How to Build an Events CRM in DenchClaw

Build a complete events CRM in DenchClaw to track attendees, speakers, sponsors, and follow-ups for conferences, meetups, and virtual events—all locally.

Mark Rachapoom

March 26, 2026·7 min read

Events generate contacts at a rate that overwhelms most CRMs. You come back from a conference with 80 business cards, a list of people you promised to follow up with, a handful of partnerships to explore, and a stack of sponsor conversations to close—and within a week, half of it has fallen through the cracks. DenchClaw lets you build a proper events CRM that captures everything in the moment and structures your post-event follow-up systematically.

The Core Objects You Need#

An events CRM in DenchClaw typically involves three objects working together:

Events — the events themselves (conferences, meetups, trade shows, webinars)
Attendees — people you met or interacted with at each event
Event Actions — follow-ups, partnerships, sponsor conversations that came out of the event

You can also link events to your existing people and companies objects if you want attendees to flow into your main CRM.

Step 1: Create the Events Object#

"Create an events object with fields: 
Event Name (text), Type (enum: Conference, Meetup, Trade Show, Webinar, Private Event), 
Date (date), Location (text), Website (url), 
Expected Attendees (number), Status (enum: Planned, Attending, Past), 
Budget (number), Notes (richtext)."

This is your master list of events. Set the default view to calendar so you can see your event schedule at a glance.

Step 2: Create the Attendees Object#

"Create an event_attendees object with fields: 
Full Name (text), Email (email), Company (text), Title (text), 
Event (relation to events object), 
Connection Type (enum: Met Briefly, Had Good Conversation, Potential Partner, 
Potential Customer, Speaker, Sponsor, Existing Contact), 
Follow-Up Status (enum: Not Started, Email Sent, Replied, Meeting Booked, Closed), 
Notes (richtext), LinkedIn URL (url), Follow-Up Date (date)."

The Connection Type field is critical—it captures the quality and nature of the interaction, not just the fact that you met someone. "Met Briefly" gets a different follow-up than "Potential Customer."

Step 3: Capture Contacts During the Event#

Speed matters during events. You should be able to add a contact in under 30 seconds.

From Telegram: This is the fastest method while you're on the conference floor.

"Add to SaaStr 2026: Marcus Chen, VP Engineering at Stripe, 
met at the AI panel, very interested in our product, 
email is marcus@stripe.com, LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/marcuschen"

From the web chat: Open DenchClaw on your phone's browser, add contacts directly.

Business card photo:

"Here's a photo of a business card [attach image]. 
Add this person to my SaaStr 2026 attendees."

The AI reads the card, extracts the relevant fields, and creates the entry.

QR code business cards: Many people now use digital business cards. When you scan their QR code, it often opens a URL or vCard. Ask: "Add this person to my event attendees: [paste vCard or URL]."

Step 4: Take Event Notes#

Create an event-level document for running notes during the day:

"Create a document for SaaStr 2026. I want to take notes throughout the day 
about sessions I attended, key insights, and general observations."

Add to it throughout the conference: "Add to my SaaStr notes: The opening keynote talked about [topic]. Key insight: [insight]."

These notes become your post-event debrief document and are searchable in DenchClaw forever.

Step 5: Set Up Follow-Up Sequences by Connection Type#

Different connection types need different follow-up approaches. Set up a post-event automation:

"After I mark an event as 'Past', run the following follow-up automation:
- For all attendees with Connection Type 'Potential Customer': 
  draft a personalized follow-up email and schedule it for 2 days after the event
- For 'Potential Partner': draft a partnership intro email
- For 'Met Briefly': send a LinkedIn connection request message template
- For 'Speaker': send a specific 'enjoyed your talk' email
Show me all drafts before sending."

This structured approach means the quality of your post-event follow-up is determined by your schema design, not by how much energy you have on Monday morning after a weekend conference.

If you're organizing events, add two more specialized fields or objects:

Speakers:

"Add a Speakers field (relation to people object) to my events object. 
Create a speaker_applications object with: Speaker Name (text), 
Event (relation to events), Topic (text), Bio (richtext), 
Status (enum: Submitted, Under Review, Confirmed, Rejected), 
Fee (number), Travel Covered (boolean), Notes."

Sponsors:

"Create a sponsor_pipeline object for tracking event sponsorships: 
Company (relation to companies), Event (relation to events), 
Tier (enum: Title, Gold, Silver, Bronze), Amount (number), 
Status (enum: Prospect, Pitched, Negotiating, Confirmed, Paid, Invoiced), 
Contact (relation to people), Notes."

Set the sponsor pipeline to kanban view by Status. This becomes your event revenue pipeline.

Step 7: Track Event ROI#

Post-event analysis tells you whether a conference was worth attending:

"For SaaStr 2026, show me: 
total attendees I met (by connection type), 
how many follow-ups I sent, 
reply rate to follow-ups, 
meetings booked from the event, 
and deals created that originated from the event."

For this to work, ensure deals created from event contacts have the event tagged as their source. Ask: "When I create a deal from an event attendee contact, automatically set Deal Source = [event name]."

Over time, this data tells you which conferences deliver the highest ROI and helps you decide where to spend your event budget next year.

Step 8: Build an Event Dashboard#

"Build an event dashboard app showing: 
upcoming events (calendar view), 
total contacts captured by event (bar chart), 
follow-up completion rate by event, 
and a table of all attendees with status 'Potential Customer' 
and follow-up status not 'Closed'."

This dashboard is your event relationship management hub. Check it weekly during event season.

Step 9: Connect Events to Your Main Pipeline#

The most important step: ensure event contacts flow into your main CRM and pipeline.

"For any event attendee with Connection Type 'Potential Customer' 
who has replied to my follow-up email, automatically create a lead 
in my main leads pipeline with Source = [event name] 
and Status = Warm Lead."

Events should feed your pipeline, not be a silo. DenchClaw's relational data model makes this connection clean.