Here is a very good and a crisp article on "face to face" customer events and their relevance in the current economic conditions. Focused events are a great way to ensure a good ROI for certain categories of products / brands.
There is however a need for caution. I am of the strong view that brands need to re-examine their exposure to events which are done purely from a brand awareness perspective. Some of these events have very limited and questionable ROI. More on that later in the next post.
"Events should be a critical component to converting your prospects into customers. Before launching one, however, you should rank and score your potential attendees based on several factors including: how close they are to purchasing, their individual purchase authorities, the size of their budgets and other technical and product factors unique to your market or industry.
Once leads are in your pipeline, a content-rich live happening is a great way to move them along the buying process." writes Gordon Plutsky. Read the full article here.