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After months of navigating online events, in-person conferences are back. This brings a lot of opportunities, and it’s important for businesses to make the most of the chance to meet potential clients and collaborators face-to-face once more.

Want to make sure you’re ready for your next big event? Here are some tips to keep in mind as you host and attend conferences in 2022.

Polish Your Elevator Pitch

An elevator pitch is a succinct explanation of your business. It answers questions like:

• Who are you?
• What does your business do?
• Which problems in the industry does your business solve?
• Why should investors care about your company?
• What is your plan to grow the business?

Whether you are describing your business to an investor or a friend, having an elevator pitch handy can be helpful for grabbing your audience’s interest.

You can hone your elevator pitch by doing the following:

• Tell a brief story about your business and its purpose.
• Define your values and what your business stands for.
• Use relevant facts or statistics to show your industry expertise.

Take Advantage of Speaking Opportunities for Your Personal or Business Brand

You’ll learn a lot from attending conferences, but you’ll gain even more if you seize the opportunity to be a spokesperson for your brand. At such events, you already have the attention of like-minded individuals in the same industry, so why not use it to put the spotlight on your business?

Take the following steps:

• Inquire about speaking opportunities well ahead of the conference date.
• Create an interesting presentation that will inform and educate the audience whilst also putting a spotlight on your brand.
• Find a way to stay in touch with members after the event (more on that below).

Have a Target List of People or Businesses You Want to Network With

When you’re at a conference, you have a large amount of people you can interact with. Can you realistically meet with them all in a meaningful way during a one-day or two-day event? Nope. That’s why it’s important to have a target list of people or businesses you want to network with.

Here are some tips to help you do this:

• Add your target contacts to Contacts+ to enrich their contact info, including pulling in their social media handles.
• Prepare ahead of time by researching the topics that matter the most to your target audience.
• Save these topics so you’re prepared to have a productive conversation when you’re networking.

Digitize Your Business Cards

Digital marketing tools are our friends, especially when we’re on the go or pressed for time. Remember the time when people used to hand out physical business cards at conferences? With the power of AI, things have changed a little. You no longer have to carry an overflowing amount of cards back home. If you want the people you’ve just met to remember you (or to ensure that you remember them), consider digitizing the business cards.

Doing this is easy.

• Scan the business cards with Contacts+ Business Card AI to instantly turn physical cards into digital contact records.
• Sync this information across your Google, Apple, or Microsoft address book so you can access it anytime.

Leverage Social Media

You’ve prepared a powerful pitch, snagged a great speaking opportunity, created a targeted list of people you want to network with, and even digitized their cards, now what?

What you do next is the most important step.

There’s no point in attending conferences and networking with industry leaders if you don’t keep in touch with them afterward. Fortunately, social media has made it easy to do this. Data from Twitter shows tweets with hashtags can increase engagement up to 100% for individuals and 50% for brands, so be sure to use the conference hashtag on the day if there is one.

After the conference:

• Follow the people you’ve met on social media sites like Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, or any other apps of your choice.
• Start a social media page for your business to build an audience.
• Use event tags to find other people who attended the conference and network with them online.

You can also take your follow-up a step up further by adding your new contacts to your email lists, but only do this with their permission.

Final Note

In-person conferences have a lot to offer. These events offer a convenient way to get attention for your brand and connect with people in your industry who may become future partners or clients.

By considering your goals in advance and following these simple steps, you’ll be able to increase the value that you get from the conferences that you host and attend.