How to Engage 80% of Attendees at Large Industry Events 

A financial platform for content creators — destream — has achieved a goal of drawing attention to the company’s products at one of the biggest events of their industry, TwitchCon. The brand managed to stand out among over 10,000 attendees with simple marketing tactics: prize giveaways, working with influencers and establishing positive communication. So should participating in major industry events be considered a productive marketing move in 2024? Here’s how this financial platform succeeded with it. 

Goal: Promoting new offerings at TwitchCon 

TwitchCon is known as an iconic semi-annual convention organized by live streaming video platform Twitch. It is aimed mostly at streamers and content creators, with many of them personally attending the event, which justifies the choice of influencer marketing to attract a bigger audience to the product. The overall atmosphere of the event is very welcoming, friendly and entertaining, so it was crucial to adjust to it.  

As a financial platform for content creators, destream helps influencers to monetize their content across various media platforms, including Twitch. To make financial matters convenient for creators, the platform supports a variety of methods for transactions. That being said, many streamers and bloggers who regularly get tips from their fans are already familiar with the brand. 

The main marketing goals of destream at TwitchCon was to present two new products, support the creators community, attract potential customers to the booth and be remembered by visitors in a positive way. The products were a longsleeve with embedded NFC technology, which provides fans with an opportunity to tip creators in real life, and a debit card developed by destream for content creators’ financial needs only. 

Strategy: Carnival fun and tech 

First of all, the team decided to keep a standard event booth without any customization, dedicating the most part of the budget to attendees and their entertainment. This resulted in a carnival-like atmosphere at the booth, with a Wheel of Fortune, a popcorn machine with over 600 portions served, Bingo and other amusements.  

The new product, a NFC longsleeve, was a grand prize in a Wheel of Fortune that creators had to spin, with only 50 winners among more than 2300 spins overall. The Wheel of Fortune allowed for establishing communication with attendees, which led to their interest in the product demo. After the prizes were awarded, everyone was invited to take a look at the longsleeve and the principle of its operation — it was shown in real time, confirming the fast speed of transactions. 

destream also worked closely with famous Twitch streamers and influencers — some of them worked at the booth, encouraging attendees to spin the Wheel and entertaining the audience. Among bloggers who participated in the launched activities were Hitch, Ellen Åkesson, Bratiki94. Some of the influencers attended the event together with destream, while others were recruited locally through the company’s media advertising on social networks.  

The destream team actively engaged with influencers on social media, following, liking and commenting on their posts both during the event and after it.

According to destream, the most effective way of finding a right influencer for promotion is to choose the ones that are already familiar with your products, so that there would be a perfect match.  

Besides an excellent entertainment programme, the brand was also focused on their customers’ feedback. The team collected improvement suggestions from influencers for both the financial platform and the longsleeve technology. To maintain relationships within the industry, the company also connected with its partners and neighboring booths at the event. 

Results: At least double the expected  

According to the destream team, the costs of participating in TwitchCon were absolutely worth it and paid off greatly. The outcome was at least two times better than planned, attracting a lot of potential users and clients. Overall, more than a thousand gifts and merch items were given out at TwitchCon. 80% of all guests, including major bloggers and influencers, paid attention to the company’s booth.  

The offline event and destream’s influencer marketing strategy led to successful online promotion results: 40 organic interactions on Instagram, with notable mentions from influencers such as Giuliana Calascibetta, and 40 organic interactions on Twitter, including mentions from prominent accounts like TheStockGuyTV and TwitchDE. In total, the engagement of influencers resulted in over 30,000 viewers watching the booth on live streams while the recorded version received 15 times more views. Apart from this, on social media, destream reached more than 8,500 accounts overall. 

Moreover, the brand’s approach to TwitchCon resulted in significant B2B engagement, with 15 total contacts involving discussions with potential business partners and collaborators, laying the groundwork for future strategic alliances. On the B2C front, the team successfully engaged with over 1500 consumers, providing them with information about destream’s offerings.  

Speaking about the advisability of participating in major events and using influencer marketing for it, destream is sure that it is a great approach to make product announcements for your native target audience. Currently the team is getting ready to shine at TwitchCon San Diego, which is expected on September 20-22, 2024. The company chooses to stick to the same marketing strategy, this time scaling it and bringing it to perfection.