Key Reasons to Attend Live Energy Marketing Conferences by Jack Doueck
Since I founded the company in 2013 with Larry Leikin, I have run the past 16 Energy Marketing Conferences. Attendees always tell me great stories about how they participated in our events and how it helped them grow their businesses.
Long-time supporter and attendee, Peter Muzsi from Core Development Group (the Afternoon Break Sponsor at EMC16), recently explained a success story from the recent New York City event. Peter told me that at the Opening Night Reception of EMC16, he was having drinks with Jeffrey Merola and Mike Walsh of Intelometry. Then, the next morning Peter happened to be on the same panel as Jeffrey Merola.
In his words, “After the panel discussion, we had a really good conversation about various business challenges, and we spoke about how Intelometry and its sister company eRenewables could potentially help Core Development Group with a utility-scale solar generation project in California. Intelometry is helping us with consulting and data analytics for a complex California solar project with battery storage and potentially finding a buyer for the California electricity that is generated. We have since executed contracts and thanks to EMC, we believe that this deal can lead to significant revenue for our firms. You just can’t put a price on the value of face-to-face networking events like the Energy Marketing Conferences.”
Over the years I put together a shortlist of why people love coming to EMC. Conferences help companies accomplish their core business objectives such as:
- Generating leads, referrals, and sales
- Generating upsell and cross-sell opportunities
- Launching a new product
- Attracting new employees or executives
- Attracting potential investors
- Attracting partners
- Building brand awareness,
- Improving their company’s presence in the industry
- Educating their target audience
- Obtaining social media exposure
- Driving particular behaviors.
- Networking and building relationships with peers
- Fostering relationships for future collaboration
- Learning and building expertise
- In-person conversations and meetings with key decision-makers is more effective than working through emails and video conferences
Retail Energy executives have told me that they have many ‘softer’ reasons why they love attending our events. Even though these aren’t direct lead generators, they are present in the lead generation process — which is, after all, a large focus of many business strategies.
For example, building relationships with others in the industry is beneficial for both future collaboration and brand awareness; networking can ignite the interest of potential clients (or even generate a tangible lead), and attending an informative session often provide them with tips and ideas to take back to the office and implement through their own company’s strategy.
A huge benefit of sending employees to Energy Marketing Conferences is the impact it has on their professional development, which could, in turn, enhance their productivity and performance.
Giving staff members both the responsibility of representing the company and the opportunity to develop by attending conferences could be part of a wider employee engagement strategy.
Tips for getting the most out of our conferences:
- Decide who the best people are to attend. Typically, the titles that get the most out of our programs are CEOs, CFOs, CMO’s, COO’s, CCO’s and VPs of marketing. This is because our sessions are geared towards marketing, operations, leadership and regulatory issues.
- Decide what your goals are for the Energy Marketing Conference you are attending. Is your focus going to be on learning or networking? Are you looking for investors? Channel partners? Are you open to collaborating with firms doing similar things? Are you focused on reducing churn, rewarding customers for loyalty, engaging them? Is your company looking to purchase books of business from competitors? Would you prefer to find an acquirer for your business? Are you shopping for a new credit facility or wholesale supply agreement? Are you hyper-focused on risk management or improving your operations? Are you in the market for a new call center? Is your number one priority to attract new executives to work with you? Is it to build your brand in the industry as a trusted partner?
No matter what your mission is, mapping out your immediate priorities and goals in advance of the conference is the key to maximizing your experience and the investment you make in attending. It is important to communicate these goals to the team that will attend the event.
- Make a list of your specific goals for the event. Such as the number of new contacts you would like to meet or the specific sessions you would like to attend. List out who your main competitors are and whether you would like to collaboratively brainstorm with them. If you are a service provider, make a list of the potential clients that you would like to meet as well as your current clients with whom you would like to engage.
Energy Marketing Conference provides a personable platform where key industry players can connect and communicate with one another in a laid-back, yet professional setting. We are consistently told that our live conferences are an extremely productive event for our attendees, and this has been backed up by numerous studies.[1]
By Jack Doueck, Founder of Energy Marketing Conferences and Principal Advanced Energy Capital and LEDPlus, as well as several other energy-related companies.
[1] Whoever your target audience is, be it employees, partners, business customers, or consumer audiences, face-to-face events are one of the best ways to cut through and engage with them at a deeper and more meaningful level. Indeed, 75% of B2B marketers believe that in-person events are the most effective marketing tactic, and over 50% of marketers believe that one-on-one interaction at events helps to build relationships and furthers an organization’s business goals (CMO Council & E2MA, 2013).
