“We have acquired five new clients through Marcus Evans Summits. In Australia it is almost impossible to connect with C-level executives any other way. We are definitely getting a return on our investment” said Joe Fussell, Chief Executive Officer, AS White Global Pty, a sponsor at the Marcus Evans Australian CIO Summit, CFO Summit and CMO Summit.
To date, we have gained five new clients. We knew of those organisations, but the connections were all made at the Summits. Our product is not a generic product. It is not something people look for, so they do not even know they could use it. If we were to just cold call these executives, we would not have the same opportunity to talk to them.
It is very difficult to access them. The Summits give us access to customers we otherwise wouldn’t have.
We are definitely getting a return on our investment from the CFO and Australian CIO Summits. It has been a learning experience for us, as we try different Summits to see what works better for our marketplace.
Getting three customers from each event makes it worthwhile, and we have achieved that with the CFO and Australian CIO Summits. We essentially have an annuity model and still have customers coming through from our first events, so it is difficult to calculate. We build teams offshore, and most customers start with one or two roles and gradually grow, but once we get a customer on board, we keep them indefinitely.
The Summits are more convenient than a traditional conference where you really have to work hard to get someone’s attention. If you take into account the cost of your sales team, labour and effort, the Summit model is more efficient. The events are run with military efficiency. We get 30-minute sessions with different decision-makers.
We run a pretty lean model at our head office, and find this an efficient use of our time. We can just turn up on the day, me and a colleague, and in two or three days talk to 30 potential customers between the two of us. That is essentially why we keep coming back.
With other conferences, we have to put in a fair amount of effort before and afterwards, whereas a Marcus Evans Summit is like a well-oiled machine. It is a very efficient mechanism for putting us directly in touch with our target audience.
Find out more about the upcoming Australian CIO Summit, CFO Summit and CMO Summit.