The convention funnel that built an export agency

Kyle Puller runs a Cape Town agency whose clients are mostly American tabletop-games companies, a niche he entered when one client's crowdfunding campaign aimed for $500,000 and did $4 million in 24 hours. How he built it is a playbook for any marketer who sells into a community.

Niche until it works

Pulling Power went from generalist to games because of one question Kyle asked his creative director: if you could duplicate one client to fill our books, which one? The answer was the work they loved, and passion, he argues, is a commercial input: "I can do good work for a product I'm not excited about. But it won't beat the one I am excited about — I'll think about that one at dinner." The hedge is deliberate, at 70% games and 30% other, because industries wobble. And the compounding effect of niching is endorsement: "If you're good at what you do in a niche, the community will latch onto you. They'll network you up — because you've found the people who actually care."

The convention funnel

Kyle treats in-person events exactly like paid media, with prospecting events and remarketing events. Big public shows are for handshakes and rapport, because exhibitors are there to sell rather than to meet you. Industry events are where the meetings happen, with people who already know your face. The cardinal error he sees juniors make is trying to close at the prospecting stage because they're anxious about what the trip cost.

"You can't make someone want something when they don't want it. Be present, be valuable, and when they need it, you're front of mind."

His numbers make the case. Conventions are, at minimum, 20% of new revenue, including a client landed because a follow-up email ("I'm the shiny black card in your pack") revived a 90-second introduction, and another met by accident in the wrong airport terminal. "There's a concentration of opportunity, and you'll get none of it if you're not around it."

His field rules: pace yourself, because con-crud is real; build a personal brand rather than a walking company badge, since "no one cares about your uniform; are you fun to work with, reliable, competent?"; drop the business-speak, because "it's a human being on the other side, stop talking in code"; and contribute to the community's health, not just your pipeline. The community remembers who showed up to give.

Try this week: list this year's industry events and classify each as prospecting or remarketing, then plan your behaviour accordingly. Prepare your memory hook before the next one, and write the follow-up email template now, while you're thinking about it.

A convention funnel only pays if the event is the right one. The honest cost-benefit: are marketing conferences still worth it for SA marketers?

Sourced from recorded, on-the-record interviews on the South African Digital Marketing Podcast. Every practitioner quoted above is named in the text.

First published on the SA Marketers' Circle.