Are you making the most of your event budget? In a time where every dollar counts, ensuring a high return on investment (ROI) from events is critical. But how do you allocate resources effectively and prove your event’s worth to stakeholders? Kelly Carlsted, Senior Manager of Global Field Marketing and Events at Dremio, offers insights into maximizing ROI through strategic event planning. With over 14 years of experience, Kelly’s approach contributed to 10% of Dremio's net new deals in 2023, cementing her reputation as a results-driven event leader.
Here’s how Kelly leverages strategic planning to drive impactful event outcomes and actionable steps you can apply to your own event strategy.
Strategic Budget Allocation for Maximizing ROI in Events
Kelly’s success stems from a rigorous approach to budget allocation. Managing a $3 million event budget at Dremio, she carefully evaluates which events deliver the highest impact and ensures resources are allocated accordingly. One key to her success is continuously evaluating past events to assess which channels, tools, and formats yield the best results.
For example, when planning the Subsurface event, Kelly’s team used Salesforce and Tableau to map out where their target accounts were located geographically. This mapping provided valuable insights into where Dremio’s key customers and prospects were concentrated, allowing the team to focus their marketing and outreach efforts on regions with the highest potential for engagement. By understanding where their audience was geographically, Kelly’s team could make more informed decisions about where to allocate event resources, ensuring maximum ROI. This is especially important for large-scale events, as it prevents unnecessary spending in regions where the audience might not be as engaged.
Additionally, Snowball, a word-of-mouth marketing platform, was employed to amplify event promotion. Rather than solely relying on traditional marketing methods, Snowball makes it easy for attendees to share the event on social media, significantly expanding the event’s reach. This strategy helped generate high-quality leads without increasing the budget. Meanwhile, Salesforce and Tableau allowed Kelly’s team to track event performance and make data-driven decisions, reallocating resources to the channels that drove the most pipeline growth.
“Every dollar we spend must directly contribute to our pipeline growth. I align budget with clear, measurable goals and consistently evaluate the impact.” – Kelly Carlsted
Instead of spreading the budget evenly across all event elements, Kelly prioritized areas like speaker engagement, sponsorship opportunities, and attendee experience, directly linking these investments to measurable outcomes such as net new deals and pipeline growth.
Actionable Steps:
Focus your resources on events that have proven to generate strong leads or provide valuable customer engagement.
Before allocating budget, set clear, measurable objectives for each event, such as lead generation, pipeline contribution, or customer retention. Make sure every dollar is tied to a business objective.
Leverage data to justify spend. Analyze the performance of each event and marketing channel, and reallocate funds to high-performing areas.
Case Study: Subsurface Event Success
Dremio’s flagship event, Subsurface, is a prime example of how strategic planning and execution can deliver measurable business outcomes. Originally a virtual event launched in 2020, Subsurface made its in-person debut in 2023, drawing over 3,000 attendees and contributing to 10% of Dremio’s net new deals that year. The decision to move Subsurface from virtual to in-person was not made lightly. Kelly’s team conducted an internal survey to align the company’s goals with event objectives, revealing that driving pipeline growth required fostering stronger customer relationships—something best achieved through face-to-face interaction.
Kelly’s attention to detail played a critical role in the success of this transition. Her team meticulously segmented attendees based on their roles—data engineers, data leaders, and business executives—to ensure tailored communication and engagement. For instance, technical attendees received in-depth content on data lakehouse technology, while business leaders were provided with insights into how Dremio could streamline their operations.
Beyond pre-event communication, Kelly’s team also introduced local customer speakers in keynotes and breakout sessions. This approach helped provide regionally relevant insights, further building connections between attendees and Dremio. Rather than replicating the event in different regions exactly as it was in New York, Kelly and her team customized the content for each location, adapting keynotes to resonate with the regional audience’s interests and tailoring the overall experience to boost engagement. Expanding an event to other locations should always be aligned with specific goals and resources. According to Kelly, when deciding whether to expand an event, you should ask:
Does your event consistently generate high-value leads?
Can you support the logistics of taking it on the road?
Do you have a strong local customer base in the new region?
Kelly’s team carefully weighed these factors before deciding to expand Subsurface to new locations, ensuring that they had the resources and a proven event format to make it successful.
Actionable Steps:
Set clear objectives for your events and focus on driving pipeline growth through customer and prospect engagement.
Tailor experiences to regional markets. Ensure that local speakers and content are at the forefront. This localized approach helps connect more deeply with regional audiences and enhances customer trust.
Analyze engagement data and lead conversion metrics to refine your event strategy and improve future outcomes.
Integrating Field Marketing with Events to Drive Pipeline Growth
Kelly’s holistic approach to integrating field marketing with events has been a game changer for Dremio’s pipeline growth. Rather than treating field marketing and event marketing as separate entities, Kelly’s team collaborates closely with the sales team to align event objectives with sales goals. This alignment ensures that every event supports the sales pipeline and drives high-quality leads, leading to meaningful business outcomes from both field events and large conferences like Subsurface.
“We completely revamped our field marketing process to ensure every event aligns with the sales team’s goals, focusing on the quality of leads rather than just the quantity.” – Kelly Carlsted
A key aspect of this strategy was involving the sales team early in the event planning stages. Sales reps were required to submit a detailed document outlining their target accounts, goals, and expected SQLs (sales-qualified leads). This ensured that events were structured to attract high-value prospects, and sales reps were incentivized to secure meetings with those prospects during the event. At field events, Kelly implemented a simple but effective method to drive engagement: bite slips. While most teams rely on digital tools like scanners to capture lead information, Kelly’s team found that using bite slips—simple paper forms filled out by sales reps during conversations at the booth—resulted in deeper engagement with prospects. This hands-on approach allowed for more personalized conversations, leading to higher-quality notes and better post-event follow-ups.
Actionable Steps:
Ensure events are designed to drive high-quality leads, working closely with your sales team to define objectives.
As Kelly did with bite slips and bonuses for booked meetings, find ways to incentivize your sales team to actively engage with prospects during events.
Segment your audience and deliver customized messaging tailored to their specific roles and needs, increasing engagement and conversion.
Through Kelly’s strategic approach to event planning, Dremio has consistently achieved strong ROI and pipeline growth. Whether you’re prioritizing high-impact events, leveraging local insights, or aligning sales and marketing, these strategies can help you optimize resources, prove the value of your events, and drive meaningful business results.
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