Big Picture Takeaway: Leading with Value, Not Just Selling
There’s a lot of synergy between our resource community concept and the event improvements we’ve identified. The key to unlocking greater awareness and presence in the TA space is starting conversations from a place of value rather than selling.
By positioning Boon as the hub for insights, discussions, and problem-solving, we create an organic way to engage our audience, build credibility, and drive deeper relationships. This approach will fuel greater brand awareness, trust, and long-term growth.
Event Planning & Marketing Team Enablement for 2025
Clarify our event strategy: Go all-in on key events where we have a booth, presence, and activations. “Hack” other events by attending without a booth, hosting side events, and driving engagement creatively. Vet competing events in advance to ensure strong attendance and potential partnership opportunities. Empower the marketing team to take full ownership of event execution. Reduce bottlenecks by eliminating the need for Dakota’s approval on a wider-range of decisions and expenses. Encourage creative risk-taking, experimentation, and autonomy. Marketing should feel comfortable leading without constant oversight, knowing I’m here as a resource but trust their judgment. Event planning needs to start months ahead of time with clear alignment across marketing and sales. Pre-event meeting/interview scheduling Targeted outreach to key attendees Establish an event calendar within our resource community from day one to ensure visibility and structured planning across teams. Swag & Booth Presence
Swag was a hit – Big win here! Having multiple physical items boosted interest. Cotopaxi bags and thermos was especially appealing—felt premium, not cheap. We should expand our swag selection to include more standout items. Consider unique event engagement tactics like Erin’s giant floor stickers directing people to the booth. Event App Setup: A Missed Opportunity
We didn’t set up the event app before the event, making lead qualification and follow-ups much harder. No qualifying questions were in place, so we now have to manually sort through contacts to separate: General conversations with less potential Next time: Set up the app in advance, ensure proper lead categorization, and streamline data capture. Referral Program Awareness Quiz: A Strong Engagement Tool
People responded well to it—made them realize how ineffective their current referral programs are. Polish and launch it on the website. Provide clear explanations of scores and actionable next steps. Make results easily shareable with colleagues/managers. Add a “Book a Demo” link at the end and in shared results. Promote additional content/resources from our community alongside quiz results. Building Relationships with Event Organizers & Staff
Cultivate goodwill with event staff and organizers. Give them Boon swag to wear—subtly amplify our presence. Send a pre-event gift (cookies, etc.) to make an early impression. Build rapport with organizers so we have inside knowledge on competing events and opportunities to collaborate. Booth Strategy: Less Sales, More Value
Shift from a sales-heavy approach to an engagement-driven experience. Host interviews at the booth instead of hard selling. Invite key contacts for discussions rather than pitching Boon. Capture these conversations as content for post-event marketing (e.g., social clips, blog posts). Event-Hosted Dinner: Why It Didn’t Work & How to Fix It
Location/logistics: The dinner may have been too far from the event, making attendance inconvenient. Competing events: A strong alternative event on the same night pulled attendees away. Sales perception: People likely didn’t want to be pitched a product over dinner. One email isn’t enough—send multiple emails over time to build awareness. Post on social media and make it easy for people to RSVP. Have BDRs personally invite key contacts to drive attendance. Keep it simple and convenient—less planning and logistics required for attendees. Vet competing events ahead of time to avoid scheduling conflicts. For larger events, this may not be as big of a deal, but we should still pick our battles. If another vendor is hosting a strong event, explore: Hosting our event on a different day or time. Co-hosting with them to increase exposure and reduce risk. Providing something valuable to their event (e.g., sponsorship, experience, or resource) to gain visibility without hosting our own separate event. Building relationships with event organizers will help us get insights on what’s happening and find collaboration opportunities. Shift the focus away from Boon and onto a topic or theme. Have the dinner hosted by our resource community but sponsored by Boon—this makes it more inviting and compelling. Make it about insight, networking, and discussion rather than just a dinner. Choose a discussion-driven theme that adds value for attendees rather than feeling like a sales pitch. Example: “The Future of Referral Hiring & TA Innovation” instead of “Dinner with Boon.” Community-Centric Branding for Future Events
We need to establish and name our content community—it should be the hub for engagement at events. “Come join us at {Community Name}’s happy hour, sponsored by Boon.” The event should feel owned by the community, with Boon as a supporting host. Branding should not be Boon-centric, but Boon can be subtly acknowledged (“brought to you by Boon”). Missed Social Media Opportunities
We didn’t post anything about our attendance during the event. Huge missed opportunity for real-time engagement. Future events should have a dedicated social media strategy, including: General Positive Takeaways
Accessibility and adoption were the real game-changers. While AI and other bells and whistles were interesting, they weren’t the top concern. People needed reassurance first—they wanted to know: How easy it would be for their employees to adopt Boon. That this wouldn’t turn into a massive, painful implementation project. Once we addressed those concerns, interest skyrocketed. Faces shifted, conversations changed, and skeptics became engaged. This alone cracked open a lot of skeptics. Asking about people’s problems and showing sincere interest was incredibly effective! If someone was standoffish, I immediately stopped talking about Boon and focused on them. Even if the conversation went on a tangent, it helped build trust and rapport. The goal wasn’t to cram information down their throats—it was to connect, understand, and build relationships. People consistently commented on how friendly and approachable our team was. This is a differentiator—lean into it and reinforce it in our messaging. Leveraging Brand Ambassadors & Influencers
Bring industry influencers & brand ambassadors to represent Boon at events. Give them Boon swag to wear—make it clear they’re part of the movement. Build a network of TA influencers in HubSpot so we can easily engage them when needed. Some promising contacts from TAW: His colleague co-hosts the Purple Squirrel podcast. Suggested potential collab with Event Shark. These guys were connected to Erin, but they weren’t particularly loyal—good candidates to engage or learn from. Disruptive Event Engagement Ideas
Think of ways to highjack the event and be the center of attention. Fun, memorable activations like Zorb battles or obstacle courses could make a splash. Get people into a “playful” space. People really enjoyed unexpected interactions/dynamics. Such as handing them chocolate like it was a super secret note being passed in class. Do we return?
TaCara:
Key Wins & Highlights
🚀 High Booth Engagement – Placement and Visibility worked out great. We attracted a steady flow of visitors, many of whom showed genuine interest in our platform. Our giveaway helped increase engagement and collect valuable contact information. The quiz helped people think about their current model and gain awareness of their opportunity to grow and strengthen their program.
📊 Lead Generation & Interest – We collected a strong list of leads, including several promising potential partnerships and enterprise clients. We spoke to all of the leads we collected and had positive feedback about our swag gifts.
🤝 Networking & Relationship Building – Made good connections with complementary solutions partners. Marketing Agency Hireclicks and several recruiting programs expressed positive sentiment about alignment for partnerships.
📝 Content & Media Development – Dakota participated in the interviews being hosted by Flockity and discussed the future of TA and incorporated Flockity’s focus on influencers.
👥Audience Validation – Attendees were target market individuals and were receptive to our messaging. This event was a much better fit than HR Tech. A competitor company there clearly spent a significant amount of investment, additionally validating the fit of the audience.
Challenges & Areas for Improvement
🔹 Booth Engagement – People really liked seeing the product but we could only show them with Dakota’s laptop when he was available. On-site demos would be valuable. Having someone at the booth that can do what Dakota does that can be 100% focused on the event audience.
🔹 Collecting MQL Data – The quiz I built using bolt.ai was a new tool experience for me and I did not complete it prior to the event which resulted in lack of time to test and refine. The data collected was not properly set up to store the response input where we would have access to it if they used their own devices. These were qualifying questions that would have enabled sales outreach to have a better understanding of the prospect’s current tools and programs.
🔹 Private Meetings/ Awareness of Other Sponsors “Afters” - We tried to host a dinner but couldn’t get people to RSVP, partially due to not reaching attendees effectively but also conflicting events were scheduled. Additionally, on-site restaurant was not of interest to many people who had “eaten there twice already” by that time. Also, after the full-day the people who were interested in getting dinner/ going out did not want to talk shop or be part of a “thought leadership” discussion. Consider catering to a workshop instead of an off-site/after-hours thing?
🔹 More Pre-Event Outreach – We saw some positive impacts from the pre-event outreach even if it didn’t result in dinner guests. It was a good way to start conversations with highly qualified people on LinkedIn. Additional efforts would likely provide more brand awareness priming. People hadn’t heard of us but we anticipated that.
More TaCara Notes
People were interested in “Community-Driven” - particularly HigherEd and NP Most existing referral+reward systems where homegrown Ease of adoption and “hero” with finance team elicited eager responses People also responded well to “Activating Passive Talent Market” messaging. Attendees were not just regional - many were from middle USA and East Attendees said they really liked the subject matter covered in the talks. (idk what) I think the quiz was a great way to engage psychology methods to get people to think about what we do and improve recall. 
