Why Your Next Event Needs to Be a Strategic Asset, Not Just a Showpiece
Too many organisations in Aotearoa still see events as line items rather than levers. They’re often treated as celebratory moments or nice-to-haves, a gala dinner here, a golf day there, rather than integrated tools that drive business outcomes. For senior marketing leaders under increasing pressure to demonstrate ROI, this approach is no longer fit for purpose.
It’s time to reposition events as strategic business assets. Not just because they can be, but because they must be, especially when budgets are scrutinised and expectations for measurable impact are high.
Why This Matters
Face-to-face interaction has become a rare and valuable asset.
In a market saturated with AI-generated content, programmatic ads and automated touchpoints, real human interaction is a differentiator.
A study by Bizzabo found that 95% of marketers believe in-person events can have a major impact on achieving business goals, and 73% believe events are the best way to generate qualified leads (Bizzabo, Event Marketing Report 2023).
Yet many businesses still treat events as siloed activities — executed by default rather than by design.
In a New Zealand context, with smaller B2B markets and tighter business communities, the ability to build trust, showcase expertise and create emotional connection in real time has outsized value. Especially when decision-making is personal, and reputations matter.
A strategic event programme can:
Deepen relationships with current customers and high-value prospects
Accelerate sales cycles by building trust and familiarity
Generate unique insights into buyer needs and behaviours
Position your brand as a thought leader within your category
Create a pipeline of valuable content for digital distribution
Senior marketers who embrace this strategic view see events not as an isolated calendar fixture but as integral to their marketing ecosystem aligned with campaigns, customer journeys and commercial targets.
The Role of Event Strategy
Event strategy is not a theme or a timeline. It is the business case behind why the event exists. A robust strategy considers both the commercial objectives and the human drivers that bring people together.
At its core, every effective event strategy should answer three key questions:
What are we trying to achieve?
Are you looking to drive new business? Deepen partner loyalty? Shift perceptions of your brand? Specific objectives should be measurable and tied to organisational priorities from pipeline contribution to brand preference or employee retention.
Who is the audience and what do they care about?
Defining your audience goes beyond demographics. You need to understand their motivations, their pain points, their decision-making context. This informs not only who you invite, but how you design the experience to speak directly to them.
What experience will create the desired outcome for this audience?
This is where creativity and commercial thinking must align. The format, content, speakers, interactivity, environment and follow-up plan must be architected to achieve the goals you set and deliver real value to participants.
Strategic Event Outcomes
Done well, events are not just marketing moments — they are commercial multipliers. According to Forrester Research, companies that integrate events into their marketing mix experience 20-25% faster sales cycles, due to the trust and clarity built through direct engagement.
Customer Growth: Strategic events can shorten the sales cycle. Whether it's a curated leadership breakfast or an immersive demo experience, getting buyers in a room with your experts and clients builds confidence and accelerates deals. Gartner notes that more than 80% of B2B buyers expect a personalised experience, and events are one of the most effective ways to deliver that in a scalable, authentic way.
Market Intelligence: Events allow you to observe, listen and learn. What are your customers responding to? What questions are they asking? What objections or opportunities are emerging in the room?
Brand Differentiation: Hosting high-calibre, insight-driven experiences elevates your brand’s credibility. You’re no longer just promoting your offer, you’re facilitating conversations, bringing value and demonstrating leadership. According to Event Marketer’s EventTrack, 84% of event attendees say they have a more positive opinion about a brand after attending an event, and 70% become regular customers.
Content Strategy: Every event should be a content engine. Capture sessions, interviews, moments and interactions to fuel blogs, video snippets, social posts, and follow-up campaigns that extend the life and reach of the event. Bizzabo also found that 80% of event marketers repurpose event content for other channels, making events a high-yield investment in your content pipeline.
Employee and Stakeholder Engagement: Internal events, if approached strategically, can align teams, drive cultural change and reinforce values in a way that emails and webinars never will.
Measurement and ROI
The days of “we think it went well” are over. In a strategic framework, events must justify their place in the marketing mix.
According to Harvard Business Review, only 23% of CMOs feel confident in measuring ROI on event spend. That’s a huge gap — but also a huge opportunity.
When ROI is defined from the outset and built into every phase of planning, it becomes possible to measure:
Cost per lead or per conversion
Uplift in brand perception
Movement through the sales funnel
Customer lifetime value impact
Employee alignment and cultural change
Content engagement and amplification
What gets measured gets funded. The more you treat events like strategic investments — with clear inputs, outputs, and outcomes — the more credibility and budget you’ll gain for future activations.
Strategy Isn’t About Spending More - It’s About Spending With Purpose
This approach doesn’t require more budget, it requires more clarity. When you design with intent, you focus resources on what moves the needle. You make better decisions, cut what doesn’t serve the goal, and create lasting business value.
Real-World Example: Barbercraft - Strategy First, Trust Follows
A powerful example of event strategy in action is Barbercraft — a national initiative designed to engage barbers across Aotearoa and shift industry perceptions around qualifications.
Initially, formal training was seen as unnecessary or irrelevant by many barbers. Traditional approaches: brochures, seminars, outreach, failed to shift sentiment. So instead, we flipped the model by focussing first on building the community, not selling the qualification.
The strategy was to create a must-attend event that barbers actually wanted to be part of. We designed an experience that felt like it belonged to them: high energy, inclusive, peer-led and culturally resonant. It wasn’t about lecturing them — it was about bringing them together.
By putting the community first and making barbers feel seen and valued, trust was established. Over time, qualifications became something aspirational rather than bureaucratic. The event became a Trojan Horse, initially focussing on the experience but ultimately unlocking long-term behaviour change.
This is what happens when events are deployed as strategic assets, not showpieces. They become instruments of change.
A Final Word
If your event programme is ad hoc, reactive or driven by tradition, now is the time to shift gears. Your events should be working as hard as any other part of your marketing mix. When strategy leads, events become not just moments, they become multipliers.
So before you send the next invite or confirm the venue, ask: Are we just putting on a show, or are we designing a business asset?