Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to some great healthtech marketing leaders to learn their best practices for making events super successful. In these interviews for the Healthtech Marketing Show, Lea Chatham (Heidi Health), Aaron Bours (Hiro), Amy Hamilton and Pepper Fee (Health Launchpad) shared in detail what their collective eight decades of experience in healthtech marketing have taught them about how to make the presence at shows like ViVE and HIMSS a success in building new relationships and generating sales pipeline.
What follows are actionable best practices to help you thrive with your event marketing programs in 2026. This is broken out into before, during, and after.
Before You Commit: Event Selection & Goal Setting
1. Follow your ICP, not the hype
Don’t let peer pressure or vendor FOMO drive your event choices. Map your calendar to where your ideal customers actually go. For example, if CIOs are your exclusive focus, then ViVE, in partnership with CHIME, may be the best event to attend. One of the marketing leaders tripled down on ViVE and will not have a presence at HIMSS because they felt that this was the best place to engage with CIOs in meaningful conversations, rather than get lost in HIMSS. Others did the opposite as they neede to reach a broader audience.
2. Know what kind of event it is before you sign the contract
Some events are brand and relationship plays. Others are pipeline and prospecting plays. Most are some mix. Be honest about which one you’re signing up for, and set your success metrics accordingly — before you spend a dollar.
This analysis and thoughtful decision-making is increasingly important when there are so many choices from large industry events with tens of thousands of attendees and then small intimate events with a dozen attendees. Some of these events are more geared towards thought leadership, whereas others are really match-making events. Both are great, but you need to figure out what is most important to you.
3. Set specific, measurable goals upfront
Vague goals (“get leads,” “build awareness”) lead to vague results you can’t justify. Define the number: meetings booked, qualified leads generated, pipeline created. For brand-heavy launches, consider running a pre- and post-brand survey to measure awareness lift.
At the end of the day, it’s all about the outcomes. Be clear about what results you’re trying to achieve and build your plan backwards from the outcome.
Pre-Event: The Work That Wins the Show
4. Pre-event outreach is the most important investment you’ll make
As Aaron Bours from Hyro.ai put it:
“Pre is probably the most important part. All sages ae important, but pre is essential.”
Arrive knowing who you’re meeting, where you’re meeting them, and what sessions you can catch them at afterward. Don’t just show up and hope. You can succeed or fail before you’ve even shown up at the event, depending on this preparation.
5. Marry your BDR/SDR motion to your field marketing
Outbound and event marketing should not operate as separate channels. Your BDRs should be warming up target accounts weeks before the show — not blasting the full attendee list, but thoughtfully engaging the right ICPs with personalized outreach. The goal is that when prospects arrive, your name is already familiar.
6. Build your pre-booking machine
Pre-booked meetings are the single biggest driver of ROI positive events. Even without a big booth, a healthy pre-booking list can make a small presence wildly effective. Even if a prospect doesn’t remember that they scheduled a meeting at the show, seeing your brand when they arrive might trigger them to remember it. It certainly makes it easier for you to nudge them when they’re at the event through outreach during the show
7. Brief your booth team at least a month out
Everyone attending should know the theme, the messaging, their specific role, and what the booth looks and feels like — before they land. Assign clear time slots and responsibilities. The booth is a machine, and everyone needs to know their part in it.
8. Build your event templates before the season starts
If you’re doing 10, 20, or 40 events a year, you cannot reinvent the wheel each time. Create templated pre-show outreach sequences, post-show follow-up cadences, and lead segmentation categories. Then customize the language for each event. The structure should be set; only the details should change.
During the Event: Execution Is Everything
9. Replace your lead scanner with something smarter
Badge scanners produce disconnected data that rarely integrates well. Tools like Happily (which layers on top of HubSpot) let your team scan badges, add contextual notes, categorize prospects by interest and pain point, and tie it all back to your CRM in real time. Know your qualified lead count before you leave the show floor each day.
10. Assign someone to work the hallway
Don’t wait for people to walk into your booth. Amy Hamilton’s rule: have someone standing at the threshold — genuinely engaging anyone who walks by with a warm, curious “have you heard of what we do?” It works at small booths and big ones alike.
11. Create reasons for people to linger
The longer someone stays, the better the conversation. Interactive experiences, games, activities, or even a great giveaway that requires them to come back — anything that creates dwell time creates relationship time. Some of the best lead quality comes not from a quick scan, but from a five-minute conversation while someone waits in line.
12. Run a daily debrief
Not every meaningful conversation ends up in a scanner. Meet as a team at the end of each day to capture hallway conversations, dinner discussions, and anything else that didn’t get logged. If a deal is going to close, you want the attribution — and you want to make sure the follow-up happens.
13. Don’t create barriers — physical or otherwise
Tables between your team and attendees signal “transaction,” not “conversation.” Keep the booth open and welcoming. Stand up. Make eye contact. And for open-format booths, consider branded clothing or a signature visual element so attendees always know whom to approach.
Post-Event: Where Revenue Gets Won or Lost
14. Treat every uncontacted lead as a loss, not a gain
As one of the execs said:
“I don’t look at leads as a gain. I look at it as — if we don’t do anything with them, it’s a loss.”
You paid to source every single one of those contacts. A tight follow-up process is not a nice-to-have; it’s what determines whether the event was worth it.
15. Segment your follow-up by how the contact was made
Someone who attended your dinner needs a different message than someone who stopped by the booth, who needs a different message than someone who played your game and had a 30-second chat. Templatize for each segment, then personalize the details for each event.
16. Run your BDR/SDR follow-up cadence for at least a month
The immediate post-show email is just the opening move. Keep the outreach going for 30 days with a structured BDR/SDR sequence. The show follow-up window is longer than most companies treat it.
17. Measure against the goals you set before the event
Close the loop. Compare your pipeline generated, meetings held, and leads acquired against the targets you defined at the start. This is the only way to honestly answer “was it worth it?” — and to make a smarter decision about whether to come back next year.
The Through-Line
Across all of this, one principle keeps surfacing: relationship building is the ROI. In health tech, especially in enterprise sales, the relationships you build at events are what protect you during a slow pilot, what keep you in the budget conversation when cuts come, and what eventually close the deal. Events are not a lead gen channel with a booth attached. They are a relationship infrastructure investment — and the pre, during, and post work is what makes that investment pay off.
In a previous episode of the Healthtech Marketing Show, Adrianna Hosford , who leads marketing for Artera, said that in-person engagement with a prospect improves the chances of closing a deal by 90%. Getting your events program right is critical.
