Event marketing is a rapidly growing promo strategy, gaining popularity in the tech industry over the last few years. GitNation team would like to share our insights from 9 years of experience in developer events organizing, and how event sponsorship can help tech companies to succeed.

Imagine a situation when a company should reach various goals: get 50 qualified leads, hire 5 top market talents, introduce a new product, and improve brand visibility and recognition. In this case, sponsoring a prominent industry event can be the right marketing decision.

Supporting technology events offers three key advantages:

1. Generating targeted leads
2. Getting feedback about your product
3. Enhancing brand awareness
4. Developer community engagement

Let’s break down these event marketing goals:

Targeted Lead generation
Leading industry events accumulate a significant amount of highly targeted leads for your business and allow you to build deep, valuable connections with event attendees. You can learn more about your potential clients, demonstrate your product, set a personal contact, and build an emotional connection. Keep in mind that attendees at developer events represent a highly targeted audience, actively engaged and eager for new knowledge and experiences. Badge scanning solutions offer a convenient alternative to manually collecting contact information from everyone you engage with, streamlining the process and saving valuable time. Some conference organizers also provide a list of attendees which you can use for a direct personalized email campaign.

Get feedback about your product
Obtaining feedback from your highly targeted audience is crucial for several reasons. Firstly, this audience is likely to provide valuable insights due to their familiarity with the product's domain and their specific needs and preferences. Their feedback can help identify areas for improvement, refine features, and tailor the product to better meet user expectations. Secondly, involving your target audience in the development process helps create a sense of ownership and investment in the product. When users feel their opinions are valued and their feedback is incorporated into the product, they are more likely to become advocates and loyal supporters. Moreover, building an initial audience of your product sets the foundation for growth and success. These early adopters not only provide valuable feedback but also serve as ambassadors who spread the word about your product within their networks. Their positive experiences and recommendations can attract more users, helping to expand your audience and establish credibility in the market.

Grow brand awareness where the industry meets
Event sponsorship opportunities allow you to introduce your business to a new audience who never heard about your company. Large events have social media, newsletters, and press releases you can get in before, during, and after the conference. Promo ads, logos placed on a website, and rollups onsite are just some of the options you can use to improve your brand recognition. Branded swag, giveaways, and goodie bags will also help your business to be recognized. Hosting a workshop and presenting a talk - one more opportunity to interact with a subset of the audience. Use an event marketing kit to create newsbreaks in your social media channels. Finally, use all these methods to engage your audience before, during, and after the event and get an excellent chance to level up your brand awareness.

Community involvement
Creating a community-friendly corporate image is one of the most important benefits of event sponsorship, as it makes you stand out from other brands. Cultivate strong relationships with influencers who can advocate for your product, amplifying its visibility and reach through their networks. Use an opportunity to talk to the top conference speakers, set up new contacts, and become more visible among your key audience. Events have an underrated power to accumulate a crowd of leading industry players in one place. Don't miss an opportunity to establish new partnerships, and start up powerful collaborations to use the maximum potential from an event sponsorship.

Why community engagement is so important?

Presence in the developer community is vital for the advancement of any tech product. The connection between your company and its user base, particularly developers, extends beyond a standard client relationship. Developers serve not only as consumers but also as architects, utilizing your product to forge innovative solutions. To inspire, educate, and empower these architects, it's crucial to cultivate strong relationships within developer communities. Through support, incentives, and collaborative opportunities, you can foster an environment where developers eagerly exchange insights and expertise.

Establishing a genuine connection with your developer audience is not about boasting the highest Twitter follower count, being the most renowned company, or even having the trendiest product. Instead, it's about to be heard among your core audience while offering top-notch resources and solutions. Establishing your own community is a long-term endeavor that demands substantial resources and manpower. Similarly, hosting your own events necessitates dedicated teams in event management and marketing. Simultaneously, sponsoring leading developer events is an optimal turnkey decision that allows you to reach multiple goals in a short time: attract a highly-targeted audience to your product, enhance brand visibility, and gather feedback from industry experts and influencers. As an output, sponsoring developer events fosters trust and respect within your developer community, cultivating loyalty and confidence among your audience.

For the past 9 years, GitNation has been at the forefront of organizing developer conferences focused on JavaScript, the language dominating web development. Interested in sponsoring our events? Contact us: [email protected]