Why sending your employees to a conference is worth the investment

Dear Boss,

Another conference! I know what you’re thinking:

“What’s that gonna cost me?”

“Who’s going to do my employee’s work while she’s living it up at the conference?”

“Is it really worth it?”

We get it. But the ROI on a conference visit may be bigger than you think.

Happier employees

People who get to go to conferences to represent the company feel valued which contributes to job satisfaction. In fact, research suggests that employees who feel they receive training and professional development opportunities tend to stay longer. Gallup research has discovered that people who have the opportunity to continually develop are twice as likely as those on the other end of the scale to say they will spend their career with their company. According to Go2HR, 40 percent of employees leave their position due to lack of training. Consider the cost of turnover. Urgh!

Learning

Not surprisingly, companies that invest in their employees and in the continuous training of their employees land on Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For list.
At a conference, you get training in a convenient package at one location administered over a few days. Hear from industry leaders; learn about trends; find out about best-practices and new technologies. Employees bring back useful takeaways to the team so everybody gets something out of it. It’s like an employee training BOGO. Collecting actionable tips, statistics and other useful information at conferences to share with your team multiplies the value of one person attending an event. If more people attend, the value keeps multiplying.

An infusion of energy and ideas

Information brought back to the office from a conference often leads to new impulses, a spark of energy, and exciting new ideas for your business. Few things are more beneficial to an office than an employee bringing motivational energy and new ideas from a conference. When a group of people works together for a long time they tend to repeat patterns, which can lead to a dead end. Bringing back new ideas, processes, best practices, and strategies from a conference could help invigorate the office dynamic more than one would think.

Introduce your brand to a new audience

There are a lot of business cards being exchanged at conferences. Your employee is learning new things and acting as a walking billboard for your company at the same time. Even if your company is not presenting at the conference, the attendance at an industry event improves company exposure. Connecting with other professionals and sharing experiences is an excellent way to build relationships. The people at these conferences are usually doing business in your industry and perhaps even in your geographic region. There is often synergy between your business and others that attend the same conference. You help your brand simply by being there.

Networking opportunities

This is one of the most popular reasons people like attending a conference–connecting with people that are professionally immersed in the same things as you are. People understand what you do all day simply based on reading your job title. Seriously, half the time your own mother doesn’t even know what you do to earn a living. (No Mom, I can’t fix your computer, I work in digital marketing.) When employees get to know new people who work in the same industry an extraordinary amount of sharing, learning and collaborating occurs–not to mention the potential business leads that may come home from the conference.

For only $150 for a two-day digital marketing conference, Confluence Conference leaves no question about your conference ROI. Speakers who present at Confluence have spoken at SMX, Mozcon, Domainfest, and Pubcon, but you can see them in Oklahoma City for about 10% of the price.

Register your team for Confluence now. There isn’t a better value around.