External facing event tracker can be found at https://about.gitlab.com/events/
Suggesting an Event
To determine who would handle the event, please refer to our events decision tree. If it is not clear who should own an event based on the decision tree, please email events@gitlab.com.
Please only request event support/sponsorship if your proposed event fits the following criteria: The event will further business aims of GitLab. The event has an audience of 250+ people (the exception being meet-ups (which are run by our community team) or is part of an Account Based Marketing activity. The event is a more than a month away.
If your event fits the criteria above and you would like support from marketing, create an issue in the appropriate marketing project.
Be sure you review the issue template and provide all necessary information that is asked of you in the issue.
How We Evaluate and Build Potential Events
All GitLab events must check at least drive two or more of the aims of our events below to be considered.
Brand awareness- we want to be a household name by 2020!
Build community
Gain contributors
Thought leadership
Help with hiring
Gather new relevant leads/ drive ROI
Educate possible buyers or users on our product or features
Marketplace positioning
Partnerships/ Alliances
Questions we ask ourselves when assessing an event:
How and where will this position us as a brand?
Does this event drive business goals forward in the next quarter? Year?
Is the event important for the industry, thought leadership, or brand visibility? We give preference to events that influence trends and attract leaders and decision makers. We also prioritize events organized by our strategic partners.
Will there be a GitLab speaker? We do not require a speaker slot in return for sponsorship but we do prioritize events where the audience will be hearing about GitLab - either from a GitLab team-member or a member of the wider GitLab community.
What type of people will be attending the event? We prefer events attended by diverse groups of decision makers with an interest in DevOps, DevSecOps, Cloud Native, Kubernetes, Serverless, Multi-cloud, CI/CD, Open Source, and other related topics.
Will we be able to interact with attendees? We stress events that provide opportunities for meetings, workshops, booth or stands to help people find us, and other interaction with attendees.
Where will the event be held? We aim to have a presence at events around the globe with a particular focus on areas with large GitLab communities and large populations of support.
What is the size of the opportunity for the event? We prioritize events based their potential reach (audience size, the number of interactions we have with attendees).
What story do we have to tell here and how does the event fit into our overall company strategy, goals, and product direction?
Do we have the bandwidth and resources to make this activity a success? Do we have the cycles, funds, collateral and runway to invest fully and make this as successful as possible? Event must be weighed against other current activity in region and department.
Suggested events will be subject to a valuation calculation- will it meet or exceed objectives listed above?
For Corporate Marketing - Event Scorecard
Each question above is graded on a scale of 0-2. We then tally the scores and assign the event to a sponsorship tier.
Events scoring below 8 are not eligible for corporate sponsorship or financial support.
Events scoring 10+ are given top priority for staffing, and resources.
Criteria / Score
0
1
2
Thought Leadership
Audience type
Attendee interaction
Location and Timing
Event Relevance/ Strategy
Brand Reach
Opportunity size/ Potential ROI
We ask these questions and use this scorecard to ensure that we're prioritizing the GitLab's brand and our community's best interests when we sponsor events.
Event Execution
After its been decided by the DRI (using the above criteria) that we will move forward with the sponsoring of an event, what happens next?
DRI for event will start finance issue for contract review and signature following the Procure to pay instructions
Be sure to include:
ROI calculation for said event in the final cost section
Add the finance issue as a Related issue to the original issue for reference.
As soon as the contract has been signed, DRI needs to change the status of the issue tag from "status: plan" to "status: WIP". This let's the designated event MPM know to begin their backend execution. He/She will add a check list of issues to be created and info they need to create said issues and process. They will also create the Epic and associate everything existing to epic.
For corporate events, the DRI needs to create the Event planning issue, using "Corporate Event Planner Issue" template for tracking progress towards execution.
Add the event to Events Cal and Events Page. Instructions can be found here.
Start checking off the appropriate issue template. Some things to note as you go through process in template:
Once you select staffing, start a slack channel and invite those folks as well as anyone from Field Marketing (FM) or alliance that needs to be involved. Do not link anything but the epic in the slack channel as it will be deleted after 90 days.
Share the planning sheet in the slack channel for people to fill out their contact and travel info. Instruct everyone to book travel and lodging ASAP and add to planning sheet.
The planning sheet is used for everything from Travel, meeting setting, booth duty, speakers list, networking events, PR…
Once the Epic created… (the Epic is the main hub for all event info. ALL ISSUES ASSOCIATED WITH THE EVENT MUST BE LINKED TO THE EPIC!)
Link to Original Issue (some may call this a META issue)
Any other high level info that will be relevant to everyone attending.
If the event needs a speaker, start an issue with the speaker request issue template and tag tech evangelism.
Landing Pages for Events
Corporate events uses landing pages built from the GitLab events page. The MPM will create an issue for content to be provided on that page (work with Alliances/ PMM on copy) and it will need to be decided in collaboration with FM if we want a form on the landing page. (more info on this can be found in the MPM handbook)
For Field Marketing events we use Marketo landing pages vs. the events yml. By doing this, the MPMs own the creation of these pages and they are the only ones who will have edit access to these pages.
When to specifically use a Marketo landing page vs. the events yml:
This is an event owned by Field Marketing
The event cost the company less than $10,000 (or your country's equivalent)
We will be driving traffic to the marketo landing page for less than 1.5 months.
Schedule
Event kick off call (include all people involved in planning), around 2 months out from event.
Final event check in meeting (include everyone attending, anyone from Alliances involved, PMM who created demos to review them with team)
Event Recap (with all planners/ stakeholders)
Copy needed
Landing page copy
3-4 weeks out email invite copy
1-2 weeks out post event copy
Social
Start issue using the social request template for general social awareness posts and any social ads that need to go out.
For complete instructions on how to obtain social support at your event, please review the social requests instructions.
Design
Issue needed for booth design (in corporate marketing project). Tag Designer and provide design specs as well as due date. Give as much notice as possible.
For the latest approved booth design/ messaging ping events@gitlab.com. For any content or major layout changes start an issue in corporate marketing and tag PMM and Design.
Most corporate events will have an onsite meeting setting initiative tied to the event goals.
The FMM is DRI for the ancillary field activities, like meeting setting and customer dinners.
Corporate marketing will work with the regional FM DRI and the designated event MPM to decide on the best plan of attack for meeting setting.
If any execs are on site, all meetings with them should be coordinated through designated EA lead for that event.
We track meetings on the master event spreadsheet. This sheet will be locked 24 hours before event starts- people will only be able to make comments. If you need to request a change on this doc take the FM lead.
All one site meetings must have a meeting prep doc, which can be found in the planning sheet. Note, we share these prep docs with the client. This sheet is intended to provide everyone attending the meeting with any background info on the prospect/ customer they should know going into the meeting, as well as any objectives or things to cover in said meeting. This sheet can be found in Google Docs as well as in every event issue.
All leads gathered through meeting setting initiatives must be tracked in their own campaign.
We generally like to provide a small gift (unedr $50) for anyone who takes a meeting with us.
Demos, booth decks, and documentation
Product marketing helps to make all displayed collateral at events.
These are the standard demos we use/ present at events. They should be preloaded on event iPads.
If you need something specific for a show, start an issue in the PMM project and tag Dan Gordon. They need at least 3 weeks to produce something custom.
Swag- decide appropriate giveaway for this event and audience. Coordinate ordering with one of our preferred swag vendors.
Order extra storage at event if all swag will not fit in booth
Leads and Campaign setup
DRI is responsible for pulling, cleaning and sharing ead list with MPM and ops within 24 hours of event close. Use temples for clean up provided by MPM.
VERY IMPORTANT: Note this planning list is not exhaustive- see planning issue template in both & field marketing project for most up to date list of tasks.
How We Decide Who Attends Which Events?
The event DRI determines how many staffers we need at the event and is responsible for ensuring the staffers are all set to attend the event.
If the event is more enterprise-focused we try to send more marketing/ sales. Regional Sales Managers in partnership with FM select staffer based on who has the most potential contacts in the area or going to an event.
If the event is more user-focused we will lean towards sending more technical people to staff and fewer sales.
Suggestion for staffing: See if we have any GitLabbers who live in the area who might be a good fit for the audience.
We lean towards those who might be thought leaders, specialists, or more social in the specific show - i.e. if we are sponsoring an AWS show, we would like for a GitLab + AWS expert to staff the event.
We aim to bring minimal staff to keep costs and disruption to normal workflow low. We take into account what value everyone will provide as well as staffing balance. Please check with the event DRI if you would like to or would like to suggest someone participate in an event.
Event staffing list will close 2 weeks before commencement of event.
Once you have agreed to attend an event, you are not able to back out unless there is a customer facing obligation you need to tend to. We have this in place to avoid unnecessary rework on the event DRI’s behalf.
A lot of times a technical resource needs to also be assigned to attend an event. In order to do so, please review the SA handbook for instructions on how to secure one of our awesome SA's.
All those attending will need their manager's approval.
If you have been approved by the DRI and your manager to help staff an event, all your travel will be included during the time for the event/ expo days. You need to be onsite and ready to help out as soon as the first expo hall shift opens up and you may book travel any time after the expo hall closes. We will cover the night of lodging before the expo hall opens through to the night it closes. Any additional nights will need to be covered by the individual.
Event staffing list will close 2 weeks before commencement of the event (3 weeks for corporate events.
If you are not officially involved in the event as part of the sponsorship, we would still like to know you will be attending so we can include you in any activities we have going on. Please comment in the respective event slack channel letting us know your plans to attend after obtaining approval from your manager or comment in the epic for the event.
Event Outreach
It is important that we are communicating with our customers and prospects when are attending an event. This is done through a targeted email sent through Marketo & also through SDR & SAL outreach.
Receive attendee list and contact customers and prospects before event using talking points provided by content DRI with the goal of setting up meetings/ demos at the event. Invite them to anything specific we have happening at or around event.
If there is not an attendee list process is as follows:
Target speakers for outreach.
Utilize previous years attendee list that can be found in SFDC. That person may not be attending, but their colleague might be. Ask for intros.
Follow event hashtags to see who will be attending.
Join local meetup and pre event events (this works well for large events like AWS).
Join LinkedIn Groups and slack channels dedicated to event.
Download event app and engage with attendees via app.
You can search for relevant talks and see who has registered for talks that might apply to potential customers.
For Field Events
Adding Records to the Campaign in order for the record to receive an invite to the event:
SALs/SDRs should add members to campaign to be invited to event, using the appropriate Campaign Status:
Sales Invited = You have personally invited the person to the event.
Sales Nominated = Marketing will invite the person on your behalf. They will receive invitation email pre-event plus any confirmations/reminders if they register.
Marketing Invited = Marketing will be sending geo-targted invitation emails to specific events pulling the names from our active database. Anyone included in this master send will be added to the campaign with this status.
Any other Status = Do not assign any other status to records. The campaign members will be updated by MPM or automated through registration.
Employee Booth Guidelines
Perfect your Pitch
Most people have two ears and one mouth. Successful pitching is two parts listening to one part talking. Be engaged and interested in folks that visit. Be genuinely curious about their story. Understand them first before you start telling them about us.
A great way to start is to offer a handshake and say,
"Hi, my name is [your_name]”
“Hi I’m [their_name]”
“[their_name, are you familiar with GitLab?”
“Yes”
“Thanks for using us, are you using just the source code management or are you also using the built-in GitLab CI/CD?”
“No” - “Great, in a nutshell we <140 character description> - for example, what company do you work for?”
“Company X”
And what’s your role at company x?
“Title X”
Tailor your pitch to their specific experience. Ask about what tools they are using today, what they like or dislike about those tools.
Working at the booth is a great place to try out different ways of explaining technology and trying out different value propositions to see what resonates the most.
Know some stock answers
You can ask them which talk they’ve heard so far has been the most interesting.
Close the deal
Figure out what the next step for this person is. Are they a decision maker at a large org?
If a conversation is running long, get his/her info and schedule a time to chat or follow up at a later time outside of the booth. The goal of the booth is to make initial contact and connections.
Give a personal follow up
Stand at the front of booth facing the crowd.
Don’t make folks walk into the booth and seek you out. Stand out at the front. Make eye contact and smile at folks walking by. If they stop or pause you can ask them, “Are you familiar with GitLab?”
Hangout outside the booth.
Too many GitLab team-members in the booth discourages other folks from coming by. The booth can be a great place to meet up, but don’t hang out there. Move the conversation to a near by lounge or social area.
When you are at the booth keep conversation with your coworkers to a minimum.
When you are at the booth focus on serving the attendees.
Do not do normal daily work in the booth - the booth is not a place for taking calls, or responding to emails. When you are at the booth you are on booth duty and that is it.
Keep an abundant tidy stash of swag out
During slow times, restock swag and tidy up booth.
Keep the booth clean.
The booth should be clean and organized at all times.
Avoid eating meals in booth, please keep lids on beverages and out of sight.
If we have the bandwidth or the traffic is slow do not be afraid to walk around to other booths and talk to people. Make friends we could partner with, create interesting content with, or just have friendly beers.
If press comes to the event feel free to put them in contact with CMO.
Engage the competition.
Be friendly and polite to competitors to come by the booth.
Don't forget your business cards.
Scanning Best Practices
Be an active but polite Badge Scanner
Don’t reach for the badge without first asking if you can scan someone’s badge and don't lead a conversation with can I scan you. Ask folks politely, “Would you appreciate a follow up email?” or “Mind if I scan your badge?” Many folks will say, “yes.” If they say, “Not really.” You can say, “Great, we don’t want to clutter up your inbox. You can always go online to about.gitlab.com if you’d like to check back in with us.”
Trade scans for all swag if the attendee consents. If we have the space and staff, someone should be in charge of distributing and organizing swag, and scanning folks who come by for swag.
Take good notes:
Your initials (This way the email can be more personalized to say, “We saw you chatted with [name] in the booth.”) Add your initials + “follow up” if you personally can send them an email within a week of the conference.
The tech stack (what tools they are using)
Any specifics needed in the follow up (schedule a call, send docs for X, interested in Y, etc.)
Suggested Attire
Wear at least one piece of branded GitLab clothing. If you prefer to wear something dressier than the GitLab branded items available that is also acceptable. Feel free to wear our sticker on your clothing.
If the conference is business casual try some nice jeans (no holes) or dress pants.
Clean, closed-toed shoes please.
A smile.
Booth Set Up
Bring:
Generic business cards
Stickers + any other swag
Events laptop (for slideshow) + charger + dongles
Backup power banks
Mints & hand sanitizer
One pagers + cheat sheets
Day of Booth Staffing
Ideally booth shifts will be around 3 hours or less.
Staff more people during peak traffic hours.
Avoid shift changes during peak hours.
Aim to staff the booth with individuals with a variety of expertise and backgrounds- ideally technical and non-technical people from various departments should be paired.
Send out invites on the Events & Sponsorship calendar to booth staff with the following information:
Time and date of event, booth, and shift
Any instructions on using or locating lead scanner
Any relevant event set up or clean up
Post Event
Add event debrief to event issue in marketing project. The debrief should include the following if applicable:
Was the event valuable?
Would you go again? Should we go again?
Did we get good leads/contacts? What was the audience profile like?
Best questions asked and conversations. Trends in questions asked.
Was our sponsorship/involvement successful? Did we go in at the proper sponsorship level?
How was the booth set up?
How was the booth staffing?
Did the booth get enough traffic?
Booth location and size
How did our swag go over?
Did we have enough/too much?
Contests
Did the contest(s) effectively build our brand and connecting with our target audience?
Event List
List received by FMM from event organizers
FMM reviews and cleans up list following the guidelines for list imports
List is sent to Marketing OPS for upload to SFDC & associate to related Campaign (w/in 24hrs of receipt from event)
Marketing OPS creates CONTACT view in SFDC; assigns records based on Territory ownership.
Marketing OPS notifies MPM/FMM when the list has been uploaded so the Marketing follow up email can be sent
Marketing OPS posts in the event Issue & on #sales/#sdrs_and_bdrs slack channel - a link to SFDC campaign and a ink to SDFC CONTACT view
Common lead questions:
Record ownership will be assigned using the Global Ownership rules
All followup needs to be tracked in SFDC
List upload needs to be done before follow up is done so we can ensure proper order of operations & attribution is given correctly
Record Owner and/or SDR doing follow up need to be sure to update the Contact Status on the record as follow up is done.
Campaign type & meaning of Campaign Member status can be found in the Business OPS handbook
Swag
Swag selection and creation is managed by Corporate Marketing. All information on swag can be found in the Corporate Marketing handbook.
Specifics for Community Relations
Specifics for Corporate Events
Specifics for Field Events
For events where a field marketing representative cannot be present, the FM DRI will assign an onsite lead. The DRI will be responsible for coordinating with this person and providing he/she any info they will need to help run the event in their absence. This person will be the venue point of contact as well as responsible for set up and tear down.
FOR EMEA: We must ensure we are gathering GDPR compliant leads - Lead devices scanning follow up needs to be in event T&C. If GDPR is not in the T&C, we are not allowed to follow up on the leads. Scanning a lead is not automatically GDPR compliant if visitors have not agreed to it.
NORAM Field Marketing Swag
The NORAM Field Marketing team utilizes our swag vendor, Nadel. Nadel is available to produce, ship and store swag and event material. The FMM is responsible for accessing the Nadel portal via the Field Marketing team login to order all swag and trade show items for their events.
Existing Items: Item quantities are listed in the portal. Please select from the current items in stock for your event. If you need a larger quantity of an item over what is available, please reach out to gitlab@nadel.com for reordering.
New Items: Any new swag designs must be approved by the brand team for brand consistency. Nadel will email all final designs to the brand team for approval. You can suggest new designs in the swag slack channel or more formally in an issue in the Swag Project.
Shipping: Please make sure to specify all shipping requirements and deadlines when ordering your items. Nadel will provide return shipping labels with each order for easy return shipping to the warehouse after your event.
Lead Times: Please be aware that ordering newly designed swag or placing reorders for existing items requires adequate lead time. Timeframes vary greatly based on the items selected and design approval. General Lead Times: 6 weeks to produce a new item and 2-3 weeks to reorder current designs.
Stickers: For sticker orders, please utilize our Sticker Mule account. Delivery options and timelines are provided during the ordering process. Any new sticker designs must be approved by the brand team for brand consistency. You can suggest new designs in the swag slack channel or more formally in an issue in the Swag Project.
In an effort to publicly share where people can find GitLab at events in person throughout the world, we have created about.gitlab.com/events. This page is to be updated by the person responsible for the event. To update the page, you will need to contribute to the event master.yml. If you need more information about our exact involvement in an specific event please visit the marketing project in gitlab.com and search the name of the event for any related issues. The "Meta" issue should include the most thorough and high level details about each event we are participating in. Place your event in the order in which it is happening. The list runs from soonest to furthest in the future. Save event images and headers here: Save images for featured events here
Details to be included (all of which are mandatory in order for your MR to pass the build):
Topic - Name of the event you would like to add
Type - Please choose one of the following: Diversity, Conference, MeetUp, Speaking Engagement, Webinar, Community Event or GitLab Connect. Events cannot have more than one type. If more than one apply, choose the best. If you feel your event doesn’t fit in the below category, do not just manually add a type. Please reach out to events@gitlab.com to suggest a new type of event.
Date - Start date of event
Date ends - Day event ends
Description - Brief overview about event (can be taken from event homepage).
Location - city, state,provinces, districts, counties (etc depending on country), country where event will take place
Region - NORAM, LATAM, EMEA, APAC, or Online
Social tags - hashtag for event shared by event host
Event URL - homepage for event
Example
- topic: The Best DevOps Conference Ever
type: Conference
date: January 1, 2050
date_ends: January 3, 2050 # Month DD, YYYY
description: |
The Best DevOps Conference Ever brings together the best minds in the DevOps land. The conference consists of 3 full days of DevOps magic, literally magic. Attendees will have the opportunity to partake in fire talks and moderated sessions. This is one you won’t want to miss.
location: Neverland, NVR
region: APAC
social_tags: DEVOPS4LIFE
event_url: https://2050.bestdevops.org
For corporate tradeshows we will want to create an event specific page that links from the about.gitlab.com/events page. The purpose of this page is to let people know additional details about GitLab’s presence at the event, how to get in touch with us at the event, and conference sessions we are speaking in (if applicable).
For smaller Field Marketing shows we use Marketo landing pages vs. the events yml. By doing this, the MPMs own the creation of these pages and they are the only ones who will have edit access to these pages.
When to specifically use a Marketo landing page vs. the events yml:
This is an event owned by Field Marketing
The event cost the company less than $10,000 (or your country's equivalent)
We will be driving traffic to the marketo landing page for less than 1.5 months.
Steps to take to create the new page:
Create new a new branch of the www-gitlab-com project.. - Branch name should be what event you’ve added.
From new Branch, navigate to Data, then to events.yml
Scroll down to the area where its date appropriate to add the event
To create the event specific page you need to add a subset of the following information:
url: - you make this up based on what you want the URL to be from about.gitlab.com
header_background: choose from an image already in the images folder or add your own image. If you do not know how to do this, please watch this tutorial.
header_image: choose from an image already in the images folder or add your own. (optional- if you prefer not to include, remove field altogether)
header_description: what CTA would you like the person to do on the page
booth: booth number at event, if there is no booth number, then remove this line of code (optional)
form: code that tells the system to add the contact info form. Marketing Ops will provide you with this number. They need to create a specific form for each page associated with a campaign in sfc.
title: CTA for why someone would want to give their contact info. Also used in contact: to distinguish a header title.
description: additional info on why someone would want to give their contact info
number: Marketo form number - Marketing Operations will need to give this number to you. Under form:
content: all of the information in the example section is all optional based on your event. If its not needed, simply delete.
Giving the following data will give this event it's own dedicated page on about.gitlab.com, must provide a unique url.
If it is text, it needs to be wrapped in "double quotes". This is so you can use characters like : and ' without breaking anything.
url: aws-reinvent
header_background: /images/blogimages/gitlab-at-vue-conf/cover_image.jpg
header_image: /images/events/aws-reinvent.svg
header_description: "Drop by our booth or schedule a time, we'd love to chat!"
booth: 2608
form:
title: "Schedule time to chat"
description: "Learn more about how GitLab can simplify toolchain complexity and speeds up cycle times."
number: 1592
content:
- title: "How to can get started with GitLab and AWS"
list_links:
- text: "Simple Deployment to Amazon EKS"
link: "/2018/06/06/eks-gitlab-integration/"
- text: "GitLab + Amazon Web Services"
link: "/solutions/aws/"
- text: "Top Five Cloud Trends"
link: "/2018/08/02/top-five-cloud-trends/"
- text: "How Jaguar Land Rover embraced CI to speed up their software lifecycle"
link: "/2018/07/23/chris-hill-devops-enterprise-summit-talk/"
- title: "Let's Meet!"
body: "Join us for a live demo on getting started with Auto DevOps on Nov 28th at 1pm to learn how Auto DevOps simplifies your deployment pipeline to accelerate delivery by 200%, improves responsiveness, and closes the feedback gap between you and your users."
speakers:
- name: "Josh Lambert"
title: "Senior Product Manger, Monitor"
image: /images/team/joshua.jpg
date: "Tuesday, Nov 28"
time: "1:00pm PT"
location: "Booth 2608 at the expo floor in the Venitian"
topic: "GitLab CI 101"
description: "In this talk, we will review how simple it is to get started with GitLab's built in CI tool."
- name: "Reb"
title: "Solutions Architect"
image: /images/team/reb.jpg
date: "Tuesday, Nov 27"
time: "2:00pm PT"
location: "Booth 2608"
Template
Giving the following data will give this event it's own dedicated page on about.gitlab.com, must provide a unique url. If it is text, it needs to be wrapped in "double quotes". This is so you can use characters like : and ' without breaking anything.
url:
header_background:
header_image:
header_description:
booth:
form:
title:
description:
number:
content:
- title:
list_links:
- text:
link:
- text:
link:
- text:
link:
- title:
body:
speakers:
- name:
title:
image:
date:
time:
location:
topic:
description:
- name:
title:
image:
date:
time:
location:
Speaking at events
If you’re looking for information about speaking at an events head over to our Technical Evangelism page.
