by Want to position your agency as an industry leader? Wondering how hosting a live event can help?
In this article, you’ll discover how producing live events can yield results for your marketing agency.
Lessons From an Agency Owner and Conference Host
In the ultra-competitive world of marketing agencies, sustaining a business for more than 26 years is no small feat. However, Rich Brooks, owner of Flyte New Media in Maine, has achieved this by championing client success. His agency specializes in increasing online visibility and converting website traffic into leads and sales for small and midsize companies and nonprofits.
A linchpin of Flyte's strategy and success has been hosting an annual Agents of Change (AOC) conference to spur new business, cement thought leadership, and bring Maine's marketing community together. The conference has organically transformed Flyte's assets, propelling the agency's growth.
Rich got the idea for AOC when attending major marketing conferences nationwide, like Blog World and South by Southwest. He rarely encountered people from Maine at these events. Rich thought, “What if I could take some of this energy and bring it back home?” He decided to launch his event to spotlight cutting-edge industry information that's accessible to local marketers.
In the early days, AOC was not directly tied to Flyte. Rich simply wanted to serve the Maine marketing community by bringing in top speakers.
His passion project quickly took on a life of its own. He developed professional relationships with industry experts, established while working the “tequila circuit” after-hours at other conferences, to convince them to present at his event. He tapped into their excitement about visiting Maine to get them on board.
In 2012, the inaugural conference centered on search, social, and mobile marketing and brought people primarily from New England. Within three years, AOC boasted 400 attendees gathering in Portland for marketing wisdom.
#1: Build Awareness to Create Lead Generation
Though initially called to serve the community of Portland and, thereby, Maine by bringing these marketing masterminds to the state, Rich eventually realized AOC could also benefit his agency as a lead generation source. Now in its 9th year, the event has matured into an integral component of the company's marketing strategy. Rich explains, “When I am up there speaking… people in the audience, often local people, are seeing me not just with the Agents of Change hat on, but also the Flyte new media hat.”
It's challenging for local businesses to compete with local agencies. For Rich and many marketers, it's about finding a way to stand out—finding something that makes you stand out and that's hard to replicate. If you came up with a great plan for SEO or Facebook ads, it won't take long for someone to notice it and take it as their own, for example.
So, the key is to build awareness, which will eventually lead to new business.
AOC took three years off due to the pandemic. Rich used the time away to, in a sense, experiment with what would happen with his business. He wondered if his agency would make more money because the team would be able to put their time and energy toward billable hours or if the pipeline would dry up because the company was out of sight, out of mind. He realized the conference was a necessary ongoing tool that helped separate his business from other agencies.
Rich estimates that 25–50% of new Flyte's clients discover the agency through the conference. Many local businesses attend year after year, eventually needing services like website design, SEO, and paid advertising. For local businesses, joining AOC is often their first touchpoint with Rich and his agency. This top-of-mind awareness cultivates leads over months or years. It also grants the company access to executive suites that cold calls could never achieve.
Rich believes all you need is a light touch to retain and gain new clients. Conference attendees already give their information when they sign up, so they're instantly a part of Flyte's audience and email list. As the AOC has grown, the Flyte team has also become more strategic about capturing business value. For example, team members conduct free spot consultations with attendees during breaks.
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#2: Gauge the Impact of Your Conference
Given the diffuse nature of the conference's lead generation, Rich tracks results directionally rather than meticulously attributing each new client. Even though he likes UTM codes as much as his digital marketing manager, Rich is more interested in anecdotes than numbers. He gauges success based on community energy and testimonials about what compelled prospects to hire Flyte.
As long as seats fill up, speakers receive enthusiastic feedback, and the event covers hard costs, Rich feels AOC is worthwhile. He doesn't expect the conference to be wildly profitable because dangling a speaking invitation helps him land bigger-name speakers than the event budget alone could secure.
In Rich's experience, a packed room leads to at least a few solid new business prospects, regardless of other metrics. For example, there was a time when Rich had been trying to get a family friend's business for years. But they never wanted to spend the money. They won a free ticket to the conference and a free consultation with Flyte's creative director and spent $25,000 to redesign their website. When you get people in the room, they see the value, Rich believes.
Conference magic even convinces existing clients to expand their Flyte contracts. A customer who explicitly stated he just wanted a website without any extra marketing services ended up wanting to activate SEO, paid search, etc, partway through the conference. It's also about educating your clients—they might not know how you can help them.
For Rich, it's also about networking and forging connections with other thought leaders in the industry. Taking a picture with past AOC speakers like award-winning podcaster John Lee Dumas or online marketing educator Amy Porterfield helps Rich's and Flyte's visibility, for example.
#3: Consider Your Costs and Key Operations
Planning AOC demands immense sweat equity and financial resources. The Flyte team invests 500+ working hours annually designing the event, recruiting speakers, coordinating logistics, and managing ticket sales.
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GET THE DETAILSHard costs span fees related to venue rental, speaker fees, lodging, food, drinks, advertising, and more. He weighs these marketing expenses against anticipated new business. While quantifying the precise ROI proves impossible, the Flyte staff weighs qualitative factors like community goodwill and elevated market visibility when deciding whether to proceed with staging another gathering.
Rich says, “If we just break even with the conference, but then we get a couple of jobs out of it, it's just marketing, and marketing costs money—it's an investment in our future.”
Maximize Attendee Experience
In the early years of AOC, the Flyte crew experienced typical first-time snafus like erroneously printing the launch year “2012” onto posters and other signage that couldn't be reused. They also encountered hiccups like not having enough vegan meal options and being scolded for serving soda. Over time, Rich has gleaned various lessons that now seem obvious, such as always ordering boxed lunches to feed 400 participants efficiently instead of offering a buffet.
There will always be something that goes awry with events, but building up a community of people who are rooting for you makes a big difference, Rich believes.
The biggest “aha” moment has been elevating attendee engagement by incorporating surprises aligned with the conference's theme and location. For example, Rich previously partnered with Maine Brew Bus, so every speaker enjoyed a complimentary brewery tour and swag. They became a sponsor of AOC and even acted as a taxi service, taking speakers to and from the conference. This partnership built goodwill and generated awareness for another local business.
Rich also convinced sponsor Split Rock Distilling to concoct themed cocktails like the Hashtag Highball, giving the event a unique Maine personality. These special touches earned rave reviews for creating a one-of-a-kind conference experience compared with run-of-the-mill industry gatherings.
Before COVID-19, Rich had sponsors sign three-year contracts. If they showed up year after year, clients would expect to see them, and that's how they'd gain a presence, a foothold on generating leads. However, partnerships and sponsorships are not always about helping you to underwrite some of your costs. They're also about building relationships that raise your prestige and value within your community, Rich believes. If you are hosting a smaller event, maybe you get a local food vendor to serve free or discounted food to your attendees, and that sponsor gets to attend your event.
It's important to know your audience, too. For example, companies that provide email marketing services or produce social media marketing software are good sponsor fits for the conference. Rich makes media trades with local business magazines and local newspapers. He's also traded his expertise for sponsorship, training companies on how to use LinkedIn, for example.
#4: Advice for Agency Owners Considering Live Events
Rich strongly advocates starting small in year one for agencies considering hosting live events. You need not have an auditorium filled with hundreds of participants or celebrity keynote presenters to provide value. Local speakers and free community spaces can facilitate impactful events with minimal financial risk. You can get twelve people in at the Chamber of Commerce for free, which could be the most successful event possible.
The key is aligning programming and logistics to your goals, whether elevating thought leadership, generating leads, community building, or going beyond.
As your event scales in future years, prioritize optimizing the attendee journey. Think like your ideal customer, incorporate interactivity, and inject surprises that spark joy as people learn. For example, when Rich attended Social Media Marketing World, he remembers someone stationed at the top of an escalator, high-fiving every person who came up. It created this instant positive mood—people couldn't help but smile.
This positive vibe sticks with people more than any single session they attend. Mastering experiential elements takes events from average to exceptional. A positive glow is contagious and translates into community goodwill plus repeat patronage.
Rich Brooks is president of Flyte New Media, a web design and digital marketing agency helping SMBs and nonprofits increase their online visibility, drive more qualified site traffic, and convert that traffic into leads and business. He is also the author of The Lead Machine: The Small Business Guide to Digital Marketing and founder of Agents of Change, a weekly podcast and annual conference focusing on search, social, and mobile marketing. You can find him on LinkedIn.Â
Brooke B. Sellas is host of the Marketing Agency Show, a Social Media Examiner production. She is founder and CEO of B Squared Media, an agency that helps people connect, converse, and convert on social media. Her book is called Conversations That Connect. Find her on X/Twitter and LinkedIn.
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