Tradeshows
A tradeshow is a physical gathering of individuals in a particular industry or profession in a forum that typically features numerous companies in a specific market. A business may sponsor or participate in a tradeshow to show off a product or simply to network and strengthen its presence in the market.
Trade shows are large events that you sponsor and exhibit at. Typically, a trade show incorporates educational speaking sessions and an exhibit hall for vendors to promote their products or services. Depending on your sponsorship package, you may have multiple speaking sessions, a logo on the attendee bag, an exhibit hall booth, or a combination. Trade shows are often industry specific, so they attract a very targeted audience and the other exhibitors are often in your ecosystem. At Marketo, the biggest trade show that we attend every year is Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce, which last year boosted over 90,000 attendees. We start planning for Dreamforce about 5-6 months in advance and it is a huge company-wide effort.
Conferences
Conferences are often company-specific marketing events that gather attendees for the purpose of delivering information, such as a user summit. These events tend to be on the larger side (as compared to seminars), and are held by companies for training or educational purposes.
A conference or a summit is typically a hosted event. They are often on a smaller scale than a trade show. The main function of a conference is often education or thought leadership. Attendees sit in session tracks throughout the day to learn best practices about a product or industry. Conferences and summits usually are only 1-2 days, while trade shows can last much longer. Each year Marketo hosts a global User Summit, where we do our own promotions, have a full day of industry speakers and thought leadership content, host an exhibit hall, and hold a lunch, cocktail hour, and after-party. Hosting our own User Summit, while it takes a lot of coordination from our internal teams, is extremely beneficial for branding and lead generation. Instead of renting our audience, like we would with a sponsored trade show, each and every attendee that attends our Summit is interested in Marketo and what we have to say
Roadshows
Roadshows are smaller versions of a summit or conference, as they are more targeted to regions vs. nationwide. Pick out specific locations that make sense for your audience, and host a small day or half-day show. You can include thought leadership content, have a small exhibit hall, and host a breakfast or lunch. Expand your reach through regional engagement. At Marketo, we do roadshows where we host events in our major markets. Last year we hosted our Roadshow in 16 cities across the world. We even expanded globally with Roadshows in London and Sydney. Our Roadshows were smaller than our User Summit, but generated a ton of buzz.
Seminars
The term seminar is usually used to describe smaller meetings, roadshows, or field events. Some seminars are set up similar to a classroom lecture, where an expert shares information with the audience in a traditional, formal style. Others are styled as roadshow or field events, through which marketers take their company’s message out to the public or to employees or partners.
Breakfasts, Lunches, and Dinners
These are typically smaller, more targeted events. They can be both customer and prospect focused. These events can be very intimate with 8-10 people, or can be larger with 50 or more attendees. For the smaller functions, these are typically high level and provide executives a private setting for networking. On a larger scale, breakfasts, lunches, and dinners can include thought leadership presentations as part of the event.