Conference Sponsorship: Worth It?
This is my favorite time of the year: budget time. At my company we look at all the wonderful ways to spend money on communicating with prospects and customers. Working for a small company, we take every dime we spend very seriously. Last year, we attended five conferences. As we plan this year's budget, we are asking the hard questions about whether sponsoring conferences is really worth it.
We all know the kinds of conferences I'm talking about. They include SalesForce's DreamForce, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, user conferences, etc. These conferences can be very costly. In addition to the steep fees they demand for companies to qualify as sponsors, the travel and prep costs are often significant (unless you get lucky and the conference is in your town). Money aside, the amount of time spent on collateral, prep, logistics, and so on is a big investment. Granted, once we get to the conference, we usually find our time is worth it. We end up demoing to a large group of people who appear to be genuinely interested. We usually acquire a handful of customers by the time we work through the sales process, so there is a return on investment there.
