Marketers have been planning and executing events for decades in order to build and foster meaningful relationships with both current and prospective customers. However, despite the longstanding history of events within the marketing industry, there’s often a disconnect between what the executive leadership team hopes to gain from these events, and what attendees are expecting.
For the leadership team, events are focused on garnering and increasing sales, profit, and loyalty, all while staying on budget, but for the attendees, it’s more than that. Events are a powerhouse of networking opportunities, learning opportunities, and an experience that allows them to learn more about what’s on the horizon for a brand and industry. Event marketers are left to bridge the gap between the two groups, while also focusing on sponsorships, sales, profitability, and of course, delivering an event that exceeds expectations, generates excitement and social buzz, and leaves attendees feeling valued and wanting to return in the future.
It’s a fine line for event marketers to walk, trying to meet the often contradicting expectations of both internal and external stakeholders. Creating an experience that meets leadership standards can often lead to a negative experience for the customer, and vice versa, making it extremely challenging for event marketers to ensure all parties are satisfied with the outcome. Plus, the pandemic of 2020 threw an additional challenge at event marketers, as they now have to navigate conflicting expectations across in-person, remote, and hybrid environments. In this piece, we will delve into the formula for an effective event that achieves harmony between the leadership team and attendees while ensuring a successful and memorable event.
Going beyond wining and dining
Corporate events have long been something that many look forward to. They are a time to get outside of the office and network or meet up with colleagues we haven’t been able to see in a while. Between the happy hours, networking events, and shared dinners, it’s simple for an event marketer to get swept away in securing a reservation at the newest restaurant in town and calling it a night. But, times have changed, and with that, so have expectations.
While hybrid events were crucial during the pandemic to uphold that sense of community, we’re in a post-pandemic world, and in-person events are on the rise. Often, attendees are traveling to an event and investing their time and resources into it, leaving it up to the marketing team to make it worthwhile. Event attendees are more focused on gaining skills, networking, and exposure to those around them – plus having a little fun while they’re there.
In the modern world, attendees have a desire to roll their sleeves up and participate in hands-on experiences. Live demos, workshops, and interactive sessions are all great ways to connect with attendees and ensure they’re gaining valuable knowledge and skills at an event. This keeps attendees engaged and entertained while building a memorable experience, as opposed to a one-off networking dinner. Immersive experiences, when done right, are also gaining traction and could be a potential alternative to the traditional wining and dining experience that most attendees expect.
Direct access to the experts
The executive leadership team often relies on events to connect their client account teams to potential or current customers to help foster familiarity and loyalty in the relationship By creating direct access to product experts and executive leaders, the conversation can be steered in a favorable direction. Marketers know that attendees want straight-from-the-source access to spokespeople and experts who can provide firsthand knowledge and possibly insider or sneak peak information into coming innovations.
Attendees have questions, and they should! That’s what events are for – connection and conversation. Learning comes through questions, and the experts can connect directly with attendees to answer them.
In a world that values transparency, especially from brands and companies, organic conversations are essential. It’s also important to not forget that conversations need to be available with more than just experts and SMEs. Attendees are looking to speak with a wide variety of titles, customers and clients included, as they can provide valuable insights and a unique perspective that the internal team cannot. Often, customers connecting with one another discover new ways to leverage different or expanded services from your brand, making direct customer connections a powerful upselling tactic at events.
Overall, providing attendees with the chance to connect with experts and peers to discuss their concerns and questions will leave the attendees feeling heard and valued.
Be mindful and intentional with sponsorships
Events are expensive – it’s a fact marketers will always face. One way to ensure that budget and revenue are maintained is through event sponsorships. Despite sponsorships being an excellent way to help offset the cost for a company, they can also negatively impact the customer and attendee experience when overdone.
There’s a balance to be found between booking sponsors and representing them at your event without coming across solely as a sales pitch. Careful vetting of all sponsors and encouraging them to get creative and interactive with how they showcase their solutions at your event are examples of how marketers can have more control over what attendees might experience at a sponsor booth.
Each sponsorship at an event needs to be meaningful and aligned with your brand’s mission and goals. If a sponsor is misaligned to the brand, it runs the risk of having attendees and customers turn away. Guidelines, careful vetting, and collaborating on communications with sponsors can help ensure that the sponsorship aligns with all of the goals, themes, and objectives of the event. This should also include close collaboration on sponsor breakout sessions to avoid a session solely focused on pitching the vendor’s product.
Networking is still queen
One of the main draws to an event is networking. Attendees are provided with unlimited access to resources, other attendees, experts, and more. But networking isn’t one-dimensional. In-person events provide a unique opportunity for everyone to go beyond traditional networking and focus on facilitated networking. This means going beyond formal case studies and sessions, creating opportunities for more natural, casual connections.
To do this, organizers need to focus on a more organic, match-making style of networking. This can be done by leveraging roundtable discussions in a casual setting to facilitate more engagement from attendees or using live demos and hands-on experiences to put the attendees into smaller breakout groups. Gamification is also a unique tactic that event marketers can use to encourage networking at events. Allowing attendees to work together, or compete against each other, through networking games will not only increase conversations and engagement but provide a low-stress environment for connections to be formed.
To ensure executives get the most out of event networking as well, it’s important to carefully plan their schedules to allow for facetime with the most high-value customers, influencers, partners, and prospects, ensuring they fully experience the value of live engagements.
Post-event connections
The event doesn’t stop just because the last session ends or the venue doors close. One important, yet often overlooked, aspect of an event is the post-event evaluation and feedback. Connecting with attendees and giving them a space to share any notes, feedback, room for improvement, or simply just praise, can have a longstanding impact on future events.
For marketers who are tasked with maintaining everyone’s expectations and delivering a memorable event, post-event feedback is crucial. In order for the attendees’ and the executive leadership teams’ goals to be met, feedback is key to elevating and improving future events. Having valuable insights into what attendees found useful and what they believe could be improved can help event marketers communicate with their internal teams to better align and satisfy all parties involved in the future.
Events are a go-to and trusted engagement tool for a reason. But because of the high level of investment that goes into an event, marketers are under pressure to deliver on the ROI. Executing a successful event takes a village, and these tips and tricks will help balance expectations from internal and external stakeholders and ensure both feel valued, appreciated, and connected to the brand.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ashleigh Cook, CMO at RainFocus
Ashleigh is an accomplished marketing executive with deep expertise in sales, marketing, and product best practices and technology. Currently the CMO at RainFocus, she is driven by a passion for helping high-growth companies establish and scale marketing functions to deliver an exceptional customer experience that aligns with rapidly changing expectations and technology advancements. RainFocus is the next-generation event marketing platform built to capture and analyze unprecedented amounts of first-party data for exceptional events and optimized engagement throughout the customer journey. The platform integrates with sales and marketing technologies, simplifying event registration, content management, and exhibitor activation across in-person, virtual, and hybrid experiences, all from a single dashboard. Leveraging real-time data, RainFocus provides actionable insights to drive personalization, accelerate qualification and lead conversion, and close deals.