Tag: event marketing

Why Post-Event Engagement Is a Big Deal – Part One

Posted on by Eventsforce

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A new research study from MeetingsNet has found that professional development is the main reason attendees attend events. Of course, the extent of this does really depend on the type of events you run – but generally, when you look at the factors that determine whether or not someone decides to sign up to an event, education, networking and destination always come up top.  And as event organisers, these are probably the three most common areas we consistently promote in the marketing activities we do around our events.

Industry Poll- (1)While many of us may be seasoned experts in creating engaging events that do well in fulfilling these attendee expectations, it can be hard to maintain this level of engagement once the event is done.  In fact, an industry poll from Eventsforce this month found that an overwhelming 91% of event planners find post-event engagement a challenge.

So, what can we do about this and why should it matter?  Interestingly, it goes back to education and networking.

Why Is Post-Event Engagement Important?

Suppose you’ve just had a great event and the feedback’s been good.  Your attendees are feeling inspired and ready to share the ideas they’ve learnt.  They also want to connect with the people they met at the event. So, education and networking.  These are the two main reasons attendees came to your event and they are the same two reasons people will continue to engage with you after the event.

Why?  Because learning and connecting with the right kind of people will open up new opportunities and help them become better at what they do.  From their perspective, the event is a means to an end, not an end in itself. So, let’s stop thinking about events as a stand-alone activity and instead look at how it fits into the bigger picture which is our wider audience engagement strategy.

There is an enormous opportunity to use an event as a platform to start new conversations. To continue education and to create a community of like-minded people who want the same things. This not only builds excitement and momentum around the events you’ll be hosting in the future, but it also creates a greater sense of loyalty around your brand and what it represents.

Listen, Listen, Listen

Untitled design (96)If your post-event engagement strategy is facilitating education and networking, then you need to focus on delivering value.  And value comes from determining how people engaged with your event in the first place – from the email marketing campaign you used to launch your event website, to registration, social media, mobile apps, surveys and so on. Find out how your attendees engaged with your event across all these different data points and you’ll be in a good position to figure out what will work and what won’t.

Here are some examples of the kind of questions you should be asking when determining how people engaged with your event:

  • How did they interact with the event website? Google Analytics is a very powerful tool that can help you figure out where your visitors and registrations are coming from, the journey people take through the site and the content and pages on your site that are the most/least popular. Read more about it here.
  • Breaking down attendees by type can really help you with your post-event engagement strategy and the key to this is your registration system.  What kind of information did they supply in their forms?  Are you able to use that data to segment attendees into different categories or industries?  Are they new or returning visitors?  Who were they interested in meeting with at your event?  For example, knowing that 70% of your attendees were female marketing managers from London who love networking can give you the intelligent data you need to help you personalise experiences before, during and after the event.

Sophisticated data capture tools – like the Eventsforce event management system – help event planners collect and analyse valuable information on their events and attendees. Have a look at how you can use registration systems to personalise content for attendees: ’7 Easy Ways of Using Your Registration Process to Personalise Events’.

  • How did they use the event app? Look at your app analytics to see what features attendees used and what wasn’t of interest to them. Look at the kind of content they were interested in downloading, how they used the networking tools, how they engaged with speakers during sessions, whether they were interested in meeting exhibitors or attending seminars and so on.
  • What sessions did they attend? What did they register for but were unable to attend? Which sessions were popular and which had a lot of no-shows?  This kind of information can easily be captured by your event management system and can help you determine topics, questions and speakers that resonated with people at the event.
  • How did they engage with others at the event? Proximity solutions like NFC and RFID are helping event planners and exhibitors better understand visitor footprints on the show floor to determine hot and cold spots.   It can give a good indication of what grabbed the interest of attendees, which booths were popular or whether or not they were able to visit all the booths they had originally shown interest in.
  • What feedback did they provide on surveys and polls? What did they like about your event and what didn’t meet their expectations?  Which speaker stood out for them?  Were they able to get everything they want or do they need more information? And of course, would they come again? All this information will provide you with useful insight when determining your post-event engagement activities.
  • How did they engage with your event on social media? Were there some platforms more effective than others?  What content were they sharing with their own networks? What engaged them emotionally and what was educational? Were there any negative posts and how were they dealt with?

Looking at all these different areas and learning how your attendees engaged with your event will form the basis of your post-event content strategy.

NEXT WEEK:  How to keep the conversation going – we’ll be looking at how to put together a post-event content strategy, along with 10 great ideas that will boost your long-term audience engagement.

Want to be a tech-savvy event planner? Sign up to the weekly EventTech Talk newsletter here and get updates on all the latest technology trends, discussions and debates shaping the events industry today

 

 

10 Easy Tips for Designing Great Event Websites

Posted on by Eventsforce

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Websites are still one of the most powerful marketing tools for events today. They provide people with information.  They educate.  They entertain.  Ultimately, they get people to sign up to your event.  But if your website has too much information, doesn’t look appealing and more importantly, doesn’t create a sense of excitement around your event, then chances are people are going to go elsewhere.

Thanks to recent advancements in technology, you no longer need to be an expert in web design to put together a great looking site for your event.  Most event management solutions these days offer web design tools that have an abundant choice of templates that make the whole process a whole lot easier.  But speed and convenience isn’t everything.   People make conclusions about an event very quickly through its website and it’s important to make a good impression from the start.

We had a chat with web designer, Dan Auty, who has worked on event websites for companies like Peugeot, BP and The Law Society, to discuss some of the latest trends in web design and look at some of the key things organisations need to think about when building websites for their events:

Untitled design (79)1) Get to the Point!

No one really looks at a web page for more than 10 seconds, so focus on your event’s key message.  Make sure that anyone coming to the landing page of your site can quickly scan it, understand what the event is about, find out when and where it’s happening and how they can register.  Stick to one paragraph and avoid long-winded introductions – chances are people are not going to read it, especially if they already have an idea about your event through the invitation link that led them to the site in the first place. Make sure that the date, location and your CTA button (ex. ‘Register Now’), are positioned above the fold and that they’re available on each page of your site.  If you make it difficult for visitors to find this information, they will leave.

2) Showcase Your Main Selling Points

Make sure your landing page has something that grabs the visitor’s attention. You can feature a well-known guest speaker or even testimonials from celebrities or high-profile attendees that came to your last event. If your venue is in an attractive location like Las Vegas or the Caribbean, then use large colourful location shots that get people excited about the experience they’ll have around the event.  Las Vegas at night is an attractive image to a lot of people, regardless of what the event is about.

Untitled design (83)3) Use Strong Visuals

Over the last few years, websites are putting a lot more emphasis on the use of visuals like images, graphics and videos. Think about the visual draw of your event that isn’t necessarily the subject matter. You can use pictures of your event location or venue – exterior and interior shots of fancy or well-known facilities usually work well.  Or you can use images of your guest speakers or the cocktail party you had at your last event.

What you want to avoid is pictures of people speaking at podiums or attendees sitting in dingy seminar rooms.  Also, try to avoid using generic stock photos of people having meetings in boardrooms etc. –  instead, use real images from your previous events. And if you can’t find the right photo, try using illustrations in your visual mix.  You can easily say a lot through a well-designed graphic.

4) Video is a Big Deal

Video content marketing has been gaining a lot of momentum over the last few years. In fact, a recent industry poll from Eventsforce revealed that 84% of event planners are using video as part of their marketing efforts to promote their events. Videos gives attendees the opportunity to learn more about your event and they do a good job of conveying the personality of your organisation. They also are a lot more engaging than text –  Forrester Research claims that a minute of video can be equivalent to 1.8 million words!

Videos that automatically play in the background can add a lot to a page but try and limit the ones that play with sound as it can be off-putting for some visitors.  There are many other ways of using videos on your event website – from save-the-date-videos and highlights from your last event to video testimonials, interviews with keynote speakers and informal blog-style videos that can feature tours of your venue. Have a look at this article here for more ideas on using video on your event websites.

Untitled design (81)5) Don’t Forget About Fonts

Many event websites use a particular font or typography that follow the organiser’s corporate guidelines but there are also many out there that choose their own. If you have that choice, then make sure you have think about  it carefully as the typography you decide on can indicate subtle hints about the personality of your event or organisation. Is it a fun event or a serious one?  Is it educational or inspirational?

Web designers used to be limited to certain font types to ensure that it would be supported by common browsers and devices, but this is no longer the case.  There is a large selection of fonts you can choose from – though if you’re stuck, ‘Arial’ is still a popular one as it look good on all types of screens.  You can also look at Google’s range of fonts here, which are all free to use.

6) Colour Schemes

Research from QuickSprout shows that 90% of all product assessments have to do with color. In fact, colour is 85% of the reason you purchase a specific product. So, it’s a no-brainer for any website that colour affects conversions. But colour can be a tricky thing – you have to use it in the right way, at the right time with the right audience.

Again, you may be constrained by your organisation’s branding guidelines but as a general rule, stick to dark coloured text on light backgrounds.  It looks good, gets better engagement and helps in conversions. It also has the added advantage for those site visitors with visual impairments. Sites with low contrast are difficult on the eye for most people but can be especially difficult for people with low vision – bad combinations include blue links on black backgrounds or red text on green.  There is no hard and fast rule as to how much contrast is enough, but it usually isn’t too hard to figure out when certain colour combinations don’t contrast well together.

Untitled design (80)7) Make Site Navigation Easy

Think about the user journey and try and make the path from one page to the next as smooth as possible. Avoid using a lot of drop down menus as they tend to look messy and can take up valuable space on your site.  A lot of people will be looking at your site through mobile devices, so you need to think about how it’s going to look and work on different screens.  Recent research by Tech Crunch, for example, shows that there is a new trend in using top bar menus for mobile instead of the traditional hamburger menu layouts.

Learn from your past events. Have a look at how visitors previously engaged with your event websites using Google Analytics  – it can show you the exact journey visitors took throughout the site, as well as give you some valuable insight on popular pages, conversion rates and the point at which people were abandoning their registrations for your event. It’s also worth testing the navigation of your site by someone who hasn’t been involved in building it to get an objective view on content, functionality and how easy it is to use.

8) Registration Needs to be Simple

The overall look and feel of your registration pages may depend on the kind of registration software you are using for your events. As a general rule, however, try and make your forms as clean and simple as possible. Don’t have too many boxes and don’t ask unnecessary questions. For example, don’t ask  attendees for their mailing addresses if you’re not going to end up using that information. Don’t forget, the more clicks it takes to close a sale, the more excuse your attendees have to walk away.

9) Make it Mobile Responsive

Most event websites today are mobile responsive and if they’re not, they should be. As well as giving your attendees a consistent user experience regardless of what device they view your site on, a responsive web design also helps with SEO.  Google favours mobile-optimised sites and as a result, ranks these sites higher in search results.  In fact, Google now penalises those sites that are not responsive – so all the valuable SEO your site currently has could all go to waste if it’s not viewable on a mobile device.

If your site is mobile responsive,  then it’s easy to have two different websites for your desktop and mobile devices. The layout of your screen (including text and images) can change automatically based on the detected screen size of the user’s device. So if the browser detects a screen smaller than 480 pixels, for example, it will show the Smartphone layout of your site, which doesn’t include the Twitter feed you have on the desktop version. Having the flexibility to drop things in and out depending on the screen size ensures that people are getting the right kind of information as quickly as possible, regardless of the devices they use.

Untitled design (13)10) Have Multilingual Support

Multilingual websites are actually one of the most cost-effective ways of marketing your events. They help attract new attendees, build closer relationships and give your events an international outlook. We’ve seen a number of conferences doing this over the last couple of years for – it helps them stay ahead of the competition.  It also helps with SEO.

It doesn’t need to be a complicated process either. Most event management or registration software these days offer a multilingual module, which allows important pages on your event website including those for registration and agendas to be displayed in several popular world languages of your choice.  For more information on the topic, have a quick read of this article here.

Want your event website to make an impact? Eventsforce can help you create branded mobile-responsive event websites in minutes using its simple content editing interface.  Find out more by getting in touch here.

5 Great Office Christmas Party Ideas – Part One

Posted on by Eventsforce

untitled-design-73It’s that time of year again when rewarding staff and bringing the team together with an office party starts to appear on agendas and to-do lists. Whilst there’s no doubt that organising a Christmas office event brings additional stress and expense (just like tracking down that hard-to find Christmas gift!), getting it right brings greater rewards than you might expect. Read on to see how office Christmas parties help to build a strong team and explore some creative event ideas from London-based corporate hospitality experts, Team Tactics.

Read: 5 Great Office Christmas Party Ideas – Part Two

Team time…and then some

untitled-design-74As well as just being the chance to bring staff teams together to celebrate the season, office Christmas parties can also offer a major boost to how individuals and work teams feel about their work in general and working for their employer specifically, by demonstrating:

  • Appreciation – an office party is a great way to say thanks to staff for their work and productivity over the year.
  • Entertainment – in contrast to a thrown-at-the-last-minute Christmas event, providing a thoughtfully planned, entertaining gathering provides a welcome reward for staff, but can also encourage loyalty and staff retention for the coming year.
  • Community – having opportunity to get everyone together doesn’t always happen often for some businesses, so taking the seasonal opportunity to get everyone together and deliver thanks, rewards, messages, recognition and plans as part of a Christmas event can really bring the work community together with a sense of belonging, something which again supports motivation and staff retention.
  • Team – whilst getting everyone together is great, a party is also a very positive platform for getting those who don’t usually work together to mingle and strike up new friendships and working relationships. This team tangent can be particularly nurtured by organising a party which includes team-building activities, to allow staff to create new relationships. Competitive activities also work well for new teams as breaking down tasks also helps to break down barriers.
  • Opportunity – team-building activities opportunity for staff to develop skills or experience a different position in the team, a great chance for encouraging leading rather than following or for redefining roles and for getting away from that ‘same old’ way of working – a party in the festive season really helps to draw a line under ‘the old’ and shift the focus forwards.
  • Skills – adding in team and individual activities can actually bring an element of training to the fun – and fun to relevant training, for example it’s possible to put a focus on problem-solving and time-management skills in a fun party activity such as a GPS London treasure hunt.

Out of the ordinary – and out of office!

So how can you ensure that this year’s office party delivers such extras as well as the spirit of the season? For one thing, the venue is extremely important and taking time out outside can be the very thing which keeps a team working. Couple this with some seasonal alternatives to the same old eat-drink-circulate and you’ll be delivering something both memorable and motivating…

shop-chop-and-be-merry1) Shop, Chop and Be Merry – office parties are famous for those Christmas tipples which see staff letting their hair down, so cocktail making activities shift easily into the seasonal schedule. Held at a designated bar, a Christmas cocktail making event offers not only a city chic out-of-office venue for creating, as well as raising glasses, but also includes options with the fun of shopping for ingredients. With a full-on buffet included, all the vital ingredients for an imaginative office party are on hand, along with a great team-building cocktail twist.

2) Chisel All the Way – Christmas ice carving workshops are great for team building for 10 to 200 people and can literally be an ice-breaker for new staff or newly assigned teams. One of the strong benefits of this activity is that it’s mobile – but that doesn’t mean it has to come to the office. On the contrary, the workshop can come to any venue such as bar, hotel or conference hall, so that the maximum fun away from the desk can be achieved.

Working together in small teams, staff can carve out new working relationships whilst creating seasonal sculptures and prize-giving / reward activities can also be included after the ice carving, which lasts approximately 60 minutes (before the ice melts)! This can make it a great (and subtle) alternative to dry old ‘time-management’ training as teams (and individuals) work against the clock to achieve results.

3) Christmas Party Bus – a party bus could be the most entertaining thing you can do for a Christmas Party; travelling through the city in style on your very own private bus. The karaoke system and fully stocked cocktail and champagne bar complete the experience aboard the luxurious party bus designed with entertaining in mind.

christmas-outdoor-activities4) Santa’s Day in the Country – outdoor team building activities can provide innovative and memorable alternatives to staffroom office parties. For starters, events take place in stunning countryside and include activities such as rage buggies, quad obstacle courses and sport trials cars. Of course, refreshments including a three course lunch also form part of the day’s schedule along with a prize giving for the day’s races – which can also be adapted to include your own business rewards and celebrations.

This type of team alternative also highlights staff importance because paying your staff to be away from their desks for a whole day to celebrate the season with a fun day of play offers a clear signal to staff that their contributions are valued and appreciated.

5) Yuletide Treasure Hunts – explore your city by completing fun festive challenges including location based trivia and photo challenges. Complete with comical festive hats, this is a great way to explore your city at its Christmassy best.

Finally, any employer who has doubts about affordability of a Christmas party may also want to consider the high costs of the negativity generated by not having a Christmas party. Just as a party will be appreciated and remembered throughout the coming year, so will a Scrooge-effect, so it’s useful to know that staff parties at Christmas can also be tax deductible, making a generous gesture not only memorable and motivating for staff, but also cost-effective.

Want more ideas for your meetings and events?  Have a look at our blog here for 10 creatives ideas to promote your corporate events. Or if you’re looking for advice on how technology can bring more value to your events, please get in touch here.

 

5 Ways You Could Use Virtual and Augmented Reality at Events

Posted on by Eventsforce

Virtual and augmented reality are two of the hottest trends in event tech for 2017. In fact, with the launch of more accessible and affordable devices from the likes of Google, Samsung, Sony, Oculus, HTC and Microsoft in recent months, altered realities have become one of the most fast paced emerging technologies in our industry today.

We’ve seen some incredible applications of demos, videos and experiences that help brands differentiate themselves at exhibitions and conference-style events. At the recent Event Tech Live show in London, the exhibitors that offered interactive experiences were the ones that attracted the most people to their booths – from Noonah’s virtual mirror to a robot on the Festyvent stand that interacted with delegates and even sang songs. In the same way, virtual and augmented reality technologies are helping brands stand out and bring something a little different to the event experience.

Here are five great examples of how virtual and augmented reality have been used to attract crowds and create unique experiences at events:

Coachella Music Festival Virtual Reality App

US music festival Coachella recognised the growing appeal of VR this year by launching a new app and shipping Google Cardboard headsets to attendees alongside their tickets. Debuting ahead of the event, the Coachella VR app was designed to let Cardboard VR, Gear VR, Oculus and Vive owners browse through 360 degree photos from previous festivals and watch interviews from this year’s line-up of artists. 3D virtual tours of the festival grounds let fans familiarise themselves with the layout before they even left the house.[tribulant_slideshow gallery_id="2"]

AHS Fearless Virtual Reality Experience at San Diego Comic-Con

The annual comic book convention in southern California attracts more than 130,000 people each year with hundreds of media companies competing for the attention of fans. This year’s Comic-Con saw many exhibitors turning to VR to promote their movies and TV shows. One experience that particularly stood out was FX Network’s VR journey inspired by American Horror Story (AHS). A purpose-built dome was created outside the convention centre where a psychological immersive experience took participants into the AHS universe.

Upon entering the dome, attendees were met by hosts in white lab coats while calming music played overhead. A series of ‘beds’ were positioned in a pentagon where they were asked to lie down, a sheet placed over them then a HTC Vive headset and headphones were fitted. The experience exploited common phobias such as clowns, vertigo and claustrophobia, and introduced the frightening characters and locations from across the multiple AHS series in a 5-minute video.

By adding group psychology tactics to cutting edge VR technology and some classic theatre trickery,  FX was able to create a more intimate experience. Blurring the lines between reality and fiction resulted in a truly memorable experience for participants with some hardened horror enthusiasts describing it as “absolutely terrifying”. [tribulant_slideshow gallery_id="1"]

Cambridge Yourself Augmented Reality Booth by Noonah Experiential

Noonah Experential partnered with Cambridge University Press to create a fun experience that promoted the publishing business as a digital provider and not just print. Using an AR photo booth, delegates at the event used gestures to take their own photo and appear inside Cambridge University (with real-time video content) without the need for a green screen.

Noonah constructed a triangular structure that would fit onto the corner of the stand with additional viewing monitor to attract other passing delegates. Each visitor to the stand could choose to punt down the river in Cambridge or visit Kings College with each delegate receiving a printed copy of their photo inside a branded photo wallet.

The Cambridge Yourself photo both resulted in more delegates being drawn to the stand as well as increased data collection. Users were impressed by the digital technology allowing the conversation to link seamlessly into Cambridge University Press’ digital products. Noonah also plans to add social sharing to the AR Photo Booth’s features.

Radiant Event Technology’s Virtuacast Augmented Reality Experience

Radiant Event Technology’s Virtuacast was runner-up for the Best Augmented / Virtual Reality Technology Award at the Event Tech Awards. The company has been working with NBA Properties to bring its Virtuacast technology to fans, giving them the opportunity to interact with virtual versions of some of basketball’s biggest stars.

Using pre-recorded video and photo content, Virtuacast marries digital with live interactions in augmented reality. The technology creates the illusion of life size holograms that attendees can see and interact with, then share the resulting video or photo online or via social media. The system consists of a special mat that is set on the floor and an accompanying mobile app. The hologram appears wherever the mat is placed in view of a mobile device’s camera.

As the Virtuacast system just consists of the mat and an app, being a flexible, mobile and lightweight set-up is an ideal tool for consumer engagement at all types of events.

Boursin Sensorium VR Experience by Because Experiential Marketing

Another runner-up for the Best Augmented / Virtual Reality Technology Award at the Event Tech Awards. French cheese brand Boursin wanted to reach a wider, younger audience, and do something unexpected for a brand in a category filled with ‘me-too’ sales promotions. It teamed up with Because Experiential Marketing to create The Boursin Sensorium which toured key food events, combining a VR experience with live sensory engagement to immerse consumers in different flavours.

Using Oculus Rift headsets, consumers were taken inside virtual fridges to experience the best ingredients up close, while tasting various Boursin samples. Personalised videos of their experience were emailed to participants to share on social networks. The campaign resulted in an increased social reach of 5 million, 80k+ video views and 4,800 VR experiences.

Boursin Sensorium VR Experience by Because Experiential Marketing

To read more about what’s hot from Event Tech Live, see 6 Technology Trends from Experts at Europe’s Largest Event Tech Show. You can also watch our video on data integration from ETL at Event Tech Live 2016 – Do More With Your Event Data.

Event Spotlight: Women into Leadership Conferences

Posted on by Eventsforce

Women into LeadershipThe annual series of Women into Leadership conferences has established itself as the main go-to event for people interested in seeing more leadership opportunities for women. The 2016 events were held in London, Leeds and Edinburgh, featuring over 50 speakers and more than 1,000 attendees.

EventTech Talk spoke to Claire Walmsley, Senior Content Manager at Dods – organisers of the event – about her experience of working on Women into Leadership as well as getting some insight into what it takes to be successful in event management.

How far in advance do you usually start planning and booking guests? Do you already have dates scheduled for next year?

Women into Leadership is a year-round project that not only covers multiple venues but also numerous sessions within each one that require extensive planning and advertising. As soon as one event finishes, we will move straight onto revamping the agenda for the following year. The conference agenda is shaped by the suggestions offered from our planning group so it’s essential to get the ball rolling as soon as possible.

We already have the dates for 2017 and have added Cardiff to the list. So we’ll have four events next year, spanning across March, May, September and October. This means we have even more pressure on us to be organised and focus on every detail.

Women into Leadership Conference 2015What would you say was the biggest challenge of planning the Women into Leadership events? How do you prepare for a crisis scenario?

There are lots of very high profile speakers at these events, and they really make the events what they are. The biggest challenge is therefore getting the dates in their diaries as early as possible, and keeping them there! It’s crucial we are as flexible as possible with the agenda for as long as possible, as our senior speakers have competing commitments making their way into their diaries all the time. In terms of crisis management, we always expect some last-minute speaker cancellations so we always make sure we have people who could step in at short notice.

Has anything gone wrong at one of the Women into Leadership events that required a quick response and how was it handled? For example, issues with the venue, tech problems, etc.

Yes – when we arrived on site for Women into Leadership Leeds last month, a miscommunication in our operations team led to no AV being ordered for the event. This meant that, in a room with over 150 delegates, there was no PA system, no microphones, nothing. Luckily, we were able to work with our venue contact to get a hand-held microphone straight away, while the in-house AV team worked on getting a more substantial system (lectern, microphone, panel table microphones, etc.) up and running. By the time our first speaker took to the stage, we were all set-up and ready to go, but it was extremely tight! We almost had to go into that first session with one hand-held microphone between the chairperson, keynote speaker and audience!

How big is the team involved in the planning and execution of the conferences? Do you work on multiple events at once? What project management tools do you use to ensure everyone is up-to-date with each stage of the process?

I work on Women into Leadership year round with support from various teams around the company, including sales and marketing. I have support in terms of agenda and speaker ideas from the FDA [the union for senior public servants and professionals], our event partner, and also a wonderful planning group of civil servants who contribute lots of great ideas for content. I also have my lovely colleagues to call on in particularly busy periods and a brilliant team of Dods staff with me on the day to ensure on-site execution is top notch.

Women into Leadership Conference 2015How do you evaluate the success of your events?

The most immediate feedback comes from social media. Our delegates are really active on Twitter and we can always tell straight away how well particular speakers are going down [see @WiLeadership_UK]. We also have a more formal feedback form process, which I write up into an evaluation report and take with me to the subsequent planning meeting. This provides the basis for the next event.

How does the Eventsforce software benefit your events?

All of our delegates register via Eventsforce, so it’s an essential component of the events. We can tailor the sign-up process to our particular events and delegates always feedback that they find the system to be simple and straight forward – exactly what we need with this volume of delegates!

What do you see as the most important trend in the events industry today?

Women into Leadership Conference 2015From a Women into Leadership perspective, speaker line-ups are definitely becoming more diverse and event managers are very aware that they are being judged on the diversity of their speakers – it’s very important. Gone are the days when an all-male panel was acceptable – our audience want to hear from a diverse range of people, which reflects the society we live in!

Which mobile app or social media platform couldn’t you live without?

Twitter!

Is there any advice that you would give to someone considering a career in event management?

Know your industry. Delegates are attracted to events which show a deep understanding and passion for the topic area. Get on Twitter and sign-up to news bulletins, follow all the relevant organisations/groups/individuals who regularly comment on your industry and keep up-to-date. Knowledge is power, and this could not be more true than when working in events – your agendas really need to reflect the most up-to-date policies and ideas to stand out from the crowd.

Click to get in touchDo you have any anecdotes about any of the events? Or is there a special power you sometimes wish you had when planning/managing them?

I often think about Bernard’s Watch (anyone who grew up with kids’ TV in the 90s will understand the reference!) and how totally amazing it would be to have one of my own at these events. It’s basically a pocket watch which, when you press it, stops time for everyone but you. At the London event, there are six breakout sessions running at the same time and I am running all across the venue just to pop my head into a room and check all the speakers are there and the session is ready to start. I really do need to be in six places at once during these times of the day. If only I had Bernard’s Watch, I could actually do it!

Images © Women into Leadership

 

Event Spotlight: The Festival of Marketing

Posted on by Eventsforce

Festival of Marketing 2016This year’s Festival of Marketing (FOM) took place on 5-6 October at Tobacco Dock in East London. It is the largest global event dedicated to brand marketers with more than 200 speakers, workshops, awards, experience rooms and training sessions. Over the two-day event, more than 4,000 marketing professionals came together to discover, learn, celebrate and shape the future of marketing.

EventTech Talk spoke to Antonios Maropoulos, Festival Coordinator, about his experience of working on the Festival of Marketing as well as what it takes to be successful in event management.

You’ve already announced the dates for FOM17. How far in advance do you usually start planning and booking guests? What is your process timeline?

Festival of Marketing 2017 will take place on the 4-5 October 2017. Booking guests usually starts six to seven months prior to the event. This year we are planning to start registering people as early as possible as planning is a year-long process in itself – part of a forward-looking strategy that spans several years.

Festival of Marketing 2016Given the size of FOM, what would you say was the biggest challenge of planning an event this size?

Every single aspect of an event of this size is challenging. From content curation and coordination to operations management and sponsor recruitment, crises lurk in every corner. Managing the numerous moving pieces is the biggest challenge. Very capable, close-knit and experienced teams working together is the best answer to any festival crisis.

Do you solely focus on FOM or do you actively work on other events at the same time? If you work on multiple projects, how do you manage your time effectively?

The Festival of Marketing team has a few members that are exclusively focused on the Festival all year round but most members of the team are also working on other events during the year. As the Festival season approaches the team internally recruits more and more members reaching full capacity at least four months prior to the event.

Has anything gone wrong at one of your events that required quick response and how was it handled? For example, a speaker not showing up, issues with the venue, tech problems, etc.

In an event of this size everything can go wrong very fast. We’ve had last minute speaker cancellations which our excellent content team has filled very efficiently by responding quickly, utilising all assets available to them and by creating close relationships with many professionals in the industry.

How does the Eventsforce software benefit FOM?

Eventsforce allows us to track delegate registrations and manage delegate information and booking status. We can also manage group bookings and ticket upgrades.

Festival of Marketing 2016What do you see as the most important trend in the events industry today?

Experiential events is probably the most important trend today. Long gone are the speech and drinks events. You need to capture the audience’s attention and imagination from the moment of invitation and interact with them, constantly providing excellent and useful content.

Which mobile app or social media platform couldn’t you live without?

Our Festival of Marketing app. The Festival of Marketing 2016 app by Guidebook is absolutely essential to us, as delegates use it to book their sessions, access the Festival floorplan, navigate through our massive agenda and even connect with each other onsite.

What new event technology are you looking forward to using or would you like to see in the future?

Artificial Intelligence will definitely revolutionise the events industry in the future. Whether we’ll be using it for customer relations, onsite signage or even our first robot speaker, we don’t know. But we are definitely excited by the possibilities.

Is there any advice that you would give to someone considering a career in event management?

Click to get in touchThe events industry is for individuals that embrace change and love being challenged. It’s a stressful working environment with changing needs that require different approaches. Whatever the challenge, a can-do attitude, calmness and simple problem-solving will get you out of most crises.

Is there a special power you sometimes wish you had when planning/managing them?

It definitely has to be time travel. To go back in time after an event and correct things that went wrong and couldn’t foresee!

Images © Festival of Marketing

 

Why Is Google Analytics So Important for Event Marketing?

Posted on by Eventsforce

untitled-design-67If you haven’t used Google Analytics around your events before, it can be quite daunting.  With so many features and the availability of all the different types of data it looks into, it’s hard to know where to look to find the metrics that matter.  Without knowing which sections to pay attention to, you could spend days digging through the platform and still walk away with your head spinning.  At the same time, without analysing the traffic around your event website, it’s hard to assess the impact of your marketing activities.

Understanding how people are interacting with your site is important. Without this understanding, you won’t know the potential problems your event’s online presence is facing. You also won’t be able to make any meaningful changes. However, if you use it in the right way, Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can tell you whether your marketing efforts are actually translating into results.

Here are some of the most useful insights event planners can get from Google Analytics:

  • Detailed demographics on who is visiting your event website
  • Where your visitors and registrations are coming for
  • The journey people take through your event website
  • Which content, sessions or speakers featured on your site are the most/least popular
  • Conversion rates (eg. registrations, purchases or downloads)
  • The point at which people are abandoning their registrations or award entries

Having this kind of information on hand is incredibly valuable.  And the good news is that it isn’t hard to set up. When you first create an account, Google Analytics will provide you with a website tracking code, which you’ll need to install on your website.    Some event management and registration systems like Eventsforce have built-in support for Google Analytics.  So even if your event website is hosted by your event tech provider, they should be able to add the correct Google Analytics code to each page on your event website in order for you to track all visitor activities on your site.

untitled-design-30Understanding Basic Google Analytics Terminology

Google Analytics is an incredibly powerful tool for event planners. And it’s free. But before we go into the features that matter the most for event planners, it makes sense to understand some of main terminologies that Google uses:

Users: New and returning visitors who have visited your website at least once in your selected date range.

Session: A session (previously known as a visit) on your site is when the Google Analytics tracking code is triggered on a user’s entrance to the site. Everything they then do on your site is tracked within that visit, until they leave or the session expires (after 30 minutes of inactivity).

Unique Page Views: A ‘page view’ is the number of times a page has been viewed but ‘unique page views’ is the number of visitors to a page, rather than the number of visits to that page (as one user may use the same page multiple times in one session).

Dimensions: Descriptive characteristics including things like browser type, exit pages and session durations.

Metrics: Individual stats for a specific dimension, such as the average session duration or pages/visit (number of pages each visitor is looking at your site).

Bounce Rate: Percentage of no-interaction visits, where someone left your website without performing an action or navigating to a new page. Often the bounce rate will be for single page sessions, however this is not always the case.

Session Duration: The time spent by all users actively engaging with your site.

There are many more terms to learn, but knowing these key ones will help because they will come up over and over again.

abstract-sub-managerUnderstanding the Metrics That Matter for Event Planning

Google Analytics has a number of features that contain sub-sections which can provide a whole load of data around your event websites. But you don’t need to use everything on offer. There are four sections that matter most to event planners – and when used together, they can help make some important decisions on which marketing activities are most useful in driving traffic to your event website:

Acquisition – This section will show you where your visitors and registrations are coming from.  If you click on the ‘All Traffic’ tab and click on ‘Channels’, you’ll be able to see exactly how people arrived at your site – whether it was through an advert, a search engine, social media site, a referral or a piece of content that you contributed to another site.  You can also identify the number of people that came to your site through your email campaigns.

Looking at all this data will help you identify which of the ‘channels’ are the largest drivers of traffic to your event website.   Google makes it easier by listing the channels in the order of their driving power.

Audience – This is the section that gives you information about the visitors to your event website. It has lots of subsections that give you information about the gender, age and location of your website visitors. You can find out if they’re new visitors or returning ones.  You can even uncover data on their interests, as well as the browsers and mobile devices they used to access your site.

Understanding where your visitors are coming from is helpful when want to capture their attention when they land on your website.  For example, if you know that 40% of your visitors are from South America, you could deliver a more personalised experience by having a Spanish-version of your event website – have a look here at the benefits of using multilingual websites for your events.  Or you could run your online ad campaigns in those countries that you see are frequently visiting your site.

Behavior – This section helps event planners understand how people are interacting with your website.  The ‘Behavior Flow’ tab, shows you the user journey for your website visitors – from the page they enter your website to the pages they visit and the page they exit your site from (hopefully it should be your ‘thank you for registering’ page). It not only tells you how many people are going ahead and registering for your event, but also how many are abandoning it at a certain stage.

In ‘Site Content’, you can identify the visitors you get for each of your website pages.  This is important as you’ll be able to see which pages on your website are the most and least popular – so you’ll be able to determine things like which streams or speaker bios people are interested in the most or vice-versa.  The other useful feature in this section is ‘Landing Pages’, which shows you which pages people are landing on when they get to your site.  This is important when you’re trying to measure the effectiveness of your social media and promotional activities.

Conversions – A conversion is the completion of an activity on your website, such as a registration, purchase or download. One of Google Analytic’s best features is the Goal Funnel within the Conversions section, with which you can set up a string of URLs that your event attendees click through to ‘convert’. This kind of information can help event planner adjust their content or strategy and make the registration experience a whole lot easier.

A useful user conversion for event planners is triggering a goal on a ‘Thank You’ or ‘Registration Confirmation’ page. By setting up funnel points on the ‘Register Now’ button, upon completion of the personal details page, and upon completion of the payment transaction, you can see exactly where users leave the funnel. This is displayed in Analytics with the ‘Funnel Drop-Offs’ metric – you can use this data to refine your forms and find out where users are leaving the site (allowing you to judge if you need to simplify your forms or provide different payment options).

Click to get in touchConclusion

Google Analytics can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. Set up an account if you haven’t got one already, and have a go at trying out the different features we looked at above. You can also have a look at the Google Analytics’ Solutions Gallery which is particularly useful for anyone new to analytics. It helps you import readily-made reports into your Analytics account that can help you quickly build some powerful dashboards.  You can also use the reports as a guide to help you better understand the different things Google Analytics can do for you and your events.

Sources:
-Koozai: Understanding basic Google Analytics terminology
-Forbes: 15 Google Analytics tricks to maximise your marketing campaign
-Search Engine Land: 7 Essential Google Analytics reports every marketer must know
-Kissmetrics: How to use Google Analytics to help shape your marketing strategy