What is Dreamforce?
Dreamforce is one of the biggest tech conferences in the world, exclusively hosted by Salesforce and held in San Francisco every year. This event brings together the global Salesforce community to learn, network, and, most of all, have fun!
Our journey to Dreamforce
After attending Connections in June this year, we were planning to make an appearance at Dreamforce. If Connections was the “Superbowl” of Marketing Cloud conferences, Dreamforce 2022 is the “Olympics” of the Salesforce world.
With team members from all across the globe, we were fortunate to attend with 16 people! Ranging from C-Level Executives, Account Executives, Marketing Managers, BDRs, and even some from our Engineering team. All of us with the goal of continuing to help Salesforce Marketing Cloud customers with segmentation and data integration needs.
What was our experience?
San Francisco is a fantastic city with so much to offer. On top of that, Dreamforce exceeded our expectations. Over 40,000 Salesforce customers and potential customers attended, including some of their employees. Not to mention, the event was very well-organized with several side events, Keynote speakers, and sponsored parties. Similar to Connections, we had a sponsored booth where we were able to connect with attendees and share what DESelect Search, Segment and Connect can do.
Partnership with Sercante
We were fortunate to have hosted a few events along with Sercante, a consulting agency that we partner with. At the Pink Elephant Alibi Breakfast, Welcome Bash, and Night of Enchantment party, we connected with several fellow Trailblazers, and enjoyed delicious food and drinks.
Planning to attend next year?
There are a LOT of sessions available (1,000+ sessions to give a reference) to attend on the campground. We highly recommend using the planner in the Salesforce Events app to build your schedule beforehand.
Here are a few tips to ensure you get the most out of your future Dreamforce experience:
Show up early to speaker sessions:
If you have speaker sessions in mind that you plan on attending, make sure to get there as early as possible. Seating is limited, and you often have to stand, but the sessions aren’t typically too long (another pro tip, wear comfortable shoes)!
Attend networking events:
Whether it is a rooftop party, hosted breakfast, or even a sponsored lounge, make an effort to form new connections at these side events (look to register for the events before the event, as there are often limited spots available). Conversing with people experiencing similar challenges and goals in such a friendly environment was refreshing.
Spread your team out:
If you’re sponsoring, don’t just stand behind the booth. With so much to see, and so many people to talk to, you could be hindering your experience by not exploring the campground. We opted to create a booth schedule for team members, so we were able to divide and conquer.
Bring comfortable shoes (seriously):
I know we already mentioned this, but in all seriousness, comfortable shoes are a must for an event with this much walking and standing. Be prepared to be on your feet for the majority of the day. Some days are longer than others, especially when you have the incredible opportunity to end the evening at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert.
Book travel ahead of time:
As soon as you or your team have decided on attending Dreamforce (or any large conference, for that matter), plan your travel and housing arrangements as quickly as possible. Whether it is transportation from the airport, hotel, conference, or side events, try to take public transportation or group Uber rides to cut costs. Having a place to stay close to the campground is also ideal, and in that case, you can walk to most locations.
If you have time, visit some landmarks in the area:
San Francisco is home to several famous places, but of course, the most notable of them all, The Golden Gate Bridge. For our EMEA and US colleagues, a trip to visit this piece of history was a must. Plan a visit and coordinate with your colleagues, who are the best photographers, to get some great, memorable pictures.
Main Takeaways
We hope to attend Dreamforce again next year as a sponsor, and we hope to see you there too!
With so many cloud users (Sales, Commerce, Service, Marketing, etc.), we could connect with those in several industries and departments. As a Marketing Cloud-focused company, it did sometimes feel challenging to chat with the ideal customer, but we still enjoyed all our conversations.
Conclusion
Attending Dreamforce is a unique experience like no other. You’ll have countless memorable experiences, conversations, and a wish list of new tools to add to your tech stack. From our team members that attended, some of their favorite moments were: meeting people organically outside the campground while just enjoying lunch, seeing Matthew McConaughey on stage at the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, and last but not least, Marc Benioff’s keynote speaker presentation.
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