From presence to performance: the event strategy that helped us climb up to Series A.

More than 60 meetings and 20 opportunities in a single event. This is how we turn our presence at events into tangible growth.

A series A and many lessons learned.

2025 has been a pivotal year for Shakers. We closed a €14 million financing round to scale our freelance platform with AI, and we did it thanks to a set of strategic levers that have made the difference: a strong culture, a real alignment between marketing and sales, an obsession for measuring well... and, among them, one that is often underestimated: the events strategy.

Far from seeing events as "nice branding" or as an expense that is difficult to justify, at Shakers, we turned them into a real growth channel. And we did it with focus, structure and clear objectives.

In addition, along the way, we received awards that confirmed that we were going in the right direction, such as the award for the most scalable startup and the most outstanding startup in the Future of Work vertical at South Summit.

That's why we are writing this article: not to tell a little story, but to share with other startups, especially those that have just closed a round, how we think, prepare and activate our event strategy to inspire you (we could have done with reading this a couple of years ago).

If you are designing your roadmap for Q3, this is of interest to you.

A strategy designed for each segment: small business, mid-market and enterprise.

Not all events are for everyone.

At Shakers, we start from a clear framework: every event we attend must make sense for one of our three key segments: small business, mid-market and enterprise and for the different buyer persona profiles we want to reach.

Group 483

Thanks to this segmentation, we manage to have conversations that matter, activating the right team with the right people at the right time.

1. We go to events with (very) clear objectives.

At Shakers, we have a basic rule: you don't go to an event to see what happens, you go to execute a strategy.

Every time we decide to attend an event, we do it with an almost surgical approach: we define what we want to achieve, what kind of accounts we want to talk to, how many meetings we need to schedule to justify the effort, and how we are going to measure the real impact beyond "good feelings".

Talent Day

Example 1

In 2024, we attended Talent Day with a focus on enterprise profiles in the HR world. We activated 4 accounts from the enterprise team and worked on a database of 200 relevant contacts.

In addition, we designed a matchmaking dynamic to facilitate one-to-one meetings with decision-makers in the sector, which allowed us to increase the quality of the interactions and reduce the post-event commercial cycle.

191

impacted contacts

closed meetings after the event

+45

qualified conversations

4YFN

Example 2

We activated a team of 4 SDRs to attend 4YFN with a clear goal: to turn it into a pipeline-generating event.

It was a turning point: we understood that when an event is prepared as a full commercial campaign, it can compete with any recruitment channel.

The team worked for weeks to build a solid agenda and arrived at the event with a segmented, prioritized and nurtured lead base before even landing at the venue:

meetings

business opportunities

Talent day team

We always have a clear roadmap

For us, an event does not start the day accreditation is opened, everything starts weeks before with a clear roadmap:

List with target companies/leads and prioritization of accounts.
Defined content strategy.
Clear success metrics: number of meetings, % of conversion...
Outreach messages worked and tested.
Coordinated actions between MK and sales
Target for each key profile

2. Preparation is EVERYTHING

An event starts weeks before the first coffee at the booth.

At Shakers, we know that the difference between "being" and "winning" an event is in the previous preparation. That's why we work with a planning framework of at least three weeks, where marketing, sales and operations are aligned with a common goal: to maximize the commercial impact of the event.

Week -3 to -1: synchronization and team activation.

From Marketing:

We generate hype: we announce our participation with teaser content on LinkedIn, newsletters, short videos of the team, and even games or dynamics that invite contact before the event.
Activate the whole team: we prepare a social selling kit with post ideas, copies, message templates and even creatives. We make sure that all profiles are aligned and active in networks.
We design support materials: from visual presentations to interactive flyers or customized assets for each type of buyer persona.

Team Member Card

From Sales:

We segment and prioritize accounts: we build a database from confirmed attendees or insights from the event. We group accounts by priority level and profile.
We launch personalized outreach campaigns: via LinkedIn, email or WhatsApp, we activate contact sequences focused on closing previous meetings.
We coordinate agendas: each SDR or AE attends with an optimized agenda according to their target account profile.

sales team ejemplo

Details that make the difference:

Do you have an event lover in your team? Identify him/her and make him/her your right hand:

Maybe you have that person on your team who is passionate about the world of events and always brings new opportunities to the table to attend. A person who enjoys these events and makes the most of them.

In our case,Nico de Luis,COO of Shakers, has helped us the most in makingevents a real job for the marketing and sales team.

Nico de luis event lover

Create a collaborative editorial calendar with the attending team: so everyone can publish aligned content before, during and after the event.

We've gone from going to events to "see what happens" to turning them into real, orchestrated marketing and sales operations. And the results show: more meetings, better leads, more qualified conversations and a much stronger experience for those who interact with Shakers.

3. Set up a good attribution system

An unmeasurable event is just a pretty picture on LInkedin.

At Shakers, we are obsessed with measuring the real impact of everything we do, and events are no exception. If we want them to be part of our growth playbook, we need to know clearly what worked, what didn't, and what we can optimize for the next one.

Attribution: where do the opportunities really come from?

Each lead generated at an event is recorded with its specific origin in our CRM (HubSpot). This way we can:

Distinguish between leads generated from previous meetings, spontaneous contacts at the event or subsequent interactions.
Analyze which part of the strategy (marketing, SDRs, on-site networking) had the greatest impact.
Compare cost per qualified lead (CPL) between different events, and with other channels such as paid or inbound.

How we set up our attribution system:

We generated a common form for the entire team. A tool that allows them to generate contacts and conversations with agility.
In this form we included hidden fields that assigned specific attribution values:
- UTM_campaign: we modify it according to the event at hand.
- UTM_medium + source channel: common to all "events".

slide 4-1-1

Thus:

We centralize the information.
We generate detailed reports.
We align and improve lead tracking.
We identify which tactics work best for us.

Internal feedback: what you can't see in numbers.

In addition to quantitative analysis, we implement an internal post-event feedback system that gives us a layer of qualitative learning. All attending profiles (sales, marketing, SDRs, product...) answer a short form where we evaluate different points.

Then, we share it with the team involved in the event to prepare for the future and keep improving.

Group 484

Measuring allows us to prioritize what really works, justify investments with data, and refine the model more and more. Because yes, events can be a great lever for growth, but only if you know what to measure.

4. Add value before, during and after the event.

Before the event

We prepare our entire sales team to work the prospects they were interested in before the event:

We research attendees, companies participating in presentations and activities, and followers of the previous event.
Each one makes a selection of prospects they are interested in and connects with them prior to the event with the objective of closing a slot to meet during the event.
We also facilitate the task of generating meetings with Hubspot's active meeting booking pages (similar to Calendly) that allow you to view available slots.

In short, the key of keys, bring your agenda closed.

50% of the meetings we scheduled never took place

At the last event we attended, we managed to get the team to arrive with more than 60 meetings scheduled. You have to leave room for improvisation and understand that in the day-to-day running of the event many issues may arise, it is normal for meetings to fall through. Be flexible, the key to success is to be constant.

During the event

Although it isimportant to go with closed meetings in advance, do active networking, register contact, move around the event and not just stay static at the booth isimportant,it is even more important to want to provide value and be provided with it.

Go with an open mind ready toCONNECT, and not so much to sell.

Listen, learn, identify opportunities, enjoy the conversations, that is the basis to establish fruitful relationships in the long term.

In addition, the entire sales team should befamiliar with themarketing team's active dynamics (very focused on attracting people to the booth and generating curiosity about the brand).

Examples of dynamics that have worked for us during events:

Examples of dynamics that have worked for us during events

Games with prizes

Bullseye shooting, a who's who related to the brand, a pool...

See content

Interviews to top profiles

Content that is generated and edited can help participants strengthen their personal brand and position themselves as leaders in their industry, and for us it opens doors for strategic relationships.

Here is an example

Team video blog during the event

Motivate the team to participate and humanize the brand.

View video blog

After the event

Your team has to be aware that most of their efforts and lead generation will come in the after event, in the good work and follow up of all those conversations generated.

The key at this point is tokeep providing value:

For colder leads, try to keep the flame alive:
- Provide value in a less direct way with summaries of notable keynotes you attended that were of interest to both of you, showing that you value their time and care about their learning and development.
- You can offer them quality content generated by marketing: lead magnets, educational videos, webinars...

For hotter leads, guide them in next steps to try your product or solution:
- Be clear about the channel through which they prefer to continue the conversation and make it easy: offer them a demo, short success stories or resources that can give them more information, solve doubts and guide them in next steps.
- Ensure that communication is fluid and continuous. Give quick answers to their questions and guide them so they can feel the benefits of your product in their own skin.

5. Analyze results, draw conclusions, apply improvements.

You need to analyze the results, not only one week after the event, but also months later to be able to see it with sufficient perspective.

Which points are important for you to analyze:

It's no secret to anyone, it's obvious, having visibility on Return on Investment (ROI) is a critical metric.
Understand the quality of the leads you generated, were they decision makers, have they advanced conversations or turned into opportunities?
Evaluate the effectiveness of your active strategies to understand the effectiveness of scheduled meetings, quality of event interactions, impact of follow-up campaigns?
Collect and give feedback to your team, their feelings and personal experience will give you valuable information about what worked and what didn't work.
And with all these insights obtainedOPTIMIZE your strategy. Repeat what has worked, discard what has not, and improve what you have left halfway.