This article explains everything you need to know to generate leads who are attending virtual events.

Your time and money are limited, so you won’t be able to attend all the events you want. Not being able to attend an event doesn’t mean you can’t connect with every potential prospect who is.

With conferences going remote there hasn’t been a better time to leverage this opportunity.

What is event lead generation?

Why would you want to use event attendees to generate new opportunities?

People attending conferences are more likely to have decision-making power over the topic they are curious about. More, if they are investing time and money in it, they’re signaling this is also a relevant topic to them right now.

It’s like speed networking on steroids, but with the most relevant audience for your business.

If you’re not convinced yet, see a real example of how a leading B2B SaaS company massively tested this approach with great success.

Strategies for effective event lead generation

We have distilled everything you need to know to generate more leads from virtual event attendees. In this post you’ll learn how to:

1. Find leads ATTENDING any event you want  
2. Enrich lead data with emails, phone numbers, etc  
3. Craft personalized and targeted emails for every relevant event you target - at scale!  
4. Maximize your results by also targeting the attendees’ coworkers (when relevant!)
5. Measuring your lead gen success for future improvements

Let’s get started!

1. Find leads attending relevant events

The most common way to find who is attending an event is to personally attend that event. This seems logical.

The problem with this lead generation strategy is that you cannot scale it. Since you can’t attend all of the events that might be relevant to you.

So, apart from this usual strategy, we have uncovered several other ways to find who is attending any relevant event you want to target. Here are 4 of them:

1. LinkedIn events

Definitely the largest repository of event attendees out there and so easy to use!

While on LinkedIn, launch a search with a relevant topic your business can help with.

Scroll through the ones relevant to you and keep in mind the number of attendees in each one.

Once you select an event, click to attend.

When you’re in, you have access to the list of attendees. Scroll through the list and check if the audience fits your Ideal Customer Profile.

If you’re an Amplemarket user, import this search via our LinkedIn Extension. Amplemarket will enrich the profiles with emails, phone numbers, and other information about the leads for you.

PS: If you aren’t an Amplemarket user yet, sign-up here to explore how this could work for you.

2. Browse google searches

The ability to do precise Google searches and getting relevant results is a superpower that is easy to acquire but most people don't have it.

With a simple Google search trick, you can find open documents, spreadsheets, or websites that list the attendees of a certain event.

Try searching:

site:docs.google.com/spreadsheets [conference_name]

If you’re lucky enough, you’ll find lists like these with the participants’ emails!

In this article, we provide more examples of how you can leverage advanced Google searches to master B2B prospecting. Take a look at it and start playing around!

3. Free resources like Amplemarket lists

If you know resources out there that compile lists for you, make sure to bookmark them on your browser.

Periodically check them to see if they have lists with event attendees that are relevant to you.

This one sounds easy but you need to be lucky to find exactly what you want. You can use this passive strategy and enjoy it when something relevant appears. But don’t rely 100% on it.

Here’s a list of free resources we’ve seen sharing company/attendee lists:

• Amplemarket Lists
• Crunchbase Lists
• Latka Lists

4. Amplemarket’s lead generation database

For the lucky ones with access to Amplemarket’s Lead Generation Database, search for leads that attended an event.

We have added more than 1200 events to our database so far, if you can’t find one let us know!

PS: Again, if you got excited enough and aren’t an Amplemarket user yet, sign-up here to explore how this could work for you.

2. Enrich lead data

In all the examples of the previous section, you’ll often have the name, company name, and title data about the prospects, which enables you at least to find them on LinkedIn.

Open a spreadsheet to collect all the profiles and the remaining relevant data you find about the attendees.

This will be cumbersome and most probably, you won’t be able to do it at a relevant scale.

To do this approach on a relevant scale, you’ll need data enrichment and automation tools. Data enrichment to get emails, phone numbers, or LinkedIn profiles, and automation tools to automate your outbound messages at scale.

The list of tools doing this for you is quite impressive. Try asking uncle Google for sales enrichment or sales automation tools.

Just know that on Amplemarket, you can do both. You can import data to be enriched (if you’re using LinkedIn, this step is done with one click) and you can trigger sequences to reach out to those attendees.

3. Craft relevant emails at scale

This is your last step in the process. After you have collected all the leads you want to reach out to, prepare a multichannel sequence.

While you chew on that, what is a multichannel email sequence?

A multichannel sequence leverages several points of contact with your prospects. For example, you target an approach that includes multiple communication channels like email, phone number, and LinkedIn.

In practice...

Before you reach out, make sure to connect with the prospects on LinkedIn. This will trigger an invite request and a profile visit notification.

*Note: Send empty connection requests. We have found that LinkedIn requests without a note have higher acceptance rates.

Then, it’s time for your cold email sequence.

The first sentence is crucial to grab the attention of the readers. Leverage a topic that was mentioned in the event and use that to create a message that sounds personal and personalized to the prospect.

Here’s a good example to start your cold email:

 “I noticed that you also attended {{owner}}'s event about {{topic}} and it got me curious to understand more about (...)”

After the initial hook, introduce the problem you are solving and how your product helps the prospect with that.

Make your messaging relevant to each prospect by leveraging the data points you were able to collect about them. For example, you can tailor different value props to different levels of seniority based on their different pain points.

Now that the first touch is great, let’s create a sequence of follow-ups. Aim at 3-4 follow-up emails, each separated between 3-7 days.

Read this article to learn everything you need to know about follow-up emails.

Schedule your emails (or LinkedIn messages) and wait for the replies!

To those who are unresponsive, try giving them a cold call 🧐

PS: You can use this approach before, after, or during the time of the event. Just make sure you adapt your initial message.

4. Maximizing the results of your event lead generation

Done with your sequence and you still have available time/resources to double your results by creating another sequence?

When targeting larger conferences like Dreamforce, SaaStr, Web Summit, you can maximize your sequence results by also targeting non-attendees.

This means you’ll be targeting the coworkers from the companies that attended the conference. Although these coworkers didn’t attend the conference, they should better match your ICP.

This is useful when you want to target decision-makers from different departments or prospects from the same team but at a different seniority level.

Once you’ve collected the leads to target, repeat the same process to create a dedicated sequence for these leads. Leverage personalization and leave a note on how much you’d have liked to connect with them at the conference.

5. Measuring the success of your event lead generation

As with any of your other outbound campaigns, it's crucial to measure the success of your lead generation from virtual events. This helps you refine your approach for future events and understand which events your ICP most resonate with:

• Identify key metrics: Start by comparing the success of your event lead generation efforts between different events. You might compare things like the number of leads generated, the quality of leads (how well they fit your ICP), conversion rates, meeting bookings, etc.
• Analyze engagement and follow-ups: For virtual event lead generation, you need to be able to convert attendees' interest in an event into interest in your solution. Experiment in your outreach and compare email open rates, response rates, and meeting setup rates to figure out what kind of messaging resonates.
• Use your learnings to host your own events: Researching other virtual events might give you your own lead generation event ideas! You could host interactive workshops, webinars, or networking sessions around topics you know your target audience like and create a new flow of inbound leads.
• Create an event calendar: Make sure you've noted all the big recurring events (like Dreamforce, SaaStr etc.) relevant to your industry so you can refine on your lead generation strategies every year!

Wrapping Up…

In this article, we have provided actionable insights on how to perform a tailored sequence for event attendees - at scale!

You'll hardly find a better opportunity to start a new conversation with someone that is in the same mindset as you, meeting new people and exploring new solutions for their challenges.

We hope you’ve found this useful!

We're constantly testing new hypotheses to see what works for outbound sales and regularly share the insights with thousands of sales & marketing leaders.

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