Skift Take
Events have increased in popularity as a marketing channel to help businesses engage with their target audiences, create brand awareness, build customer loyalty, and generate leads, according to a recent Bizzabo survey.
A reported 80.4% of meeting professionals say in-person events are their organization’s most impactful marketing channel, according to the report, “The State of In-Person B2B Conferences.” Bizzabo surveyed more than 4,000 event organizers and attendees to understand the state of in-person gatherings and, in turn, created the report.
“In-person conferences are the cornerstones of comprehensive marketing strategies, architected to drive brand affinity, customer engagement, and revenue growth. From tech giants like Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Hubspot to global publishers like Financial Times, Bloomberg, and TechCrunch — they all use live events to drive forward their most impactful product announcements and community moments. This is why events are still the marketing budget’s single largest line item,” said Alon Alroy, co-founder and CMO of Bizzabo.
This aligns with what attendees expect, as 69.7% say in-person B2B conferences offer the best opportunity to learn about new products or services, and 78% say they offer the best chance to network.
Conferences Crucial to Success
Most organizers, 76.6%, consider in-person conferences critical to their organization’s overall success. Furthermore, 80.4% of organizers identify in-person events as their organization’s most impactful marketing channel. These numbers have increased from Bizzabo’s 2022 in-person sentiment survey, in which 72% of organizers said in-person events were crucial to their overall marketing strategy.
Another stat from the survey that shows how events are being prioritized is that 47.2% of organizers say their events team has grown in the past year, and 23.9% say it has stayed the same. When you compare this year’s survey to 2020, it reveals 30.6% of organizers have event teams of more than ten people, compared to 10.2%.
When surveying attendees, they said hybrid is their favorite event format. Bizzabo confirms this, reporting that the number of hybrid events held on its Event Experience OS grew steadily month-over-month this year. “It will be interesting to see how organizers build their strategies heading into 2024 and beyond,” said Alroy.
The survey also revealed:
- 75.9% of organizers believe in-person conferences will become increasingly critical to their organization’s success in the coming years.
- 70.5% of organizers say their B2B in-person conference attendance grew or stayed the same in the past year.
- 86.4% of organizers plan to hold more or about the same number of in-person B2B events in 2024.
