Preparing for Dreamforce

Dreamforce is one of the largest and most well known conferences in the tech world. With an audience of 40,000 Salesforce customers and prospects, it is the marquee event for ISVs and partners whose ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) falls into this bucket.  Sponsors pay a minimum of 100K to jockey for the attention and awareness of the ecosystem making it the highest lead generating activity most marketing teams will prepare for. 

For the past two years, Mike Davis (CRO of Invisory) and Sienna Quirk (CMO of Invisory) have held a cohort to help ISVs prepare for the investment. Even if you missed our cohort this year, we’re sharing some top tips for making the most of your time at Dreamforce. 

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Know your goals & what success looks like: 

This might sound simple but it’s critical to know what you’re trying to accomplish and how you’ll know you were successful. And success can look different to each ISV depending on maturity, time in market, yearly targets, goals and expectations. Documenting what’s important and how you’ll know how the team did is a critical piece of the post-Dreamforce examination. 

Put your plan in place for success: 

Planning is crucial for success and should include a multi-touch approach. This means identifying before, during and after how to make the most of your investment. 

• Pre-show 

• • • Train your support team on the ground at Dreamforce and back at the “office” all need to know their role and expectations. 
    • Clarify an elevator pitch & general demo flow. 
    • Identify your theme and message – how do you plan to stand out? Giveaways, outside events, etc. What are your competitors saying? 
    • Know what personas to expect at the booth and role play how to address each. 
    • Promote via social, emails and newsletters where you’ll be and why individuals should visit. 
    • Prepare your executives for meetings. 
    • Clarify your goals and KPIs & share with the team.
    • Have a plan for almost everything (weather, emergencies, illness) 

• During show

• • • Have a booth schedule 
    • Make sure your booth team knows their roles (booth puller, demo, meeting coordinator, set up and closing staff).
    • Attend sessions of key customers, prospects, partners and SIs 

• Post-show 
  • • Communication plan for leads scanned / hot leads & customers 
    • Follow up from executive meetings 
    • Follow up from partner plans 
    • Party / happy hour follow up strategy 
    • Take time to review your initial goals and KPIs and how you did. Gather feedback from your executives, your booth team and your outreach team to get ideas for how to improve next year. 

Not sponsoring Dreamforce but planning to attend? 

There are plenty of ways to make the most of your time on the ground at Dreamforce, even if you’re not sponsoring. From setting up meetings offsite, sponsoring surrounding happy hours and events, and engaging with partners there are plenty of ways to still have a successful show without the scanner. 

Invisory hosted a 30 minute webinar on just this topic. Watch it here 

Headed to Dreamforce and want to meet with the Invisory team in person? Click here to schedule time.