HubSpot success story · Live event production company

How a live event production company earned a 4,200% return on its trade expo with HubSpot.

Name: Overtop Media Digital Marketing
Address: 933 Louise Ave Suite 101-18, Charlotte, NC, 28204, US
Telephone: (704) 237-0707
Price range: $$

Clearwing ran its AVL Expo out of six disconnected tools. Moving the whole campaign into HubSpot, with follow-up triggered by what each guest did, produced 250+ leads at the event and more than $8M in revenue the company attributes to them.

Business: Clearwing
Market: United States and worldwide
Goal: Turn a trade event into pipeline and revenue

Crowd facing a brightly lit concert stage with a large lighting rig

The results.

One event, AVL Expo. HubSpot gives no year, no comparison with earlier events and no method for the ROI calculation; the revenue is what the company attributes to leads from the event.

4,200%return on investment from the event
$8M+in revenue from leads generated at the event
250+leads at the event, influencing 100+ sales

HubSpot does not publish a baseline period or method for these figures; they are the company’s own reported results.

The challenge.

Clearwing, founded in 1976 and now part of Clair Global, designs and produces audio, lighting, video, staging and rigging for concerts, festivals, corporate events and theaters, and works as a systems integrator. Its flagship event, AVL Expo, brings together 600+ customers and 100+ exhibitors for two days of product demos, networking and training.

Running that event meant juggling separate tools for email, project management, social posts, registration, surveys and spreadsheets. Reporting was manual and attribution was guesswork. People slipped through the gaps: someone who downloaded the agenda but never registered, a school rep who said yes but never came, an exhibitor’s customer who engaged online but did not show up. Campaign flows were sketched by hand, and building one took weeks.

What they did.

Marketing Hub · Behavior-based follow-up · SMS to attendees · Personalized invitations

One home for the whole campaign: Planning, assets, email, data and reporting moved into HubSpot Marketing Hub, replacing the separate tools. More than 500 campaign assets for the expo were managed in one place.
Follow-up triggered by behavior: Automated workflows caught people at the drop-off points: an agenda download with no registration got a nudge, and a demo visitor got content about installation options.
Invites matched to interests: Breakout-session invitations were personalized by each guest’s interest, audio, lighting or video, instead of one invitation for everyone.
Texts to attendees: SMS messages and workflows kept registered guests informed before and during the event.
Campaigns planned visually: The team storyboarded each campaign on a visual planning canvas with calendar and board views, and used built-in AI to draft copy and ideas. Build time fell from weeks to days.

Why it worked.

Our read on the decisions behind the numbers, and what any business can take from them.

Every drop-off is a lead: Most event marketing stops at the invitation. Following up on what people half did, a download, an RSVP, a booth visit, recovered buyers who would otherwise have gone quiet.
Relevant beats generic: A lighting buyer invited to a lighting session is far more likely to come than one sent the full agenda.
One system shows the money: With every touch in one place, the company could connect event leads to sales and revenue instead of relying on anecdotes.
Faster builds, more campaigns: Cutting build time from weeks to days left room to run more targeted follow-ups instead of one big blast.

How we would run this play for your business.

You do not need a national budget to use the same ideas. This is how Overtop Media Digital Marketing puts them to work in our hubspot setup and management.

Plan the event funnel: We map every step from invitation to registration, attendance and follow-up, and set an automated next step for each drop-off point in your HubSpot account.
Segment invitations by interest: Guests get invitations and reminders based on what they care about, by email and text, so more of them show up.
Follow up while it is warm: After the event, we send the right content and alert your sales team about the most engaged guests, using our email marketing playbooks.
Fill the room with ads: Our Meta ads and Google Ads campaigns drive registrations, and every sign-up lands in the same CRM.