Post-Event Follow-Up
Maintain momentum and build community after your KC7 event
Follow-up is optional. Skip it if this was a one-time event with walk-in attendees and no plans to repeat. Stick with the basics in Closing Your Event and you're done.
Invest in follow-up if you plan to host again, want to build a community around cybersecurity, need to report results to stakeholders, or want feedback to improve. Even small gestures like a thank-you email or sharing the final scoreboard go a long way.
This guide is organized by timeframe (24 hours, first week, first month, ongoing) so you can pace yourself. Pick what fits your goals and energy.
Immediate Follow-Up (Within 24-48 Hours)
1. Thank You Messages
Send a thank-you email while the experience is fresh. Use the Follow-Up Email Template and personalize with the final scoreboard, top achievements, a reminder that participants can keep playing, and next steps for continued learning.
Thank co-hosts, IT support, venue providers, sponsors, and mentors individually.
Pro Tip: Personal thank-you messages (not mass emails) make volunteers feel valued and more likely to help with future events.
2. Share Final Results
Pull final standings from your tenant dashboard and download or screenshot the scoreboard.
Share top performers (with permission), completion rates, interesting stats (average score, hardest questions), and event photos. Good places to share are a recap email, social media, your organization's newsletter, or internal channels.
3. Enable Continued Access
Participants automatically retain access to the game. They can keep investigating, revisit challenges, review wrong answers, or finish the module at their own pace.
Tell them clearly: "Your KC7 account remains active. You can log back in anytime to continue your investigation, review challenges, or improve your score."
First Week After Event
4. Gather Feedback
Send a 3-5 minute participant survey covering overall experience, difficulty, what they learned, likelihood to participate again, likelihood to recommend, and suggestions. Use the Participant Feedback Survey template or a Google Form.
Response Tip: Offer an incentive for completing the survey, such as entry into a prize drawing or early notification about your next event.
Then complete the Host Self-Evaluation. Document attendance vs. registration, completion rates, average scores, what worked, what didn't, and improvements for next time.
5. Collect Testimonials
Reach out to top performers and engaged participants while enthusiasm is high. Ask permission to use quotes publicly, capture specific learning outcomes, and grab photos if you have releases.
Use testimonials in promotion for future events, sponsor reports, marketing materials, social posts, and case studies.
Example request: "We'd love to hear about your experience. Would you be willing to share a brief testimonial about what you learned or enjoyed? We may use your feedback to promote future KC7 events."
6. Review Analytics
Pull your tenant dashboard analytics and look at completion rate, score distribution, hardest challenges, time spent per section, and where people got stuck. This tells you whether the difficulty was right, which concepts need more support, and whether your time allocation worked.
See Performance & Analytics for details.
First Month After Event
7. Share Resources for Continued Learning
Help participants keep going. Useful categories to send:
Career resources: cybersecurity career guides, certifications, local orgs, internships, educational programs
Practice opportunities: your next KC7 event, CTFs, online courses, free practice environments
Community connections: KC7 Discord, your org's cybersecurity group, professional associations, mentorship programs
8. Maintain Community Connections
If you want an ongoing program, set up a community space (Discord, Slack, email list, or social group) and share regular updates on cybersecurity news, upcoming events, alumni success stories, and new KC7 content.
Follow-up activities that work include alumni reunions, advanced challenges, guest speakers, career panels, and networking events.
Privacy Note: Only add participants to mailing lists or communities if they opt in. Always include unsubscribe options.
9. Report to Stakeholders
For sponsors and leadership, share attendance numbers, demographics, feedback highlights, learning outcomes, photos, testimonials, plans for future events, and engagement-based ROI.
For the KC7 Foundation, complete the Post-KC7 Cyber Competition Survey. It triggers digital badges for participants, contributes to platform improvement, and unlocks additional support.
Digital Badges: KC7 provides digital badges that participants can add to their LinkedIn profiles and resumes, highlighting the cybersecurity skills they've developed.
Planning Your Next Event
10. Build on Your Success
With a tenant in place, additional events get easier. You can create games instantly without waiting for approval, mix in different modules, organize games into classrooms by audience, and track results across events.
Ideas worth trying include monthly or quarterly competitions, separate beginner and advanced tracks, team-based events, inter-organization tournaments, or themed events tied to Cybersecurity Awareness Month.
See Managing Games.
11. Grow Your Event Series
Use what you learned. Scale by inviting more participants, adding co-hosts, upgrading prizes, or partnering with other organizations. Add variety with different modules, formats, guest speakers, or workshops. Build tradition with regular dates, annual championships, recognition programs, and alumni networks.
Supporting Long-Term Participants
12. Create Advanced Opportunities
For participants who want to go deeper, host events with harder modules, custom extensions, team-based investigations, or longer competitions.
Invite experienced participants into leadership roles as volunteers, peer mentors, alumni speakers, or student co-hosts.
For career development, connect participants with cybersecurity professionals, facilitate internships, offer letters of recommendation, and build industry connections.
Post-Event Timeline
Within 24 hours: Send thank-yous, share the scoreboard and highlights.
Within 1 week: Send a feedback survey, complete your self-evaluation, request testimonials, review analytics.
Within 2 weeks: Compile survey results, share outcomes with stakeholders, complete the KC7 Foundation post-event survey, send continued learning resources.
Within 1 month: If building an ongoing program, create a community space, plan your next event, document lessons learned.
Ongoing: Maintain community connections through resources, event announcements, and continued learning support.
Quick Reference: Essential Follow-Up Actions
Essential for all events: Thank participants and supporters, share final results, send a feedback survey, complete the KC7 Foundation post-event survey, review analytics.
Recommended for most events: Collect testimonials, share continued learning resources, report results to stakeholders.
For ongoing programs: Plan your next event, create community spaces, build alumni networks, establish a regular series.
Next Steps
Need follow-up email templates? See Templates & Materials
Want to create more games? Learn about Using Your Tenant
Looking for community support? Join the KC7 Discord
Planning another event? Return to Getting Started
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