Events

Corey HainesCommunityCreated by Corey Haines

Skill
Guidelines
Business and productivity
MIT
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From the author

When the user wants to plan, run, sponsor, speak at, or get pipeline from events — webinars, conferences, trade shows, meetups, dinners, workshops, virtual summits, or user conferences. Also use when the user mentions 'event marketing,' 'field marketing,' 'run a webinar,' 'webinar funnel,' 'show-up rate,' 'should we sponsor,' 'sponsor a conference,' 'trade show booth,' 'booth strategy,' 'event ROI,' 'badge scans,' 'event follow-up,' 'speaking slot,' 'CFP,' 'conference talk,' 'host a dinner,' 'user conference,' or 'virtual summit.' Covers all four roles: hosting, sponsoring/exhibiting, speaking, and attending. For product launch moments, see launch. For the partnership side of joint webinars, see co-marketing. For ongoing community programs, see community-marketing. For podcast appearances, see public-relations. For the email sequences themselves, see emails.

— the description by Corey Haines

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

This skill provides a strategic approach to event marketing, moving beyond simple attendance to focus on measurable business outcomes. It covers the full lifecycle of event participation, including hosting, sponsoring, speaking, and attending. The methodology emphasizes that the event itself is only a small part of the process, with the majority of value created in the preparation and follow-up phases. It offers guidance on portfolio selection, audience targeting, and content creation to ensure events serve as high-leverage assets for pipeline generation and brand authority.

What it does

Defines roles for hosting, sponsoring, speaking, and attending events.
Provides a framework for selecting high-ROI events based on portfolio strategy.
Outlines the 20/80 rule for event success, prioritizing pre-event planning and post-event follow-up.
Offers specific tactics for booking meetings and managing attendee engagement.
Guides the capture of durable content assets from event sessions.
Establishes metrics for evaluating event success beyond vanity numbers.

When to use it

When planning a webinar, trade show, conference, or executive dinner.
When evaluating whether to sponsor or exhibit at an industry event.
When preparing to speak at a conference to maximize authority and lead generation.
When trying to improve the ROI and follow-up process of existing event programs.
When deciding between in-person and digital event formats for specific ICP segments.

Advantages

Focuses on measurable pipeline outcomes rather than vanity metrics.
Provides a structured approach to event selection to avoid wasted budget.
Ensures consistent follow-up discipline to prevent lead decay.
Turns ephemeral event moments into durable content assets.
Helps align event strategy with broader business goals and ICP needs.

Usage examples

“We are considering sponsoring a major industry conference. How should we evaluate if it is worth the investment?”: The agent will guide you through the sponsorship ROI framework, helping you assess the event's ecosystem, your specific goals (pipeline vs. brand), and the necessary pre-event preparation to ensure a positive return.
“I need to plan a series of executive dinners for our top 20 accounts. What is the best way to structure this?”: The agent will provide a plan for hosting small, curated gatherings, focusing on the 'no-pitch' format, guest selection, and the follow-up process required to turn these interactions into qualified pipeline.
“How can I make sure our webinar series actually generates leads instead of just views?”: The agent will help you refine your webinar funnel, focusing on topic selection that targets your ICP, pre-event promotion, and a structured follow-up sequence to convert attendees.
“We are speaking at a conference next month. How do I make sure the talk helps our sales team?”: The agent will assist in designing a talk that addresses audience pain points while positioning your company as the solution, ensuring the recording serves as a long-term asset for sales enablement.

Install

Download the skill as a ZIP:
https://autogineer.com/agent-skills/coreyhaines31/events/download
Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:
```
mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip events.zip -d .agents/skills
```

Documentation by Corey Haines

Event Marketing

You are an expert in event-driven marketing — using webinars, conferences, dinners, and talks to create pipeline, authority, and compounding content. Your job is to make events produce measurable business outcomes, not just attendance.

Before Starting

Check for product marketing context first: If .agents/product-marketing.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing.md, or the legacy product-marketing-context.md filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

Then establish, in one batch:

Which role? Hosting your own event, sponsoring/exhibiting at someone else's, speaking, or attending?
What outcome? Pipeline/meetings, authority/brand, community, or content production? (Pick a primary — events that try to do everything measure nothing.)
Who must be in the room? The ICP segment, and roughly how many of them exist at this event.
Budget and team — money, and who can actually work the event.

Pick Your Role

You are…	Core motion	Depth
Hosting	Own the audience end to end — webinar, workshop, dinner, meetup, summit, user conference	This file + webinar-funnel.md for the flagship format
Sponsoring / exhibiting	Buy access to someone else's audience — evaluate, negotiate, work the floor, follow up	sponsorship-roi.md
Speaking	Trade expertise for stage time — get booked, design the talk, compound the recording	speaking.md
Attending	No booth, no stage — engineer meetings anyway	Section below

Mixed roles are normal (sponsor + speak, attend + host a dinner). Plan each role's motion separately; they share the follow-up system.

Which Events to Invest In (Portfolio First)

Before roles and tactics: events are the most expensive, riskiest, hardest-to-measure channel — the leverage is in selection, not execution. Never write off "events" from one bad conference; each event is its own ecosystem (judging all events on one conference is like judging all paid media on a single Google Ads test). Full framework, the three event types, and cost benchmarks in event-portfolio-strategy.md.

Is in-person even necessary? It earns its cost mainly for high-trust, high-ACV motions: enterprise/multi-stakeholder deals, regulated buyers (health/finance/gov), heavy customization, conservative industries, and 6+ month cycles. If your ICP isn't there, spend on digital first.
The 80/20 of selection. A handful of events generate most event pipeline. Find them, double down (speaking slots, side events, more people, better placement), and cut the tail.
Bigger isn't better. Mega-conferences mean more noise, higher cost, and audience dilution (students, press, vendors, tourists). Niche/regional events (50–200 attendees) often deliver more qualified leads per dollar.
Three types, three risk profiles: Owned (max control/max risk — roadshows, summits, user conferences), Trade shows (someone else's arena — 120 days of prep beats the 4 days on the floor), Community (compound interest — small regular gatherings that spawn more, measured by the "Saturday Test").

The Universal Arc: 20% Event, 80% Before-and-After

The event itself is the smallest part of event marketing. Every format follows the same arc, and most failures are arc failures, not event failures:

Before (where pipeline is actually made)

Build the target list: who's attending that matches your ICP? (Attendee lists, speaker lists, "who's going" posts, past-year attendees.)
Book meetings before you arrive. A meeting booked two weeks out is worth ten hopeful hallway collisions. Outreach angle: specific, low-friction, time-boxed ("15 min at the coffee bar Tuesday").
Announce your presence where your audience already is (email list, social, communities) with a reason to find you — not "we'll be at booth 402" but what they get.

During

Optimize for qualified conversations, not raw contacts. One real conversation with an ICP buyer beats fifty badge scans.
Capture context, not just contact: after each conversation, record what they said, what they care about, and the agreed next step. The follow-up writes itself from this; without it, follow-up is generic and dies.
Create content while there (see Content Arc below) — the event is a recording studio you already paid for.

After (where pipeline is won or lost)

The 24–48 hour window. Follow up while the conversation is still warm, referencing what was actually discussed. Every day of delay roughly halves response rates (directional, not a law — but the decay is real and fast).
Tier the follow-up: hot conversations get a personal note + concrete next step; warm get a relevant asset tied to their stated problem; scans-with-no-conversation get one light touch or nothing — don't burn your domain on people who don't remember you.
Route to systems: CRM with event source tagging (→ revops), nurture for the not-nows (→ emails).

Hosting: Choose the Format for the Job

Format	Best for	Effort	Notes
Webinar	Lead gen + education at scale	Low-mid	The flagship repeatable format — full funnel in webinar-funnel.md
Workshop	Product-qualified leads, activation	Mid	Hands-on beats presentation for conversion; smaller and deeper than a webinar
Dinner / small gathering	Exec relationships, ABM accounts	Mid	8–14 seats, no pitch, curated guest mix — the highest meetings-per-dollar format in B2B
Meetup series	Local community, recurring presence	Mid	Consistency beats production value; hand hosting duties to community members over time (→ community-marketing)
Virtual summit	List building via partner audiences	High	Multi-speaker = built-in distribution; every speaker promotes (→ co-marketing for the partner mechanics)
User conference	Retention, expansion, category authority	Very high	Don't attempt before you have a community that would attend without being begged

Two hosting rules that outrank format choice:

The topic is the targeting. "State of [category] 2026" attracts your ICP; "All about [your product]" attracts existing customers only. Pick topics your buyer would attend even if they'd never buy.
Recurring beats one-off. A monthly webinar or quarterly dinner compounds — audiences, promotion muscle, and content libraries build. A single big event evaporates.

Attending (No Booth, No Stage)

The zero-budget motion, and often the best ROI in the building:

Target list first — 15–30 named people you want to meet, built from the attendee/speaker list and social chatter.
Pre-book — outreach 1–3 weeks ahead; the ask is 15 minutes, anchored to a specific time and place.
The side-event play — host a dinner or breakfast adjacent to the conference for 8–12 target accounts. You get host status without sponsor pricing; often out-generates a booth at a tenth of the cost (see sponsorship-roi.md).
Work sessions strategically — go where your targets are speaking, ask a real question, follow up on it.
Same 24–48h follow-up discipline as every other role.

The Content Arc: Every Event Is a Content Engine

Events produce your highest-proof content — capture it deliberately:

Record everything you're allowed to record. Talks, webinars, panels. The recording is the durable asset; the live audience is just its first viewer.
Transcripts compound in AI answers. Published recordings and show notes get crawled and cited by AI assistants — the same logic as podcast guesting (→ public-relations podcast prep) and the YouTube text layer (→ ai-seo). Say the quotable lines cleanly: your company name next to your category, numbers out loud.
Slice the recording: clips (→ video), a recap post per session (→ content-strategy), pull-quotes for social (→ social), proof points for sales (→ sales-enablement).
Photograph/collect social proof: testimonials captured at the event are the most natural you'll ever get.

Measurement: Pipeline, Not Applause

Metric tier	Examples	Verdict
Vanity	Registrations, badge scans, foot traffic, impressions	Track, never optimize for, never report as success
Real	Qualified conversations, meetings booked, opportunities created, pipeline influenced	The actual scoreboard
Decisive	Cost per qualified meeting, cost per opportunity, closed-won influenced	What decides whether you do it again

Compare cost-per-qualified-meeting against your other channels (ads, outbound) — that's the go/no-go math, worked through in sponsorship-roi.md.
Events are multi-touch by nature: use source tagging + self-reported attribution ("heard us at X") and influence windows, and never claim last-click credit for a deal the event merely touched (→ attribution).
Judge a recurring event program on a 2–3 event trend, not one instance — the first run of anything underperforms its steady state.

Common Mistakes

Sponsoring for "brand awareness" with no conversation target. If nobody owns a meetings number, the booth is décor.
The follow-up gap. Leads captured, then first touch two weeks later from a generic sequence. The event was fine; the follow-up killed it.
Optimizing show-up rate after picking a topic nobody wants. Reminder cadence can't save weak demand — fix topic and promise first.
One-off thinking. Budget for the third instance before running the first.
Doing the event, skipping the recording. Full production effort, zero durable assets.
Counting badge scans as leads. A scan is a person who walked slowly. Qualify before it enters the pipeline.
Writing off "events" after one bad conference. Each event is its own ecosystem — judge them individually, not as a single channel.
Chasing the biggest conferences. Size correlates with noise and audience dilution, not ROI — niche and regional events often win on cost-per-qualified-meeting.

launch — the event is a launch moment (announcement, Product Hunt, go-live)
co-marketing — joint webinars and partner summits: partnership mechanics live there, event execution here
community-marketing — ongoing community programs; events can seed or serve one
public-relations — podcast guesting and press at events
lead-magnets — gated replays and event content as magnets
emails / sms — the reminder and follow-up sequences themselves
cold-email — pre-event meeting-booking outreach
revops — routing, scoring, and source-tagging event leads
attribution — measuring multi-touch event influence honestly

Files

ATTRIBUTION.mdAdded by AutoGineer873 B
LICENSELicence file added by AutoGineer1.0 KiB
SKILL.md11.9 KiB
evals/evals.json10.9 KiB
references/event-portfolio-strategy.md7.8 KiB
references/speaking.md5.2 KiB
references/sponsorship-roi.md6.1 KiB
references/webinar-funnel.md8.0 KiB

evals/evals.json

{
  "skill_name": "events",
  "evals": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "prompt": "We're a B2B SaaS with a $30k opportunity to sponsor our industry's biggest annual conference (5,000 attendees). Marketing wants to do it for brand awareness. Should we?",
      "expected_output": "Should load references/sponsorship-roi.md and run the evaluation before answering. Pushes back on 'brand awareness' as the goal without a conversation/meetings target and an owner. Asks for or estimates audience-ICP overlap in absolute numbers (how many of the 5,000 are actual buyers), works the meetings math backwards to cost per qualified meeting (sponsorship + travel + staff), and compares against what a meeting costs from their other channels (the counterfactual check). Should surface the side-event alternative (curated dinner adjacent to the conference at a fraction of the cost) and the negotiation levers if they do sponsor (speaking slot over bigger booth, side-event rights, realistic attendee-data terms). Verdict framed as conditional on the overlap math, not a yes/no from vibes.",
      "assertions": [
        "Does not accept 'brand awareness' as sufficient justification; requires a qualified-conversations or meetings target with an owner",
        "Computes or requests the inputs for cost per qualified meeting and compares against alternative channels",
        "Asks about audience-ICP overlap in absolute numbers rather than accepting total attendance",
        "Mentions the side-event (curated dinner/breakfast) play as an alternative or complement",
        "If sponsoring, recommends negotiating for a speaking slot and/or side-event rights over booth size"
      ],
      "files": []
    },
    {
      "id": 2,
      "prompt": "Plan our first webinar. We sell an expense-management tool for startup CFOs and want it to generate demo requests.",
      "expected_output": "Should load references/webinar-funnel.md and work the four stages in order, starting with topic & offer: a problem-aware topic for startup CFOs (not a product demo), title as the ad, and the demo request decided as the single offer before content is written. Registration: landing page structure with outcome bullets, short form, replay registration. Show-up system: calendar add at registration, reminder cadence ending with a T-5-minute join link, close the registration-to-event gap, pre-engagement question. Live structure: the open that names the pitch upfront, 3 teachable points with proof, the scripted one-minute transition where the product enters as the implementation of the content, one offer, seeded Q&A. Post: behavior-segmented follow-up (engaged / left early / no-show / replay), replay strategy choice, recycling the recording into content. Metrics: reg -> show -> hold -> convert funnel with the diagnostic mapping (which stage failing means which fix), benchmarks presented as directional.",
      "assertions": [
        "Starts with topic and offer selection (problem-aware topic, one offer decided upfront), not logistics",
        "Includes a show-up system: calendar add, escalating reminders including a T-5-minute join link, and gap management",
        "Structures the live arc with an upfront-named pitch, scripted transition, and single offer",
        "Segments post-webinar follow-up by behavior including a no-show replay sequence",
        "Presents benchmark numbers as directional ranges, not targets"
      ],
      "files": []
    },
    {
      "id": 3,
      "prompt": "I got accepted to speak at SaaStr next quarter — 25-minute slot. Help me make the most of it.",
      "expected_output": "Should load references/speaking.md and cover all three jobs. Talk design: outline first (one named audience member, a Monday takeaway they can act on, blocks each with point + proof), then storyboard the emotional beats (5-8 beats for the length, each with energy/feel/hit; the journey must earn the takeaway; one contrarian take stands out on consensus stages). Recording as the real audience: confirm recording rights before/when accepting, speak the key numbers and company-next-to-category aloud rather than leaving them on slides, put the quotable line on a peak beat (transcripts get cited by AI assistants). Around the talk: pre-event promotion and speaker-to-speaker networking, a single low-friction closing pointer/asset, publishing the recording + written version after, following up with question-askers within 24-48h, and rolling the talk forward across the season.",
      "assertions": [
        "Separates outline (audience, Monday takeaway, blocks with proof) from emotional storyboarding (beats with energy/feel/hit)",
        "Treats the recording as the durable asset: confirm rights, speak key numbers and positioning aloud, quotable line on a peak beat",
        "Connects the transcript to AI-citation compounding",
        "Includes post-talk motions: publish recording and written version, follow up with question-askers in the 24-48h window",
        "Recommends speaker-to-speaker networking and a single clear closing pointer"
      ],
      "files": []
    },
    {
      "id": 4,
      "prompt": "A partner wants to do a joint webinar with us — they'd bring their list, we'd bring ours. How do we structure the partnership and who gets the leads?",
      "expected_output": "Should recognize the boundary: partnership mechanics (partner selection, value exchange, list/lead sharing terms, co-promotion commitments) belong to the co-marketing skill, while the webinar execution (funnel, show-up system, live structure, follow-up) belongs here. Should hand the partnership-structure question to co-marketing rather than improvising deal terms, note the consent requirement for sharing registrant data between parties (registrants must explicitly opt in to both), and offer the events-side execution: co-hosted format, both speakers promote with pre-written assets, and each party follows up with its own consented segment.",
      "assertions": [
        "Routes partnership structure and lead-sharing terms to co-marketing rather than answering them as event logistics",
        "Flags explicit registrant consent as required for sharing registration data between both parties",
        "Retains and offers the webinar-execution layer (funnel, promotion by both speakers, follow-up) from this skill",
        "Does not invent specific legal or contractual terms"
      ],
      "files": []
    },
    {
      "id": 5,
      "prompt": "We just got back from a trade show with 412 badge scans. Marketing is calling it a huge success and wants to load them all into our sales cadence tomorrow. Thoughts?",
      "expected_output": "Should push back on both claims using the measurement tiers and follow-up discipline. Badge scans are vanity-tier activity, not leads or success — success is qualified conversations, meetings, and pipeline. Dumping all 412 scans into a sales cadence burns domain reputation and brand on people who do not remember the interaction; instead, tier the list: hot (real conversation + agreed next step) gets personal same/next-day follow-up referencing the conversation, warm (conversation, no commitment) gets a personal note plus a relevant asset, scan-only gets one light touch or nothing. The 24-48 hour window applies to the hot/warm tiers, follow-up should be written or reviewed by whoever had the conversations, and the event should be judged on cost per qualified meeting and pipeline influenced, with source tagging and an influence window - not scan count.",
      "assertions": [
        "Rejects badge-scan count as a success metric, distinguishing vanity from real and decisive metrics",
        "Advises against loading all scans into a sales cadence, citing domain/brand risk and no-context outreach",
        "Provides the tiered follow-up model (hot/warm/scan-only) with the 24-48h window for the top tiers",
        "Recommends measuring the show on cost per qualified meeting and pipeline influenced with source tagging"
      ],
      "files": []
    },
    {
      "id": 6,
      "prompt": "We want to announce our new product at our own launch event. Walk me through everything.",
      "expected_output": "Should recognize the launch/events boundary: the announcement strategy itself (positioning the release, launch channels, Product Hunt, press timing, go-live QA) belongs to the launch skill, while the event as a vehicle (format choice, invite/registration mechanics, show-up system, recording and content capture, post-event follow-up) belongs here. Should offer the events-side plan and explicitly point the announcement/GTM layer to launch rather than duplicating it, and may note the content-arc opportunity (the launch event recording becomes demo assets, clips, and citable content) and press angle (public-relations).",
      "assertions": [
        "Identifies that announcement/launch strategy routes to the launch skill while event execution stays here",
        "Provides event-side substance: format, registration/show-up mechanics, recording capture, follow-up",
        "Does not duplicate launch-channel strategy (Product Hunt, press embargo timing) inside the event plan",
        "Mentions capturing the recording for downstream content"
      ],
      "files": []
    },
    {
      "id": 7,
      "prompt": "We're a B2B SaaS with $80k ACV enterprise deals. Should we even do events, and if so which ones? There's a huge 10,000-person industry conference coming up and everyone says we have to be there.",
      "expected_output": "Should load references/event-portfolio-strategy.md and reason at the portfolio level before tactics. Should confirm in-person is warranted here (enterprise, high-ACV, multi-stakeholder trust-building is exactly where events earn their cost). Should apply the 80/20 of event selection (a few events drive most pipeline — find and concentrate on those). Should push back on the assumption that the 10,000-person conference is a must: bigger is often inverse to ROI because of noise and audience dilution (students, press, vendors, tourists), so effective cost-per-qualified-lead balloons; niche/regional events (50-200) or a curated side event (private dinner, coffee meetups) may out-produce a big booth at a fraction of the cost. Should frame the three event types (owned/trade-show/community) and tie the decision to economics — a significant show needs ~5-10 solid opportunities to justify a team — comparing cost-per-qualified-meeting against other channels (sponsorship-roi.md).",
      "assertions": [
        "Confirms in-person events fit this ICP (enterprise, high-ACV, multi-stakeholder / complex deals)",
        "Applies the 80/20 event-selection principle — concentrate on the few highest-yield events rather than attending broadly",
        "Challenges the 'must attend the 10,000-person conference' assumption: bigger correlates with noise and audience dilution, not ROI; suggests niche/regional or a curated side event",
        "Grounds the decision in economics (needs ~5-10 solid opportunities to justify a team, or cost-per-qualified-meeting vs other channels)"
      ],
      "files": []
    }
  ]
}

Requirements and compatibility

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Security

No issues found by our static scan· No issues found

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Attribution and licence

Created by

Corey Haines

Publisher

Corey Haines (Community)

Source

coreyhaines31/marketingskills · skills/events · commit 96798cf

Licence

MIT License (redistribution allowed)

LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE)
ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)

Synced

2026-11-09

AutoGineer is not affiliated with or endorsed by Corey Haines or Corey Haines.

Download ZIP

The ZIP holds the skill’s files, its licence files and an ATTRIBUTION.md. Download events.zip