The biggest commercial opportunity most event organisers are ignoring
We all know that events are booming. In simple terms, this means there’s a lot of money to be made for the most commercially astute operators, and this window of opportunity may not be open forever - in some part due to how competition between events is ramping up and is likely to intensify.
Most events now have a range of competitors - direct and indirect - vying for the same attendees, sponsors and exhibitors. And yet, most event businesses are sitting on one of the most significant, untapped revenue opportunities in their portfolio - and don't even know it.
I'm talking about commercial marketing: the strategic, multi-channel discipline of marketing your sponsorship and exhibition proposition to attract, nurture and convert new commercial partners. Over the last three months, MPG has been researching how event businesses approach this, and what we've found is an untapped wealth of opportunity for most event organisers.
The appetite to invest in commercial marketing is certainly there. Senior executives - especially P&L owners, sales leaders and strategic marketing leaders - can clearly see the revenue and overall value a smart investment in commercial marketing could deliver.
But when it comes to actually knowing what commercial marketing is in terms of approach, methodology, resourcing and measurement - that's where knowledge gaps get in the way of action.
A quick note before we go further: this blog isn't about Exprom, which is well-established in most large trade show businesses. We're talking specifically about commercial marketing to bring in high value sponsors who are buying a multi-faceted ‘solution’ rather than an exhibition stand, and who typically have a higher retention and upsell rate year-on-year.
What these sponsors buy usually includes some kind of presence in an exhibition or networking area of the event, usually an enhanced brand presence (e.g. sponsor of App, lanyards or networking lounges), as well as thought-leadership elements such as speaking slots and digitally distributed research reports linked to the event. Sometimes they also sponsor smaller events before, during or after the main event, such as roundtable hosting, a drinks reception or a hosted dinner or webinar.
Everyone knows what good delegate marketing looks like. Commercial marketing is a different story.
Put a delegate marketing timeline in front of any experienced event marketer and they'll nod in recognition. They know the timings, structure, the cadence, the channels. They might not always execute it perfectly - lead times slip, channels get out of sync - but they know what good looks like. There's a shared language and a recognised methodology across the industry.
That shared understanding simply does not exist on the commercial side.
Ask event leaders what sponsor and exhibitor marketing actually involves and you'll find tangible uncertainty - not just about how to do it, but about what to even call it:
What is the right name? Spex marketing? Commercial marketing? Sponsor marketing? Sponsorship marketing?
There's no universal term, no agreed playbook, no common methodology.
What many event businesses currently do is send a handful of "token" sponsor-facing emails alongside their delegate marketing cycle, ticking a (small) box and hoping something comes back. That is not commercial marketing. Our research confirms it produces almost negligible results.
So we know that the vast majority of event organisers are not doing commercial marketing properly - if they're doing it at all. And whether they’re doing it or not, they don’t know where to start to put in place what they need for a robust, scalable and sustainable “revenue and growth driving” commercial marketing strategy.
The opportunity is huge - precisely because so few are doing it or getting it right
Here's what struck me most from our research: the very fact that so few organisations have cracked commercial marketing means that those who do will pull dramatically ahead of their competitors - and they can do it faster than they think.
When we started running commercial marketing programmes for some of the world's leading events almost 9 years ago, we made a firm strategic decision: we would not model our commercial marketing approach on delegate marketing.
Instead, we based the commercial marketing programmes we developed and rolled out on SaaS marketing - the discipline of marketing a solution to build brand awareness & positioning, followed by demand generation, generating leads strategically based on a clear value proposition and ICP. We considered the best way to manage an integrated marketing and sales funnel within an events business, with a clear hand off and qualification of leads as MQLs became SQLs and beyond.
We also built strong nurturing workflows into the process to consistently generate a warm, qualified pipeline of leads. These workflows support the sales team by keeping prospects engaged and moving them through the funnel until they're ready to speak to someone.
And before we ran any campaigns we made sure we could monitor every marketing metric and put in place reporting that would show how joined up sales and marketing KPIs were being achieved - focusing on the number of SQLs generated, conversion rates, length of sales cycle and average order value.
Why doing it inhouse is so hard
Commercial marketing is VERY different to delegate marketing. It requires:
- A different mindset and skillset to what delegate marketers typically possess.
- A different way of strategising, planning and executing campaigns across a range of channels.
- A different cadence of work in days and weeks within an event cycle.
- Comms that run independently of - but in sync with - the delegate marketing cycle.
- And probably most importantly, a different way of engaging and working with sales people - a commercial marketer’s most important stakeholders.
It's not a variation on delegate marketing. It's an entirely different marketing specialism.
Why outsourcing accelerates everything
When building a commercial marketing function, bringing in an expert external partner is often the best approach - for the following reasons:
The sales team engages differently
When MPG is invited to work with an event organiser to build a commercial marketing programme, sales teams respond well and are very supportive of all the work we do - from the get go. A specialist agency representing a new strategic investment signals that their need for new business leads is being taken seriously.
And having an external party involved also removes something that often quietly blocks progress: the accumulated internal friction between sales and marketing. Past campaigns that underdelivered, leads that weren't followed up, strategies that felt disconnected from the reality of selling - these things leave a residue.
An external partner creates the conditions for a genuine fresh start, where both sides can align around a shared commercial goal and progress can be made visibly and fast.
Knowledge gets embedded into your marketing function
The way MPG works means we are constantly building capability inside your organisation - not by running hours-long training sessions, but by working closely with clients’ event marketers. Over time, MPG’s methodology, knowledge, templates, tools and processes build institutional systems and know-how that remains - even after MPG has left the building. After a couple of event cycles, some clients choose to continue working with MPG, and others go it alone from that point - because they can.
You gain access to exactly the right resource to complement your inhouse team
The MPG difference comes down to a combination that's very hard to replicate:
- Deep event industry expertise across delegate, sponsor and exhibitor marketing.
- A proven commercial marketing methodology developed over 8+ years.
- Senior strategists, specialist channel experts and hands-on executors - allocated at the right level depending on what the programme needs at any given time.
- Templates, systems and processes to execute efficiently at scale.
- A team that flexes with your event cycle, so you're never over-resourced or under-supported.
A generalist marketing agency won't understand events well enough and a SaaS marketing specialist won't understand the event sales cycle. Even another event marketing agency is unlikely to have the same level of experience, knowledge and impact MPG can bring.
To find out about MPG’s commercial marketing programmes…
The commercial case is clear, and the ROI speaks for itself
The events where commercial marketing has the highest impact are content-rich, senior-level gatherings where average deal values sit north of £10k - often much higher. At those values, the maths is straightforward:
- Two or three new sponsors in year 1 typically covers the entire cost of the programme.
- …and that's before factoring in lifetime value, renewals and upsells.
- …and before considering the compounding effect of a pipeline that keeps growing.
Meanwhile, without a steady stream of new commercial leads, your sales team will always default to the path of least resistance - chasing renewals and low-hanging fruit. New business gets picked up too late in the event cycle, under pressure and without the warm groundwork that good commercial marketing lays. By the time the push begins, the window for meaningful pipeline building has already narrowed. That pattern costs far more than most businesses realise.
If you want to go deeper on how commercial marketing drives sponsorship revenue growth specifically, read our blog: Grow your sponsorship revenue with the right approach to commercial marketing.
Where the real opportunity lies
If I were running an events business today, commercial marketing would be a strategic priority - not a side project, not a few emails in the campaign schedule, but a properly resourced, strategically led, multi-channel programme with:
- Clear objectives and defined KPIs from the outset.
- Full sales and marketing alignment.
- Personalised, multi-channel campaigns that build your brand and pipeline over time.
- A measurement framework that tracks what's working and enables continuous improvement.
The businesses that get this right now will not just grow their sponsor and exhibitor revenue. They'll create a structural competitive advantage giving them a boost to pull ahead of their competitors.
The gap is real. The opportunity is significant. And the investment required to close it is far smaller than the revenue it can unlock.
Want to see what high-impact commercial event marketing looks like in practice? Get in touch to request a case study from MPG.
