Technology conferences - worth the cost?

Healy Jones just published a blog post building on a comment I wrote in his previous post. The topic is the "ROI" of technology conferences. The post is an interesting read to get a VC perspective on the fit of conferences for a startup financing strategy. The key messages from Healy for entrepreneurs are:

• Preparation is key
• If at pitch stage, entrepreneurs can line up informal meeting with VCs (while it should not be the sole goal)
• If at due dilligence stage, arrange meetings between the VC and customers or other critical partners/players in your ecosystem
• Leverage your (potential) VC to get introductions to potential customers or key players

Healy's post was voluntarily focused on the fit with a VC financing strategy. There are obviously other potential benefits. My feeling is that the potential main value-add of a conference for a web startup is to increase your overall visibility/awarness ("anchoring yourself in your ecosystem") rather than directly impacting new users growth or pitching a VC. Here are a few examples of how to do it:

• Line up before hand a series of meeting with players in your field
• Organize or sponsor an "unofficial" event related to the conference
• Buy a booth to showcase your product (sort of expensive)
• If you are blogger, try to get a blogger pass to "officially" cover the conference either for your own blog or for a bigger media/blog
• Participate to the startup competition
• Organize a workshop on a secondary stage on the problem you are adressing with your product (if conference permits)
• Become one of the sponsors of the conference (sort of expensive)
• Be on the plenary stage... which is sort of difficult for early stage startup, except if you are among the startup competition finalists

There is probably a lot of other ways but there is no silver bullets. It's the combination of several actions that really increases the ROI of a conference. But it requires a lot of preparation for an uncertain return (especially for early stage startups).

What's your experience?

Update: there is post from Futuristic Play with an extensive list of tech conferences here

Comments

[Healy Jones]

I love the first and second point. Great ways to get your startup's name out there without spending huge amounts of money.

I'd also echo your idea of applying for competitions at major conferences. Some of our portfolio companies have had great luck applying for (and winning) different new technology awards. These types of awards can be very valuable in the marketplace, in particular if you are making enterprise sales. For example, our portfolio company VideoIQ got tons of great, free, PR for winning the "Best in Video Analytics" at ASIS, THE huge security industry conference. You can bet that these create real customer interest.

[Lady VoIP]

Looks like you covered the best angles in your list. Point 2 and 5 are suggestions I'd echo as we've seen success with them. Not two weeks ago we received an award for 2008 product of the year which has been very exciting for us.
My boss loves to tell the story of a product demonstration they held as an "after party" in the hotel room after an expo. He said that 45 min was far more valuable than the rest of the 3 day show combined.

[Wallen's]

@Lady VoIP, congrats for your award and thanks for the "after party" excample.