How To Run a Great SaaS Customer Conference

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Imagine taking the stage for the opening keynote of your own customer conference.

Hundreds (or even thousands) of your users in front of you.

Enjoying that super cool inflection point where you can literally see the community you’ve built right in front of your eyes…

And at the same time, unlock a hidden series of growth levers that your competitors (who shied away from the whole conference thing) will never have a chance to pull.

Pretty cool, right?

Here’s a short list of what a successful conference can do for your growth:  

— Higher engagement, deeper commitments, and raving fandom.

— Build and solidify community amongst your users (driving retention/slashing churn)

— Bump up your trial-to-paid conversions (through amazing case studies that close the deal)

Despite the crazy upside, most founders will never pull the trigger.

The time… the cost… the energy… all seem way too much.

But did you know that it’s possible for your event to actually turn a profit?

In this week’s video, I draw from conversations I’ve had with companies like Leadpages and Bucket.io to give you the 5 steps for running an amazing (and profitable) customer conference.

At a high level, here are the steps:

1. Upsell Tickets (Leadpages nailed this)
2. Customers Present (and you get the case studies)
3. Record all videos (and add’em to your nurture sequence — or sell them)
4. Present Awards (and show your users what’s possible)
5. Sell Sponsorships (so you can turn a profit and create future partners)

Pay special attention to that fourth step.

It’s one of those things that may seem a bit frivolous on the surface…

… but it’s actually a super ninja and highly sophisticated marketing strategy when you dig a little deeper.

If you’ve seen things like Clickfunnels’ “2 Comma Club”… that’s step #4 in action.

Running a customer conference may not currently be at the top of your 2018 goals list (or it might)…

… but I’d love it if you could give this video a quick watch and then drop me a comment letting me know a) if you can see yourself planning a conference and b) if not, what’s still stopping you?

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

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