Vol.3 - From Booths to BusinessEvent Strategy and Trust-Building in Japan

Marc Einstein, a technology analyst with over 15 years of experience in Japan, explains why events are still a critical lever for foreign companies—and how to move beyond generic lead generation to build real trust and business momentum.

Why Events Matter in Japan

Q: Marc, why do you believe events play such a unique role in the Japanese market?

A: Events are even more important in Japan than in many other countries, simply because there are so many of them. In Tokyo, you could realistically attend a relevant industry event almost every week. In my experience, once you’ve met someone face to face even once, the chances that they’ll take a meeting with you later go up dramatically. Blind outreach from someone they’ve never met is extremely easy to ignore. Events are a very efficient and natural way to create that first personal connection—they act as a trigger for trust.

Events as a Trigger of Trust

Q: You’ve described events as a “trigger of trust.” Beyond lead generation, how do they actually contribute to building trust?

A: Prospective customers want to see that you have a real presence in Japan. More than in many other markets, they want to be sure you’re not going to disappear. As an analyst, I go to big global tech events every year—CES, MWC and others. I pay close attention to which companies are exhibiting and how their booths change over time. If a company had a big booth last year and this year they’ve scaled down dramatically—or disappeared entirely—people notice. The immediate reaction is often, “Maybe budgets are tight,” or “Maybe this market isn’t a priority for them anymore.”
So maintaining some form of presence at key events is not just about collecting leads. It’s also a signal to the market that your company is serious, stable, and continuing to invest. Showing up at live events in Japan—with a booth, with local staff, with people who can talk to customers in Japanese—is a physical proof point of your commitment to the market. That local presence, or lack of it, has a huge impact on how comfortable customers feel about working with you.

The ABM Trap: Competitors at the Table

Q: Account-based marketing (ABM) roundtables are very popular now, but you’ve warned that they can be a trap. What exactly is the trap?

A: The biggest trap is putting competitors in the same room. Imagine a client says, “We want to talk about 6G. Please bring NTT Docomo, SoftBank, KDDI, and Rakuten to the table.” On paper, that sounds like a dream panel. But in reality, none of those companies is going to share their real strategy or real problems in front of their direct competitors. If you want truly valuable conversations—where people talk about what they’re actually struggling with—you need a completely private, one-on-one environment. You simply won’t get deep, strategic discussion in a room full of competitors. So if you want your ABM roundtables to work, you need to design them not just around “who to invite,” but just as importantly, “who not to put together.”

Creating Truly Special Experiences

Q: What does it take to attract senior executives and spark real conversation? How should companies think about using their budget?

A: If you want high-quality conversations, you have to raise the quality of the experience. That means going beyond a standard dinner or a generic seminar. If you truly want top executives to show up, you need to offer something that’s worth their time—something like tickets to the Japan Series in professional baseball, or a high-end event on a private boat. Experiences that are rare, memorable, and clearly not “just another vendor dinner.” Plain dinners or typical hotel seminars are usually not enough to move them. The motivation simply isn’t strong enough.
So instead of chasing volume and cheap leads, it’s smarter to focus your marketing budget on a small number of high-value experiences. Invite fewer people, but give each of them a much richer, more thoughtful experience. In the long run, that approach delivers a much better return.

Measuring Success: Relationship Momentum

Q: You’ve said companies should change how they measure event success. If not lead volume or immediate ROI, what should they be tracking?

A: Event success should not be measured by immediate ROI or the number of business cards collected at your booth. Those metrics are too shallow. Instead, think in terms of relationship momentum. Ask questions like: How many genuinely meaningful conversations did we have? How many concrete new partnerships took shape after the event? How many follow-up invitations did we receive—from customers who wanted to continue the discussion? Because the sales cycle in Japan is so long, you should see events as starting points for relationship-building—not as transactions that must pay off instantly. What matters is not that you built a “lead list,” but how many of those contacts actually turned into real business over time, and how your relationships progressed as a result.

The Golden Rule: Do What You Said You Would Do

Q: If you had to summarize the entire event strategy for Japan into a single “golden rule” for building trust and turning events into business, what would it be?

A: It’s very simple, but it’s also the hardest thing to do consistently: “Do what you said you would do.” That applies not just to big product promises, but to the small commitments you make around events. If you say, “I’ll send you that deck,” then send it by the time you said you would. If you promise to follow up on a specific question, actually follow up. If you say you’ll introduce them to someone, make the introduction. Companies that keep these small promises consistently stand out immediately. Reliability and follow-through are the factors that turn events into real business—and they’re also the foundation for success in the Japanese market overall.

Related Articles