Build an invite list for an event

Invite the people whose job puts them closest to the topic, and decide the mix of the room before you look for names. A roundtable works best when everyone at the table faces the same problem and has the seniority to talk about it openly. A webinar can go wider, because people listen more than they talk, so practitioners and their managers both belong.

Kite settles this first because it shapes every search that follows. It reads your brief and your ideal customer profile, then proposes the guest description: the roles, the seniority, the kinds of companies, and the location. It also proposes the mix. For a sales-focused dinner, that might mean a few happy customers who can speak honestly about their results, a larger group of prospects who match your best customers, and one guest the others would be glad to meet, such as a well-known operator in your market.

Kite also sets out who stays off the list. By default, it leaves out competitors and anyone your team has recorded as opting out of your email. If the event is meant only for new prospects, it leaves out existing customers too. You can change the description, the mix, or the exclusions before Kite starts searching.

The warmest guests are usually people who already know you, so Kite looks there before it searches anywhere else. With HubSpot connected, Kite searches your contacts and companies for people who match the guest description, and it can read who belongs to a list or segment your team already keeps. If your customer list or an old event's attendee list lives in a Google Sheet, Kite reads that sheet instead.

Kite doesn't take those records at face value. People change jobs, and a contact from two years ago may now work somewhere else entirely. Kite checks each person's current role and company against a public source before they go on the list, and it drops anyone who no longer fits.

Your existing records also tell Kite who to leave out. When it searches for new people later, it skips the ones already in your CRM, so the new part of the list adds people rather than repeating ones you have.

Kite finds new guests by searching for companies first and then for the right people inside them. Company searches can use industry, size, and location, along with filters for headcount growth, recent funding, the technology a company uses, or the roles it's hiring for. Kite can also find companies that look like customers you name, which is often the fastest way to fill a dinner with people who resemble your best accounts.

Once Kite has the companies, it looks for the people by title, function, and seniority. It reads each person's public professional profile for their current role, their previous jobs, and their location, and it can read their recent public posts. A head of revenue operations who posted last week about forecasting is a strong fit for a roundtable on forecasting, and Kite notes that in the reason it gives for including them.

Recent company news gives Kite a reason someone might want to come now. A company that just raised a round, opened an office in your city, or hired a new head of marketing has people facing fresh problems, and those people are often glad to compare notes with peers. Kite looks for events like these from the past few months and carries each one, with its date and source, into the list.

If your event sits next to a conference, such as a dinner on the night a big industry event opens, Kite can research that conference's speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors and add the ones who fit your guest description. They're already in town, and they already care about the topic.

Related How-to pages

• How to build a qualified prospect list with Apollo: Find companies and people that match your guest description in Apollo, then keep the ones whose role and company check out.
• How to find LinkedIn prospects with Crustdata: Search for people by title, seniority, and location, and add company details such as recent funding, hiring, and leadership changes.
• How to build a prospect list from LinkedIn data: Turn public LinkedIn profiles, companies, and posts into a focused list of people who match the room you're building.

Search for people by both their company's location and their own, because a company headquartered in New York may have the person you want in Austin. Kite filters company searches by location and narrows people searches by where each person is based, so a list for a dinner in Austin holds people who can actually get there.

Kite reads the location on each person's public profile rather than assuming everyone works at headquarters. That matters most for in-person events, where a guest who has to fly in is far less likely to say yes. For a webinar, Kite can drop the location filter entirely and search across the time zones your event suits.

Choose fewer, more senior guests who share a real problem, and invite them in waves so you can fill seats as people decline. An executive dinner works when every person at the table is someone the others would be glad to sit next to, so the list has to be smaller and more selective than a list for a webinar.

Kite scores each person from one to five against your guest description and gives a one-line reason for every score. A five might read, "VP of Marketing at a 200-person software company in Chicago, joined three months ago, and posted last week about rebuilding her team." The reasons make it easy for you to scan the list and swap people in or out.

When a list runs longer than about fifteen people, Kite splits it into a primary group and a secondary group. The primary group gets the first round of invitations. The secondary group is ready to invite as declines come in, so you aren't searching for new names a week before the dinner.

An invite list is only useful when you can reach the people on it, so Kite finds a professional email address for each guest. It uses its built-in sources, including Apollo and Crustdata, and checks each address it finds. Every address on the list carries a note on whether it was verified, so you know which ones you can rely on before you send anything.

Kite includes only professional information relevant to the invitation. Each row holds the person's name, title, company, LinkedIn profile, work email, fit score, reason, and the public source for the record. Kite leaves out personal email addresses, phone numbers, and home addresses.

When Kite can't find a work email for someone you really want at the table, it keeps that person on the list and says so. You can reach them another way, such as through a mutual connection or a LinkedIn message.

Kite saves the finished list where your team already works. It can create a new Google Sheet for the event or add the guests to a sheet you already use, with one row per person. With HubSpot connected, Kite adds new guests as contacts linked to their companies, checks for an existing record first so it updates rather than duplicates, and can store each guest's score and reason on the record.

Kite then drafts a short, personal invitation for each guest in your brand's voice. Each one explains why this event fits this person's work, using the same details behind their score. Approve the invitations in the conversation, and Kite sends them one at a time from your team's Kite email address or a connected email account. Kite reports which emails were delivered, which failed, and who replied.

For guests you'd rather reach on LinkedIn, Kite writes a short message for each person that you copy and send yourself. As replies come in, Kite updates the list, and it can draft the next wave of invitations to your secondary group when seats open up.

Related How-to pages

• How to save a qualified lead list to Google Sheets Coming soon Put the finished guest list into a Google Sheet with one row per person, then update it as people accept or decline.