How marketers can get more value from their 2027 event programme
As marketers review 2026 and begin planning for 2027 they’re probably thinking ‘How do we get more value from the activities we're already investing in?’
For many organisations, events are one of the largest investments in their marketing budget. Exhibition stands, sponsorships, travel, accommodation, speaking opportunities, customer hospitality, and staff time quickly add up. Yet after the event ends, much of that investment disappears with it.
The meetings happen. The conversations happen. The expertise is shared. Relationships are strengthened. And then everyone goes home.
Organisations achieving greater ROI from their event programmes are taking a different approach. They’re treating events not just as opportunities to meet people, but as opportunities to create content that continues building relationships long after the event ends.
This is why I advocate for the content engine approach, where you deliberately plan to capture long-term content during short-term events.
Your next event is probably your biggest untapped content opportunity.
Hosting an event?
If you’re hosting a conference or trade show, think about the expertise gathered in one place during the event:
· Your leadership team
· Industry experts
· Customers
· Partners
· Technical specialists
· Subject matter experts
For a few days, they're all together and that combination is incredibly difficult and expensive to recreate. Yet many organisations leave events with little more than a few photographs and a short blurb for their LinkedIn page. What the comms and marketing team could be doing is capturing:
· Thought leadership videos from executives
· Customer success interviews
· Industry trend discussions
· Speaker insights
· Behind-the-scenes content
· Recruitment content
· Sales enablement content
Suddenly, a three-day event can fuel months of marketing activity.
Sponsoring an event?
If you’re sponsoring or exhibiting at an event or trade show, you’ve got one chance to capture your team in action. If you plan to capture it, you could come away with:
· Customer feedback
· Product demonstrations
· Delegates interacting with your team
· Sector leaders’ insights and observations
Basically a raft of sales and marketing material you can share with customers (and prospective customers) who weren’t able to attend.
Better ROI doesn't always require a bigger budget
So as you think ahead to 2027, consider what tangible assets you collected at this years events and think what you could do differently next year. In these tight economic times many of us are under pressure to deliver more with the same (or smaller) budget.
The good news is that increasing ROI doesn't necessarily mean adding more events. Sometimes it means extracting more value from the events you're already attending.
If you're already investing thousands to bring your people and customers together, capturing content can help extend the impact of that investment across LinkedIn, your website, email marketing, sales conversations and future campaigns.
I’m a fan of video because it’s memorable and gets cut-through, but in reality the opportunities are endless. You just have to plan to capture them.
