As somebody who’s a community builder, I’m bullish on events. They’re how our community engages and learns with one another. Throwing them for our community gives us a human advantage - we throw them to bring value to our community members first and foremost. Not with a strict focus on pipeline generation. 

When we partner with sponsors we bring that same mindset to the fold; even though sponsors are often looking for demand generation. Our mindset allows us to throw more authentic gatherings and build trust between community and brand to create what I call ‘organic demand’. 

I spoke with Nick Bennett who’s a seasoned event pro holding many leadership positions at companies like Clari, Alyce (acquired by Sendoso), and Airmeet and working with dozens of companies outside that. He’s built some killer strategies for conferences too.

He broke it down tactically for us from the brand POV.

Most companies measure events like a demand gen campaign instead of a revenue program.

The metrics look familiar:

That mindset drives the wrong behavior. You end up with broad targeting, generic booth messaging, and surface-level follow-up. Budget gets spent attracting people who are curious but nowhere close to buying.

But the real issue is not wasted budget. It is missed opportunity.

When events are only seen as top-of-funnel:

So the pipeline that could have been accelerated just sits there, untouched, while marketing chases net-new names.

Events are one of the few places where you can create real face-to-face moments with buyers. That is rare. And most teams waste it on people who are not ready to buy.

The shift is simple: stop thinking of events as lead generation and start thinking of them as pipeline acceleration.

The best event strategies I have seen do not optimize for volume. They optimize for deal movement.

A single well-planned executive dinner can create more real pipeline movement than a large booth focused on badge scans.

Here is how to run events as a pipeline accelerator instead of a lead gen machine.

Stop inviting anyone who fits the ICP. Instead, prioritize:

Open opportunities in late stages

Work with sales to identify:

This is not just marketing running a booth.

Align with sales ahead of time on:

Then create intentional moments:

The event becomes a setting for moving real opportunities forward, not just collecting new names.

Generic post-event emails do not move deals.

Instead:

When you run events this way, the impact shows up in different places than you are used to measuring.

The question changes from "How many leads did we get?" to "Which deals moved because we were there?"

That is the difference between treating events as a campaign and treating them as a revenue program.

- Nick Benett, B2B Marketing Operator

Want to learn from more Revenue Creators like Nick? Join the RevGenius community and be part of the movement rewriting the GTM playbook.

Turning POCs into Revenue: A Framework for Winning Enterprise Evaluations
(Tuesday, June 30 | 1PM EST | 10AM PT)

Everyone's optimizing top-of-funnel. Meanwhile, the deals you've spent 12-18 months trying to close are quietly dying at the POC, the most expensive stage of the enterprise funnel. John Care (author of Mastering Technical Sales) and Gilad Komorov (3X CRO) break down why enterprise POCs fail and the playbook high-win-rate teams use to win them.

From Workflow Chaos to Operational AI : Real RevOps Use Cases
(Thursday, 22nd September | 1 PM EST | 10 AM PT)

In this session, we're showcasing AI agents built specifically for the event, deployed against real broken RevOps workflows: lead routing, onboarding, forecasting, handoffs, and resurfacing opportunities before they slip. Live builds grounded in real challenges, not generic hype.

We've pulled together a stack of deals from the best tools in GTM, discounts you won't find anywhere else, built to gear up your 2026 growth. Take a look before they're gone.

Are you hiring and want your job featured? Submit a role here.

Want to get your brand in front of 60,000+ revenue leaders?

Partner with us and put your name at the center of the conversation.