What makes someone register instead of meaning to. What a sponsor checks before they take your call. Who else has to sign off. We model it from customer research across 500+ businesses over 10 years, then aim it at registrations that fill before the early‑bird closes and sponsors who renew because they could see what they got. You see the read before you commit a dollar.
Fill the room before the early‑bird closes.
Give sponsors something to show.
Bring sponsors back next year.
You run a conference that has to sell two things at once: registrations and sponsorships. Your members and past attendees are your best audience, and they are not enough to grow the room. You need the people who should be there and do not know about you yet. You also need sponsors who can see, before they sign, who they will be in front of.
You are spending on a booth at someone else's show, and the show is over in two days. What matters is who stops, who you follow up with, and whether any of it becomes pipeline in the months after. That is promotion before the doors open and a follow‑up plan that is already written when they close.
A launch, a client event, an annual gathering. The day is a few hours; the content it produces is what has to keep working afterwards. You need the room filled with the right people, and video and photography you can keep using long after the event has ended.
One of these is a multi‑day conference. The other three are the closest work we have to one: festival photography for a city, on‑location production for a provincial utility, and a program that needed people to show up. All named, and none of it dressed up as event work it wasn't.
A multi‑day conference, and the list of assets that comes with one. The marketing manager who ran it with us called it "a behemoth of a project". Setsail delivered every asset agreed in the scope and, in her words, went above and beyond what she expected. It's the one piece of conference work on this page, and we would rather show you one real one than five borrowed ones.
Coquitlam chose Setsail in a competitive RFP for a year of photography, and the Water Lantern Festival was one of the shoots. The contract asked for 400 to 600 images; we delivered about 2,000. The city then came back for videography, a brand and design system its staff could use, and its Economic Development website.
BC Hydro's safety campaigns, rebate promotions and seasonal energy‑saving pushes reach a whole province, and several stakeholders sign off before any of them runs. We handle the production as a standing partnership, on location and in studio, from shot list to final cut. It isn't event work. It is the same job on the day: capture it right the first time, for a room of reviewers who all have to say yes.
A community development organization serving an Indigenous community needed people to recognize it, trust it and take part. We built its strategy, identity and visual system from scratch, and participation rose 65%. Turnout is the number an organizer lives by, which is why this one is here, labelled as what it is: a participation result, not a conference.
577%
ROI in 67 days. $224,219 in camp enrolments on $33,100 of ad spend.
Pear Tree Camps · Education · Summer camps
2,500%
return on ad spend, with 292 job applications in 30 days.
NH New Horizons Staffing · Healthcare staffing
$20M
in sales by DŌST Bikes. We built the brand, the store and the marketing it ran on.
E-commerce · E-bikes
Agency-wide results from three different industries.
Most event marketing starts with the event. We start with two people: the attendee deciding whether to register, and the sponsor deciding whether to return.
Most attendees never search for your event by name. They search for the problem it solves, a speaker they follow, or their field plus "conference" plus this year. Just as many arrive from a colleague, a LinkedIn post or an association email without searching at all. Sponsors almost never search; they are approached, and they check your audience before they take the call. A plan that treats your event as somewhere people already know to look is aimed at the smallest part of your audience.
Attendees weigh the agenda and the speakers, who else will be in the room, the dates and the travel. The ticket price matters less than whether the whole trip can be approved. Sponsors compare on who will actually be there: the job titles, the companies, and the evidence from last year that anyone saw their name. The headline attendance number looks decisive and rarely is. The make‑up of the room is what gets compared.
Deadlines decide most of it: the early‑bird cut‑off, travel booking, the end of a budget year. There is almost always a second person too, such as the manager who signs off on the registration, or the marketing lead who has to justify the sponsorship. What closes it is something the first person can forward without having to defend it. For a sponsor deciding whether to come back, that is the recap: what they got, in a form they can show internally. We expect you to judge us the same way, by what you can forward.
This is modelled from doing exactly this research for 10 years, across 500+ businesses. It is the part of what we do that a competitor cannot copy in an afternoon.
The sourced read of your market, your attendees and your sponsors is shown to you before any delivery work is paid for. If the numbers do not hold up, you will know before you have committed anything.
Scope, timeline and price are set in a client‑approved 90‑day plan. Not an estimate that moves as the event date gets close.
Month to month. 30 days’ notice. Nobody is locked in. Your accounts, data and content stay yours.
Live dashboards with projection against actual, including the months we miss. You do not have to take our word for any of it.
Four services do most of the work. Here is what each one does for an event.
Promotion timed to your registration windows and your early‑bird date: search, paid social, email to your list, and an event website that converts the visit. All of it is aimed at the attendees and sponsors the read identified.
Event video and photography from our in‑house team: keynotes, panels, the room, and every sponsor activation captured so sponsors have something to show for being there.
An edited event highlight video and sponsor‑ready recap assets, delivered so the people who paid to be there can show what they got. The case for next year's sponsorship is then already made.
10 Years in Business$100M+ revenue generated500+ clients
B Corp Certified
Google Partner
30 minutes, free.
We will walk you through what we already know about how your attendees and sponsors decide, and what we would do about it before your next event. You will get something useful out of the call whether you hire us or not.
10 years · $100M+ revenue generated · 500+ clients
On the call, we'll walk you through:
If someone else signs off on the budget, bring them along. Then nobody has to hear it twice.
Events Growth AuditPrefer it framed around your event? Ask for the Events Growth Audit. It is a 30‑minute read of how your attendees and sponsors actually search, compare and decide. Same call, focused entirely on your event.We will not add you to a list you did not ask for.
10 years · $100M+ revenue generated · 500+ clients
In their words · Reviews ★★★★★
From political campaigns to nationwide rebrands and massive product launches: an in-house team that moves fast and delivers, across North America and worldwide.
“If I have a client who needs something up in three weeks, you guys will just do it… I never hear no, or ‘it can’t be done’.”
Theodora Jean
Founder & CEO, Coldwater Communications
“Everything that Setsail has designed for us, we try to incorporate that now in all of our presentations, including investor materials.”
Dorthy Cheng
Executive Assistant, CleanDesign
“You made yourselves part of Charlo. You made yourselves part of my story.”
Lia Psomiadis
Founder, Charlo
“We changed our direction of our business and Setsail has been matching that pace each and every time that we made that adjustment.”
Blake Voyer
Microworks Handyman
“I’ll immediately hear from somebody… It’s just handled. It’s just white glove considerate handled without a white glove price tag.”
Melanie Clarance
Co-Founder, AetherEV
“Creating a real strategy with KPIs that aren’t out of touch… this isn’t a pie in the sky story, this is an actionable work plan.”
Lucas Ens
Economic Development Officer, City of Prince George
“We’ve been working with Setsail for 7 years for all our marketing materials, website design, product design, videos, photos. They’ve been great. Responsive, responsible, great materials.”
Larry Knurik
VP Logistics, GVA Brands
“It’s been really easy, smooth, and it’s been a great time, and I’d recommend it to anyone.”
Antonio Zivanovic
Founder, ElektraFi
“Tom and Jason are a thrill to work with… The direction and strategy that they bring to the table is top notch.”
Gordon Lai
Surface 604
“If you’re looking for a marketing team that really gets it and delivers outstanding results, Setsail Marketing is the way to go.”
Sam Atakhanov
Founder, DŌST Bikes
Four people carry an event account from the first plan to the recap.
Strategist
Models how your attendees and sponsors search, compare and decide, and builds the 90‑day plan around your registration dates before a dollar is spent.
Paid media specialist
Runs the search and social campaigns against your registration windows, and moves budget each week to whatever is actually filling seats.
Video and photography producer
Plans the shot list with you before the day, runs the crew on site, and delivers the highlight video and the sponsor recap assets afterwards.
Account lead
The person you call through the run‑up and the event week. Weekly updates, and no reply left waiting when the date is close.
Every one of them is on Setsail's own in‑house team. No subcontracted crew, and no handoff to a junior once the contract is signed.
In the weeks before an event, nobody has time to chase an agency for an update. Registrations, sponsor numbers and traffic sit in a live portal, with a monthly report you can forward to whoever signs off, scheduled calls, and a quick reply when the numbers worry you.
Starting numbers
Day one: you know where you stand
We record your starting numbers before we touch anything, so every win after that is one you can see.
Live progress
Every week: you see it moving
Progress shows up in your portal as it happens, so you never wait for a report to know.
Monthly report
Every month: you know what your money bought
What we expected next to what happened, in a report you can read in five minutes.
90‑day plan
Every cycle: steered
Every 90 days the plan re‑forms around what’s working, so your budget keeps flowing to the work that pays.
Monthly plans for the promotion that runs before your event, and one‑time pricing for the work on and around the day: the website, the shoot, the highlight video. All of it is published on our pricing page before you ever talk to us.
Every plan starts the same way: a Growth Strategy call. 30 minutes, free. You'll know whether we're a fit and what we'd look at first.
What’s included depends on the plan you pick.
If one of those is your event, book the call. If we can't help with it, we'll tell you before the call is over.
Setsail Marketing
Vancouver, BC + Beaverton, OR
