The Attendee Profile – answering the question “Who is Attending?” has always been an X factor for Event Marketers. It is a key metric exhibitors evaluate pre- post-event, and drives satisfaction with an event and influences re-sign decisions. I’m sure at one point you’ve heard feedback of “Exhibitors are not happy because there were too many vendors attending as delegates.” Or event attendees were “too junior,” “the wrong function,” or lacking in some other demographic.
To a point such feedback can be expected: you can’t please everybody. However, with exhibitors’ budgets coming under increased scrutiny, effective Event Marketing needs to focus on – and react to – not only quantity but quality of registrations in 2010. Gone are the days of getting X number of attendees in a room or a hall, patting ourselves on the back and saying “Well done!” Decision-makers in sponsorship circles are under increased pressure to prove and justify that their investment delivered the interaction, leads and conversions they planned for when signing onto the event. And that pressure, ultimately, falls on the shoulders of Event Marketers in the form of getting the right bodies there.
To help exhibitors justify spend, according to B2B Magazine, The Trade Show Exhibitors Association has formed an advocacy committee to push for the use of audits. [Yes, this is as ominous as it sounds. An audit, briefly, conducted by an outside organization such as BPA Worldwide, independently verifies the attendance figures claimed.] According to the article audits, which have been a mainstay in publishing for many years, are now being requested by a growing number of exhibitors.
Here are four thoughts, strategies and tactics you can – and should – be utilizing to leading up to an event help you ultimately, deliver a positive attendee and exhibitor experience:
- Event Marketers need to be engaged in the earliest phases of the planning cycle. You need to be on board in understanding and contributing to content formulation to ensure it aligns to the target market you are responsible for recruiting. Content is King: if you are seeking to attract VP-level attendees but content and sessions are addressing tactical topics … the VP you are targeting will see this and will send his subordinates. Game over.
- Best practice: Monitor. Make it a point to regularly review reports to ensure registrations are fitting the mold both in volume and demographics. Understand your registration patterns and continually analyze where registrations are coming from. If there is a list, internal segment, social media source or channel that is drawing too many or too few of the right/wrong attendee, be nimble enough to react.
- Work with your sponsors. As I wrote in an earlier post, this takes time and effort, but working with exhibitors – in coordination with your sales team – to engage them in reaching out to their contacts is important. There is certainly pushback and challenges around executing these efforts, including “why would I want my client on the show floor where my competitors are?” The message should be around your seamlessly working to invite their prospects - the message being “Wouldn’t you like that prospect that’s been in your pipeline for six months at the event?”
- Leverage Team Send. Develop an incentive: once you have a “good” contact registered, engage them in inviting others. Pending bandwidth, this is a great opportunity to roll out the “white glove” approach to people who have committed to your event. A phone call or personalized note is both a great CRM effort and works toward building ancillary attendance.
As a side note, nothing regarding event attendance communications should happen in a vacuum. All team members who interface with event participants need to be on the same page regarding what is communicated, whether the interaction is with exhibitors/prospects, press, or even other attendees. This includes working, and communicating, cross-functionally throughout the course of the campaign, discussing variations in demographic trending - what and how to speak to unavoidable changes in this trending. These can be difficult discussions, but ones that ultimately serve the betterment of the event in the end.
Good luck!
John
With the new year (and, possibly, a new decade – but that’s an argument for another day) upon us, the vestiges of the old are behind us … or are they?
I recently came across an email promotion for the upcoming Event Marketing Summit, and was, honestly, disappointed by the structure and tone of it, especially coming from an organization that provides such useful content as Event Marketer magazine, the Event Marketing Institute and both the Eventpeeps.com online network and LinkedIn group.
In case you missed it, the email reads:
My overall take is that this is just a legacy push email – the type of communication that has given email marketing a bad rep. Given the excitement and opportunities surrounding email today, I’m surprised there wasn’t more forward-thinking communications being utilized to promote an event on Event Marketing.
Looking more closely, there are also some particular facets of the email that bothered me, starting with the Subject Line of "EM Summit ridiculous discount pricing expires in two days; Sign up now to save $400"
- Maybe it’s me, but when I saw “EM Summit,” my first thought was “Email Summit.” It's not clear which event this is for – simply put, Event Marketing should have been spelled out. Although the “From” line does specify Event Marketing Summit, its incorrectly assuming the recipient would make the connection.
- “ridiculous”: A $400 discount is not 'ridiculous.' It’s nice – but we’ve all seen many events with this Early Bird discount. Also – 'ridiculous' can have different connotations – certainly the intent is to be positive in this case, but can also be interpreted as silly, absurd, etc.
- Timing is everything: I get it – savings before the New Year (which, for some reason, is not spelled out in the Subject Line) – but sending an offer with a 2-day actionable turnaround during a holiday when many individuals are not in the office – especially with the deadline-based incentive – is not a recipe for success.
As much as an issue was the body of the email – upon opening it the message is:
- Headline/opening sentence: A reaffirmation of the ‘ridiculous’ advanced discount.
- Second paragraph: A call to action … and another push of the $400 savings.
- Third paragraph: A third push of that $400 discount. And a reminder that it is only available through December 31.
By the third paragraph, the email is redundant. In other words, there was no message behind the message; it had very little to say. Given the sensitivities around the volume of email in people’s inboxes today, what is again disappointing is that this email was for an event on Event Marketing – with sessions and speakers who will, I would hope, advise attendees not to utilize this types of communication.
Finally, possibly most problematic is that the 'big' (I’ll refrain from calling it ridiculous) discount expires before the event content is available. As noted on the landing page the email drives to, “The program will be announced in January. But by then the lowest rates will be gone!” In short, the push is for registrations before content is detailed.
As much as I am an advocate of good, creative Event Marketing as a key contributor to the success of an event, I know that content is key to driving attendees. Unless targeting an event alumni familiar with the event’s historical quality and content (which this email was not, the recipient was not a prior attendee), going to market with messaging around registering for an event, providing an average discount, and not offering content to justify the registration decision strikes me as … well … ridiculous.
Hoping this email is the symbolic death knell of a challenging year, and let's keep the focus on best practices - and exceptional results - in our 2010 initiatives.
Good luck and Happy New Year!
John
Update: January 25, 2010 - I do want to mention a brilliant article regarding this post which appeared in yesterday's New York Times giving a very succinct case-in-point. Thank you Neal Hirschfeld!
I don’t think I’m the only one who is very ready to say goodbye to 2009 and anticipate 2010. Not to say there have not been success and new initiatives this year – but it has been difficult for many, including the event industry and the event marketing profession.
Given the challenges of the past 12 months and its impact on our interactions, in the coming year there is one thing we should all incorporate – both professionally and personally: DECENCY.
Not to imply that the difficulties of the recession have turned us into indecent people. Far from that, I think the impact of the economy has grown our collective stress level and flipped the Self-Survival Switch on high, causing us to lose focus on the professional decency and connectivity which has served the event marketing community so well over time. And it’s time to get it back.
How?
• Take the call/answer the message. Yes, there are deadlines, meetings and a “Things to Do” list a mile long. And no, you don’t want to work endless hours. But picking up the phone – even to say ‘thanks but no thanks’ - is the professional alternative to not taking a call, and more in the vein of how we should be conducting ourselves. Also, realize this: by not responding to a request for marketing partnership / barter, ignoring a call from a vendor or somebody in transition seeking your help in looking to network, you could well be incurring opportunity cost. Now is as good a time as any to be open to innovation, talk to new people, try a new initiative and break away from the “we don’t do that” mentality.
• Be respectful of others’ bandwidths – on the flipside of the above, be sensitive to others' constraints and schedules. While being as quirky as to adhere to Larry David and his Stop and Chat rules is not a necessity, but be cognizant of others’ time in the work environment. Anybody who knows me knows I have an open door policy: if they needed to bounce an idea off me, discuss an issue, etc; as I’m not the best at saying “come back later.” That's my issue. But making a mental note to ask “do you have a minute/five minutes” – and stick to it – when grabbing a colleague’s ear is the an invaluable tactic.
• Be cognizant of the impact of words and actions – and in turn, how they can impact us. The additional workload (or, ironically, the lack of work) can put anybody on edge. Take a deep breath and think before replying, hitting the ‘send’ or the ‘publish’ button. One bad moment can mar a professional reputation you’ve spent a lot of time and effort to establish!
Again, I get it: time is tight. It’s been a tough stretch (trust me I know!). But although it’s not something they cover in business school, I’m a big believer in karma, that making the investment of acting and treating people decently repays itself tenfold. And that we should, as event marketers, look to make the personal comment to professional decency in 2010. The ROI will be there.
A Happy, Safe and Successful 2010 to all!
Good luck!
John
The plethora of Top Ten Lists are out – either Trends for 2010 or Best/Worst Lists of 2009. As you’ve probably perused enough of these lists at this point, I’ll truncate and offer my list of One Priority that Event Marketers Need to Focus on in the Coming Year:
1. Retention
Given the year the economy – and in turn the events industry – has been through, it is time for Event Marketing leaders to strategize and make an investments in developing and implementing strong attendee retention strategies. In many cases, event marketing has been in “churn mode” for too long – continually putting time, effort and investment into attendee acquisition activities without a plan in place to manage attendees post-event. Part of this is understandable – managing the frequency and volume of events from a marketing perspective is a daunting proposition. However, now is the time to develop, execute and – most importantly – stick with – a retention strategy to ensure long-term survival.
Why now? A couple of reasons:
1. Cost – although there is not a set metric in place, it is more expensive to acquire a prospect than it is to retain them – in other words, bringing a cold prospect through the entire AIDA cycle costs more than a person who is already beyond, at least, the Attention/Interest phases. (Tracking and testing the cost per attendee without any retention initiatives in place vs. how the initiatives impact the cost is also important – if nothing else, as an internal benchmark.)
2. Reputation – A retention program in place will re-focus your communication channels so that they map to the various audience segments you define. As you learn more about your attendees – their functionality, buying patterns, needs, etc. – and develop actions around this knowledge, it will lead to their receiving and (hopefully) registering for future events via the channel and timing they prefer – and will decrease push communications and, by extension, challenges around today's SPAM prevalent environment. Having a program in place will also, almost by definition, ensure a new focus placed on the customer/attendee - pre-event, onsite, and post event, cross-functionally various stakeholders should be working to ensure there is a renewed urgency on customer satisfaction (especially if the emphasis on Retention is coming driven top-down!) if the strategy is to encourage them to come back next year/for another event.
3. Most importantly, The Tools are There: Database modeling services have been with us for a while; however, over the past year Social Media had developed into something that can provide Event Marketers with a number of tools to effectively incorporate into a retention strategy. Facebook fan pages and groups, LinkedIn groups, Webinars, communities built with Ning, YouTube, Twitter, Slideshare, etc. are some of the portals that can be utilized to share information and knowledge and keep your contacts abreast of your content and activities. (Of course, traditional offline and email channels are part of the mix as well.)
How you do it is up to you – but the timing is right for you to plan and execute on this. And do plan for the long-term – results, by definition, will not be immediate, but will be worthwhile.
Good luck!
And all the best for a Happy Holiday and a terrific 2010!!!
John
One of the challenging strategies Event Marketers are faced with is speaker engagement – or effectively answering the age-old question “how do I get my speakers to reach out to their clients and prospects?” I’ve seen numerous tactics employed – from arranging discounts to developing a tailored package/communication to website buttons and banners for speakers to utilize. And these efforts are, more often than not, not fruitful.
Part of the challenge is bandwidth – a speaker, typically a consultant and/or plenary thought-leader is, to turn a phrase, just not into to your event – they’re into to their content. Looking at the scenario through their eyes, as good as your event is, to a speaker it is a block of time in their calendar, a commitment to contribute content, their presence to a target audience and, with any luck, a decent honorarium. They are typically not equipped or aligned to help promote your event to their contacts – as beneficial as it may be to them.
Andy Sernovitz, in his Damn, I Wish I’d Thought of That blog, recently detailed a great promotion he used to promote Gaspedal’s upcoming Word of Mouth Supergenius! conference (being held next week in Chicago.) Using Word of Mouth Marketing (Gaspedal’s forte), the campaign cut through clutter and engaged speakers to blog about the initiative. And the event. AND actively promoted a personal Speaker discount, to boot.
How?
T-shirts.
Check out Andy’s blog post and video to learn about the promotion, but in a nutshell, for the promotion, personalized T-shirts were sent to each of the 30 speakers, each with a speaker-specific discount code, with a note attached asking the speaker to a) photograph themselves with the T-shirt and b) blog about what a fun, great promotion it was and, of course, tie it into the upcoming event.
The subliminal supergenius around this effort is that, despite what Andy says about it not being about speakers blogging about their participation (having them write, as he says, “Yes I’m speaking about a conference, please go,” which he notes is not interesting), in the end it really is doing just that. It’s speakers writing about a fun Word of Mouth effort for … well … a Word of Mouth event.
And while I think this is a great idea and do want to pass it on, I am not suggesting everybody reading this Google “personalized T-shirts” as the lesson learned; for example I’m guessing this type of promotion would not be as germane for the Society of Neuroscience’s annual event. This was an example of event marketing recognizing it’s audience and it’s speakers and thinking through and executing a promotion which would engage both. So, as Event Marketers, the take-away is for you to think through and strategize how to engage your speakers for your event; how to get them to start an interesting conversation and get people talking and thinking about your event.
And please do feel free to share any success stories you may have!
Good luck!
John
I’ve been involved with some onsite event evaluations of late. It’s absolutely not the most exciting or engaging topic but one worth revisiting, as I’d suggest it’s an avenue too often overlooked in gathering marketing intelligence.
As I think about it, I do not recall seeing an organization which engaged the Marketing Department in developing these surveys – they are seen much more something to be handled by event producers focused on content and operations teams’ looking for feedback on the physical attributes itself. Which is fair enough, there is an inarguable need for these as feedback channels. However, marketing needs to be proactively involved in the formulation of the survey as well.
For example (and not to be critical of it), the survey I refer to above was multiple pages. The attendee was only required to answer one or two questions on many of the pages, the fact is that as an attendee, I would have been daunted by the size of it. And many people who responded were – reviewing these particular surveys, few were complete. In addition, within the context of the questions – which drilled down on food, venue, whether attendees preferred standing microphone, roving microphone, written question, etc. for Q&A did not ask the simple question: “What was the most valuable aspect of this event for you?” Again, this is not to be critical of this particular survey, I’ve seen many which have, in not having marketing input, have missed out on a chance to gain key insight.
And as Marketing Departments get more involved in the onsite survey development, a few thoughts to leverage their effectiveness:
- Vet the survey prior to printing: Onsite surveys are, by definition, an inward-looking document, and it is too easy to get involved in internal thought/process in formulating questions. Give the survey to an outsider – spouse, friend, etc. – and ask “does this make sense to you?” The input from an outsider can be eye-opening.
- Ask actionable questions: drill-down questions are fine, but ask and include questions you can influence or provides insight to help you deliver a better product. In some form (graded scale, Yes/No, etc.) questions like “what is the value add?,” “why did you attend?,” “how did you first hear about this event?” (Even more important as the influence of social media grows) are invaluable.
- Think through formatting: This can be tricky, but make sure responses to questions all receive equal treatment in layout. I recently saw a survey with a fairly benign question with response heavily weighted towards one answer – and I could not help think it was because the response was positioned at the end of the question, with the remaining dropping down to the next line.
- Think green!: There are a multitude of online survey tools available; if you have not already considered it, think about using these as opposed to paper surveys. Outside of saving forests, this presents quicker response time, better ability to analyze responses, etc. I was at an event where a colleague with a hand-held got his Survey during the event’s evening reception. Certainly made the survey front-of-mind for him!
So again, as 2009 winds down and 2010 ramps up, one small “to do” for event marketing leaders to add to their list of New Year’s Resolutions is go get pro-actively involved in the onsite survey development and dissemination processes.
Good luck! And Happy Thanksgiving to those stateside!
John
I recently had the opportunity to observe the development and execution of a successful event (yes, there are still successful events to be held!), Econsultancy's Peer Summit. Held in New York City on October 8, the event was invitation only, and ended up first selling out attendance prior to the event, and secondly seeing very little attrition on-site (quite a coup, given the event was complimentary).
Some background: the Peer Summit was the introduction/launch event for Econsultancy in the U.S.; Econsultancy, headquartered in the UK, is a community-based publisher, focused on best practice digital marketing and ecommerce. With an office in the U.S. opening earlier this year, the event was a vehicle to deliver its value proposition through the event's content a roundtable-discussion based format.
So why did the event succeed? It was essentially a lesson in back-to-basics – the ground-floor underpinnings that have traditionally driven event marketing success. But it's a lesson worth reviewing as the events calendar wraps up the 2009 season and moves into 2010:
1. Keeping goals and objectives reasonable: One of Econsultancy’s challenges at the outset was that it was a launch event. To that end, they set reasonable expectations and goals regarding attendance. Econsultancy has run several Peer Summit-type events in Europe; rather than assuming they could replicate their success in the US immediately, Econsultancy planned and budgeted a more reasonable attendee number. As importantly, this audience quantity (and quality) was communicated to event sponsors, so expectations were aligned across the board.
2. Defining the product (event): The Peer Summit was not meant to be – nor communicated as – an “all things to all people” endeavor. It had a defined target audience and communication plan geared to attracting client-side digital marketing executives. Being a one-day event in New York City, marketing was targeted to local executives. There were no delusions that individuals would flock from across the US to attend. And as an invitation-only event, the audience was specific. This admittedly can’t be as controlled at a paid event – but it does speak to ensuring that in whichever event scenario is being planned that key audiences and correlating outreach is identified.
3. Having a contingency plan in place: The event did not necessitate a last-minute scramble for delegates, as there were specific tactics in place and executed upon to drive and retain attendees. Secondary plans were also in place – so if there was a need for ancillary activity, these were defined.
While this is an over-simplification of what produces a successful event, it is certainly the components at the core. If any of these elements are missing in the strategic marketing and execution of an event, said event is certainly inviting itself to challenges … ones that can make the difference between struggles and … success!
Good luck!
John
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