VP of EMEA Guide: 10 Steps to Creating a Standout Event Marketing Strategy

24 Sept

Building your brand, community, and pipeline is crucial to your success as a VP of EMEA. However, expanding into new markets, particularly in Europe, presents unique challenges that require a tailored approach and can't be solved by simply replicating what worked in your home market.

As Frontline Ventures states in its European Expansion Report:

"It's tempting to jump straight into sales and skip over local marketing, community development, and brand-building efforts. But underinvesting in these areas is frequently the hidden culprit of a poor GTM expansion in Europe."

At Let's Plan It, we understand these challenges first-hand. With over two decades of experience building international revenue organisations, we've developed a strategy to help you execute impactful events that achieve business goals and foster strong, lasting relationships with your marketing team. Here's our guide to building a standout event marketing strategy that aligns your internal teams and drives long-term success.

1. Start by Setting Clear Event Marketing Objectives

As an EMEA VP, you should bring your marketing team to the table as early as possible during your planning process for the coming fiscal year. Share your strategy and business goals, and working together, set clear, measurable objectives that align with your business goals. Your event marketing strategy should support the growth of your brand in key regions, position your company as a thought leader, and, most importantly, generate leads to drive revenue.

At Let's Plan It, we believe every event should have a specific ROI target, and post-event analysis is crucial to demonstrate success and refine future strategies.

2. Categorize Your Events by Priority

Each event should have a clearly defined purpose. Whether it's generating revenue, nurturing key relationships, or gaining insights into a new market. Ensure you understand the "why" behind your event.

Not all events are created equal. Prioritise and categorise them to maximise impact:

Flagship Events: Your marquee events, such as major industry conferences, that position you as a leader.
Business Development Events: High-touch corporate hospitality events that foster relationships with enterprise-level prospects.
Speaking Opportunities: Paid or earned speaking engagements that elevate your thought leadership.

As an EMEA VP, leverage your local knowledge to identify the most important events in your region.

3. Know Your Audience

To maximise impact, tailor your events to your audience and their stage in the sales funnel:

Webinars: Ideal for top-of-funnel engagement.
Executive Roundtables: Target C-level prospects and decision-makers.
Networking Events: Perfect for nurturing mid-funnel leads and strengthening relationships with existing customers.

Remember, the quality of attendees is more important than quantity. Guide your marketing team towards priority markets and priority segments and industries. Be selective about who you invite, ensuring your events are designed to move the right people further down the funnel.

4. Perfect Your Content Programming

Event content should resonate with attendees and align with your event's objectives. To create value:

Collaborate with Marketing to curate relevant, impactful content. Ideally, several pre-approved presentations should be ready for use.
Create an EMEA speaker panel and ensure they are well-prepared to deliver your key messages.
Where possible, invest in speaker training to ensure polished and professional presentation delivery.

At Let’s Plan It, we believe in involving multiple company spokespeople, not just one or two, to amplify your message and build brand trust across different levels of the organisation. Divide and conquer!

5. Establish Clear Roles and Responsibilities

The success of any event relies on clear roles and communication. Form a cross-functional working group and assign responsibilities early on. Ensure regular check-ins to maintain momentum and handle any challenges that arise.

As Howard Schultz said, “The best strategy in the world is useless unless it’s executed.”

6. Internal Communication Is Key

Ensure your internal teams are aligned with your event strategy. Share the event calendar early and communicate it repeatedly through multiple channels, such as email, Slack, sales enablement tools, etc.

Your marketing team should reinforce the event's importance at every touchpoint, from initial invites to post-event follow-ups. Internal alignment is crucial in securing the necessary buy-in to execute essential tasks like invite follow-ups, customer calls, and speaker outreach.

7. Promote Your Events Externally

Effective promotion is critical to filling your event with the right attendees. Start promoting 6-8 weeks in advance using your customer database, press releases, and social media. Employees and current customers are also valuable assets—encourage them to share event details on their networks.

Don't be shy to contact local influencers in your region—they will likely engage, opening up additional promotion channels for your marketing teams.

At Let’s Plan It, we help SaaS companies amplify their event reach through personalised marketing campaigns and influencer partnerships to ensure maximum impact.

8. Localise the Experience

Events in international markets must be localised to reflect regional differences. To build credibility, tailor your messaging, simplify branding, and include local customer stories.

Remember, we all listen with our eyes! Bring your CMO and key leadership to these events—they need to see the local landscape to understand the nuances of your region. Their on-the-ground engagement will push home the importance of local market development.

9. Focus on Event Follow-up

Post-event follow-up is critical to turning engagement into revenue:

Set up Slack channels to capture real-time feedback and customer insights during the event.
Schedule thank-you emails, NPS surveys, and follow-ups with prospects within 48 hours.
Hold a debrief session the day after the event to assess successes, challenges, and areas for improvement.
Ensure leads are passed to the sales team for prompt follow-up—timeliness is key to capitalising on event momentum.

Remember, people get tired, and the VP of EMEA's role is to reinvigorate the team in the days after an event to drive maximum ROI.

10. Measure and Track Event Performance

Measuring event performance is vital to demonstrating success and securing future budget allocation. After your successful event, don't let elation/exhaustion/excitement/emotion lead to neglect. Focus on tracking key metrics:

Audience Quality: Who attended, their level of seniority, and the ARR in the room.
Engagement: Social media interactions, survey results, and Net Promoter Score (NPS).
Advocacy: How many customer advocates or references did the event generate? Advocacy is crucial for driving future deals.
Conversion: Track how leads convert into revenue over time.

At Let's Plan It, we work with clients to ensure thorough post-event analysis. This helps you showcase the long-term value of your investment and lays the groundwork for sustained business growth.

Final Thoughts

Executing a standout event marketing strategy is about more than just putting on a good show—it's about aligning your teams, localising your message, and following through to ensure long-term ROI. Events are a powerful way to strengthen customer relationships and build brand awareness, especially in new markets.

Are you ready to supercharge your event strategy and drive real results in EMEA? Schedule a free consultation with Let's Plan It today, and let's design an event roadmap that aligns your teams and grows your brand globally.

Colm OCuinneain