ABM-ify YOUR Events | Ep. 284

Most event programs are a booth, a badge scanner, and a hope that the right buyer walks past. This episode of Scrappy ABM is pulled from a webinar Mason Cosby ran on ABMifying your events, and it covers two programs from the past six months.

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One client invested two hundred thousand dollars into a single event and generated 31 opportunities in three days. Mason's own two-person team spent thirty to forty thousand dollars across a full year of events, got punched in the mouth at SaaStr with zero connections after day one, and rebuilt the whole approach around selling to sponsors instead of chasing attendees.

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Mason walks through the four reasons events fail, the five audiences you can build before the doors open, the three roles to split across the floor, and the 4D framework behind every playbook. The through-line: if your event isn't ROI positive before your flight takes off, there is a better way.

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📌 What We Cover

• The four reasons events fail: no list visibility, booth and badge scans, the one person bottleneck, and no follow-through plan
• Why Mason and Jim Gilkey almost flew home early from SaaStr, and the single question that turned it around
• Working the empty showroom floor during sessions, and why roughly 10% of a 350-account target list was sponsoring the conference
• The five pre-event audiences: last year's list, the event app, social search, Sales Navigator plus location, and the sponsor roster
• Zero-budget floor plays: the co-branded latte, the buffet-line lunch run, and a two hundred fifty dollar taco night that produced four meetings
• Networkers, offerers, and setters, and why the setter should be on the first call
• The half a gift play: 28 of 30 executives came to the meeting suite after receiving an empty glasses case
• The 4D framework, the 10X pipeline target, and why in-person meetings cancel at a higher rate

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Sequel.io, whose sponsor-selling play Mason credits
• OneScreen.ai for out-of-home advertising around conferences
• Katie Ray on inviting locals to event dinners
• Rob Jones, the unofficial mayor of INBOUND
• Informa, the event company behind the executive car service
• Sales Navigator for persona plus location targeting
• scrappyabm.com/taco and scrappyabm.com/b2bmx, the event landing pages referenced
• Events discussed: SaaStr, Forrester B2B Summit, Gartner, B2BMX, Drive, Unbound, Dreamforce, Pavilion's GTM, Demand & Expand

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Resources:

Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.

Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!