Follow-up
- Automated confirmation emails
- Event-specific reminder sequences
- No-show recovery workflows
- Event ROI reporting
- SMS reminders if your Sales reps have worked their charm and collected phone numbers
The Impact of Streamlined Event Scheduling
By removing friction from those crucial first 24 hours after a booth conversation, companies like Vivian health have managed to reduce their lead drop offs post events, with iPads at their booths providing a delightful experience to the prospects who drop by.
Making Events Work in 2024
The era of "collecting business cards and hoping for the best" is over. Modern event success requires treating those first moments of interest like the golden opportunities they are.
Whether you're spending $5K on a startup alley booth or $500K on a main stage presence, the ability to instantly convert conversations to meetings is now table stakes.
The companies winning at events aren't just the ones with the biggest booths or the best swag. They're the ones who've solved that crucial last mile - turning "great to meet you" into "let's continue this conversation next week."
Want to see how you can set this up? Check out our detailed event scheduling playbook that walks through their exact configuration or book time with our team to explore how to optimize your event scheduling workflow.
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