Tag: event marketing

7 Simple Ways to Personalise Event Registration

Posted on by Eventsforce

7 Simple Ways to Personalise Event Registration

Creating personalised experiences is something that companies tend to do very well in the online world.  Just take a look at companies like Netflix and Amazon, suggesting personalised recommendations based on what they already know about their customers. The likes of Cadburys, Starbucks and Marmite have also been getting in on the act over the last couple of years.  And it’s safe to say that personalisation is now finally making its mark in the events industry. Why?  Because it works.

In the same way marketing targets different messaging for different audiences, event planners can use personalisation to deliver content, offers, event experiences and networking opportunities based on what they already know about their delegates. Sophisticated data capture tools – from event registration systems and RFID to online surveys and event apps – are helping event planners collect and analyse valuable delegate information to create more powerful and targeted events.

This month, a study from Eventsforce found that personalisation was a key priority for 82% of event planners, with 97% believing it would have a positive effect on a delegate’s perception of their brand and event. Despite these claims, however, many felt that the lack of time and resources posed as the biggest barriers with only 27% consistently using it as part of the marketing efforts around their events.

Though it has its challenges and can vary in its effectiveness from one event to another, personalisation doesn’t have to be as complicated as one might think. Most organisations today use some form of automated system to manage registrations around their events and it is good starting point for any kind of personalisation you may want to do around your events.  Why?  Because it acts as the first point of contact for your delegates and lies at the heart of all your communications in the run up to your event.

Have a look below at seven easy ways you can use your registration process to personalise events:

1. Personalised Event Invitation

Untitled design (27)Personalising invitations is simple and effective. By tailoring them as much as possible to the invitee and their specific business sector, you massively increase the chances they will attend. Our study showed that 38% of event planners break down their attendees by type when deciding on marketing activities around their events.  So if you know that your delegate list is made up of corporates and academics, then it makes sense to create two separate versions of the same invitation with each one outlining the sessions that would be of interest to them.  Remember – both audiences have a vested interest in attending your event but they have very different goals and very different ideas on why your event matters to them.

Read: How to Create Invites that Draw Crowds to Your Events

2. Create Different Landing Pages for Your Event Website

Untitled design (33)In the same you can tailor the content of your invitation, you can also tailor your event website for different audiences – our study found that 21% of event planners are already doing this and we expect this trend to grow.  For example, an event site that provides information on peer reviews, abstracts, a list of research fellows and referenced publications may be more interesting for your academics.  Whereas your corporate audience will be much more interested in seeing commercial ideas that the event aims to address, a list of other businesses that are going to attend and who they’re going to meet when they are there.  You may use the page to promote an early bird rate to an academic but may not bother for a commercial audience as academics are more likely to book their places months in advance due to budget allocations at the beginning of the year.

Read: 10 Creative to Promote Your Corporate Events

3. Use Unique Registration Paths for Different Attendee Categories

Untitled design (28)Personalise the registration journey by creating different registration paths for each type of attendee.   Some registration systems support this functionality so it doesn’t have to be complicated.  Before starting the registration process, find out the category your attendee falls into – whether that be a delegate, sponsor, exhibitor, speaker and so on. Or you may also choose to categorise by industry – like academics or corporate as mentioned in our earlier example. Each attendee will then be led through a set of registration questions that are specific to their selected category.  For example, exhibitors may get asked about stand sizes, whereas journalists may be asked to upload accreditation documents. Members may be able to select special discount options, whereas a VIP may get asked if they’ll be attending the VIP cocktail party at the end of your event. Having a unique registration path for your VIP guests will ensure their questions aren’t visible to other attendees – and more importantly, it will make your VIP feel that the questions were ‘personalised’ for them throughout the whole registration journey.

4. Find Out What Your Delegates Want

Untitled design (29)Our study found that 62% of event planners are personalising events by using crowdsourcing tools with their attendees to determine things like agendas and session topics (44%), speakers (24%) and dining preferences (18%). Using your registration form to capture your attendees’ views and opinions can be a quick and cost-effective way of personalising their event experience. For example, you can ask your delegates what topics are of particular interest for them at your motor show. Are they interested in the servicing side of the business or electronics?  You can then share this information with your exhibitors and ensure the right kind of discount offer is included in the right delegate pack upon checking-in at the event. This is a lot more personalised than including discount offers from all your exhibitors as you will almost certainly include things that are of no interest to them.

You can also use registration form to ask more ‘personal’ questions like what is their favourite coffee and offering them a personalised free coffee offer as part of their delegate pack.  You could capture information about their hobbies or thoughts and include that on their delegate badges – a great icebreaker when attending networking events.  The more people network, the more business occurs and the more likely they are to come again.

5. Use Delegate Networking Tools

Untitled design (30)Almost 20% of event planners are using delegate networking tools to personalise experiences around their events. By integrating ‘meeting planner’ tools as part of your registration process, delegates will be able to personalise their agendas, see who is attending that may be of interest to them and set up meetings with people they want to meet. These tools are quite good in that they don’t allow delegates to schedule meetings that clash with other meetings or sessions that they’ll be attending at the event.  Or if the system knows if the delegate is leaving a day early, it won’t allow them to accept invitations for meetings on the next date.

6. Personalised Email Communications

Untitled design (31)In the same way you’re able to personalise the invitation, the event website and registration form for different attendee categories, you can also personalise all your email communications in the run up to the event. Let’s look at an example of a delegate who has requested a Kosher or Halal meal at the event.  Typically, this meal is almost never served with the main event buffet so the delegate has to liaise with the catering staff or event planner to locate it on the day.  This isn’t a great experience for your delegate and it is also inefficient as it means the event planners has one more thing to think about at a time when they are very busy.  Instead, send the delegate a personalised registration confirmation email that will include details on where they can pick up their meal on the day of the event.

Again, some registration platforms will support this through an integrated mail merge service, which collates all relevant delegate information in an automatic confirmation email.  And it makes no difference if you have 50 people attending your event or 50,000.  The process is quite simple and takes very little time. It also makes more sense to include this kind of ‘personalised’ information in your delegate emails than details on the weather or the nearest taxi firm (most of this information is instantly available to anyone with a smartphone or an internet connection these days).  Again, remember that you only have a limited time to capture your delegates’ attention – the more information on your confirmation email, the more likely they will jump through some of the more important things like the start time of the session they want to attend.

7. Don’t Forget About Reporting

Untitled design (32)The kind of personalisation you offer delegates will be determined by the kind of data you decide to capture and the reports you produce. The earlier you do this when you’re setting up the registration for your event, the more effective your personalisation efforts will be. Think about it from the start as opposed to when you NEED the data because that will probably be the time you’re at your busiest and data structures are unlikely to change the closer you get to the event.

Think about the reports you want so that you can figure out the right questions you need to put across to your delegates. Think about how you want to slice up the data so that you can get the reports you want and collate the analytics that will allow you to personalise your events.  For example, you may decide to create a report that will collate all the delegates attending a particular session.  Some event planners may share this list with all the other delegates attending that session.  But you can do more. Break it down by company type, interests and goals and share the list with your session speaker.  He or she can then use this information to tweak the content of their presentation or personalise it with content or examples that are more relevant to the audience.

Click to get in touchBreaking down your delegates by type will allow you to create the segregated reports you want.  Knowing that 70% of your delegates are female, love coffee and their primary objective is networking can give you the intelligent data you need to help you personalise their experience. So if you’re hosting an event in London and you know that a large part of your attendees are coming from overseas, you may opt for ‘fish and chips’ as your lunch menu as international delegates prefer local cuisine.  Or if you know that most of your attendees will be leaving early on the last day of your event, it may be a better option for you to offer them a packed lunch that day instead of a buffet and ask them in advance about their sandwich preferences.

If you require a registration process that can personalise your attendees’ event experience, speak to our experienced team today.

 Written by Paul Harris, Eventsforce. 

 

 

 

INFOGRAPHIC: Are you Personalising Your Event Experiences?

Posted on by Eventsforce

Personalisation Pic_Blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personalisation is seen as one of the hottest trends in the events industry this year with delegates expecting both the communication about an event and the live experience to be tailored to them in some way.  Data capture tools – from event registration systems and RFID to online surveys and event apps – are helping organisations collect valuable information on their delegates which can be analysed to create more powerful and customised event experiences.

But as good as it all sounds, how many of us are actually doing this?  Last month, we conducted a study with over 160 senior event planners in the UK and the US to investigate the current uptake of personalisation in the industry. The results have been very interesting.

The study revealed that though personalisation is a key priority for 82% of event planners, only 27% are consistently using it as part of the marketing efforts around their events. When asked why – it seems the biggest barriers are lack of time, resources and cost.

Registration systems are a good place to start for any kind of personalisation you may want to do around your events.  Find out how by reading this blog: 7 easy ways of using your registration process to personalise events.

We also looked at the kind of marketing tools organisations are using to personalise their delegate experiences.  Personalised email communications came up at top at 68%, followed by unique registration paths and personalised educational content.  Online surveys were the most popular data capture tool at 65%, followed by event apps (44%) and social media tools (42%). Surprisingly, new technologies such as iBeacons and wearables were only used by 3% of event planners.

For a more comprehensive look at these results and some of the other findings from the Eventsforce ‘Personalisation: Creating Tailored Event Experiences’ study, please download the infographic below:

1300 Eventsforce Infographic UK

If you would like to learn more about what Eventsforce has to offer, take a look at a few other blog posts listed below or get in contact with out friendly team.

Call us on 0207 785 6997 or get in touch here.

How to Make Sure Your Event Emails Don’t Get Marked as Spam

Posted on by Eventsforce

Untitled design (19)When social media first started to make its impact in the events industry, many felt that email would no longer be the marketing powerhouse it once was.  But we are now in 2016, and email marketing is as strong as it ever has been.  In fact, it remains a top priority for organisations with nearly 72% planning to spend more time on email production and more than 80% reporting to increase their email marketing budgets over the next year1.

Like it or not, emails still remain the most effective marketing tool for your events today. It lets you reach out beyond the constraints of your event website or app and into your delegates’ personal space. It is also a very controlled experience where you, as the event planner, can decide everything from what it looks like, what time it shows up, the call to action and what kind of personalised content to use.  More importantly, it is measurable. You can analyse things like open and click-through rates and measure each campaign for its effectiveness.

But with more than 20 percent of legitimate marketing emails never reaching the recipient’s inbox, what steps should event planners take to ensure the successful delivery of their email campaigns? In 2015, spam messages accounted for 53% of email traffic worldwide2 and as a result, email providers have raised the standards for filtering which emails are sent to junk mail folders.

Your delegates’ mail servers and applications use different ways of ‘scoring’ each mail – if the score is too high, then your email invitation, for example, will be classified as spam and may not be delivered to your delegate.  The problem is that each spam filter works a bit differently and ‘passing’ scores can vary.  Your email invitation could pass through one delegate’s spam filter, but get flagged by another’s as junk. Spam filters can sometimes even synch up with each other to share what they’ve learned and this will also affect the variability of your spam score.

Unfortunately, there is no fool-proof formula in addressing this as filtering criteria is constantly growing and changing. There are, however, some basic steps you can take that will help you reduce your email spam score:

Check Your Email Settings & Configuration tin can

Your delegate email servers are likely to reject your event emails when the address of your sending server doesn’t match the sender address on the email.  So you may be using your registration software’s mail server (eg. info@eventtech.com) to send out your email invitations but the ‘sender’ address on the email that appears in your delegate’s inbox is registrations@myevent.com.

To solve this problem, contact the person or organisation that manages your domain – in this case, myevent.com – and ask them to add ‘eventtech.com’ to the SPF record (Sender Policy Framework) for that domain. This tells your delegates’ servers that eventech.com is allowed to send emails on your behalf.

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

Whitelisting

It is possible to stop emails being rejected by your delegates’ servers by adding your mail server to a ‘whitelist’ on their servers.  This can help if you are targeting individuals from one particular organisation (internal employees) or those delegates using public mailbox providers, such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail.  The process, however, does require making changes to email servers that are normally outside your control.  It also stops working if the address of your sending server ever changes.

Do You Have a Good Sender Reputation?

The delivery rate of the email marketing campaigns you do around your events relies heavily on your sender reputation.  Internet Service Providers (ISPs) consider sender reputation as the most important factor in determining whether or not to block certain emails. It’s something you need to keep a constant eye on as it can fluctuate from one email campaign to another. Make sure you have a double opt-in strategy to ensure your delegate list is healthy and engaged, with clear unsubscribe links which will dramatically reduce any spam complaints.  There are websites than can help you measure and monitor your sender reputation, like Sender Score and SenderBase3.

Avoid Purchased and Rented Delegate Lists iStock_000067308713_Double

As tempting as it is to grow the potential delegate list for your event, purchased lists are not best practice when it comes to sender reputation. More often than not, they are riddled with dead emails and spam traps, which can mislead mailbox providers that you break the rules by sending unsolicited emails.  Your emails will end up in junk folders or you may be branded as a spammer.

Sending to a list that hasn’t given you permission can also impact your ability to market your event, potentially damage your brand and even have legal implications.  Instead, allow your delegate list to grow organically. Give delegates the option to sign-up to your list when they register for an event – this way, you can ensure that they get all email communications from your organisation for all your events.

Don’t Forget: Content is King

Spam filters look into your email content. An email containing only a clickable link that takes your delegate to the event registration page, for example, is likely to be marked as spam.  Adding some descriptive text to your email will help to avoid this.  Make sure you have informative content about your event and try to limit the use of what these filters consider as risky words, such as ‘free’, ‘buy’, ‘order’, ‘purchase’ and ‘promo’.  Also, do not capitalise your ‘from’ address or subject line and generally avoid using capitalisation and exclamation marks in the body of your email message, as these will all have a negative impact on your spam score.

Read: Top Subject Lines For Your Event Email Campaigns

Balance your image-to-text ratio – Mail Chimp recommends a ratio of 80% text to 20% images. Emails with lots of images or large images and not much text will get a high spam score. Avoid linking to images that are held on another sever as you’re better off uploading pictures into the email itself.  If you are going to use links, make sure your images are hosted at credible services only as this will also have a negative impact on your spam score.

Check Your ‘From’ Details

Your delegates’ mail servers check more than your domain and content, with some putting particular attention to your ‘From’ address.  Try and avoid frequent changes to your ‘from’ address as this will impact your spam score.  When sending invitation emails for your events, ask your delegates to add your ‘From’ address to their address books. This way you can avoid all future email communications with that delegate from ending up in the spam folder.

Lastly, try and avoid using vague field names in your address, such as ‘noreply@myevents.com’. Instead, use clear, trustworthy names such as ‘registrations@myevents.com’ or ‘contact@myevents.com’.  Stick to a limited number of these names and build a good reputation for these addresses by sending engaging emails and you will notice a difference.

Test Your Email ‘Spamminess’                            

Brandon Checketts have a tool which can be used to test the ‘spamminess’ of your email content and the configuration of your account. You can try this for yourself here.

Written by Lynda Browne, Client Loyalty Manager, Eventsforce

If you would like to learn more about what Eventsforce has to offer, take a look at a few other blog posts listed below or get in contact with out friendly team.

Call us on 0207 785 6997 or get in touch here.

1 2016 Email Marketing Insights Study (Email on Acid – Nov 2015)
2 Statista: Global email spam rate from 2012 to 2015
3 Marketing Land: Email Deliverability issues?

5 Easy Ways of Securing Your Event Data

Posted on by Eventsforce

Untitled design (17)Data security is increasingly becoming top of mind and making headlines as it continues to impact businesses around the world. Just about every week, there is a fairly major cyber-security event that gets talked about in public – and there are many more that don’t get talked about. It is a major problem for any organisation that has valuable information to protect (which means most companies these days) – especially for those involved in the world of events.

We have talked a lot about the issue in the last couple of months, addressing things like the kind of data security questions you should be asking your event management solution provider and some of the considerations you need to take when dealing with delegate card payments.  Most event planners will also be following their own organisation’s security policies when it comes to storing and sharing event data – from communication procedures to firewalls, encryption and anti-virus software.

However, while IT focuses on outside threats, there is also an element of risk lurking from within.  Over 40% of data loss1 is the direct result of internal threats which come about from staff mishandling data – whether intentional or unintentional. In fact, our event data security study exposed a number of important vulnerability areas – like staff password hygiene, email communications and data storage –  that event planners should be putting greater attention in order to prevent data from getting into the wrong hands.

Have a look at the following best practice guidelines that can greatly improve security around your event and delegate data:

Don’t Put Anything in Email That You Wouldn’t Put on a Postcard

ID-100354956Email communications is one area of vulnerability. Our study found that 65% of respondents emailed their event data (attendance reports, registration lists, invoice reports) to third parties or other departments within their organisation after downloading the information from the event management systems. Another 36% admitted to having emailed their API key – a form of authentication that allows third party systems like event apps to access data saved in your event management systems.

The truth is that it is difficult and cumbersome to encrypt data in emails from end to end – so you should always think about what you are sharing on email.  Check before sending that you have the right recipients and encrypt data within if necessary. If you don’t need to email it, don’t.  For example, when confirming registration details with your delegates, don’t include all their details within the body of the email but instead, include a personalised link that will lead them directly to their registration page on your event website. Equally, never email your event system API key(s) to ANYONE as this could expose your data to anyone who has access to this key.  If you need to share it, do so over the phone.

Be Smart About Your Passwords

Data SecurityMore than 500 million records of login names, passwords and other ID information went astray in the last 12 months, according to a report this week by security firm, Symantec2. It sounds pretty obvious but you would be surprised with the number of people that ignore the importance of passwords. Our survey found that over 80% of event planners don’t change their event management system passwords as often as they should (less than once a year). Another 33% claim to have shared their passwords with other people.  This widely increases the risk of breach and makes it difficult to accurately identify who has access to the system at any given point in time.

Using strong passwords, NOT sharing them and changing them once every three months can greatly improve security around your event data.   The problem is that the human brain can only remember so many passwords, not to mention we’re actually really bad at picking good ones. So, too often we just reuse passwords across multiple sites. This is an issue because so many of us use the same password for our work and personal accounts like Facebook, Google and online banking.  Be creative: think of a special phrase and use the first letter of each word as your password. Substitute numbers for words or letters. For example, “I want to see the Eiffel Tower” could become 1W2CtEt.

Another solution is to use a password manager, a software tool for computers and mobile devices, which will pick random, long passwords for each site you visit, and synchronise them across your many devices. Two popular password managers are 1Password and LastPass.  You can also use a Single Sign-On (SSO) system, which allows you to control access to your event management software using your authentication servers (e.g. Microsoft Active Directory) – so passwords are never submitted to your event system and access can be controlled centrally by your organisation. If someone from your team leaves their job, then their access to all systems can be cut off from one place.

Share Only What is Necessary

The study also revealed that an overwhelming 89% of event planners downloaded the data in their event management systems to external spreadsheets, with a further 81% sharing it with colleagues and other departments by printing or email.  As well as following your organisation’s policies on how to securely share and dispose of data, you can also reduce security risks by integrating your event management system with some of your other back end systems like finance, CRM and marketing.  The integration will allow for automatic updates on both systems whenever you need to make any changes, eliminating the need to download, print or email event data to other departments within your organisation.

For example, integration with your company’s finance system will allow you to automatically update delegate payment details into your finance system and vice versa without the need for printing and emailing reports and manually transferring them from one system to another. Event invoices, credit notes and received payments can be all be generated and sent from either system. This saves time and more importantly, vastly reduces the security risks associated with email communications and having printed documents lying around.

Know Your Personal Vs. ‘Sensitive’ Personal Delegate Data

Our study found that there was some confusion differentiating personal and ‘sensitive’ delegate data.  Personal information can include things like names, addresses and phone numbers.  However, sensitive data is any information relating to the delegate’s racial origin, political opinion, religious beliefs or mental and physical well-being.   The survey found that 40% of event planners didn’t think race and religion was considered as sensitive and only 26% thought dietary requirements (which may indicate religious inclinations) as sensitive.

Why is this important? EU Data Protection regulations require extra security measures when dealing with ‘sensitive’ delegate data – as this information could be used in a discriminatory way and is likely to be of a private nature.  Most registration forms will have a question asking delegates if they have any additional requirements.  This may include things like dietary requirements or the need for wheelchair assistance. Storing this ‘sensitive’ data means you must comply with the Data Protection Act from the moment you obtain the data until the time when the data has been deleted, overwritten or securely destroyed (e.g. shredding, incineration or pulping).

Don’t Forget About ‘Offline’ Security

As a general rule, try not to store any of your event data in any physical form (print or external hard drives, USB drives etc.) as this greatly increases the chance of it getting into the wrong hands.  If you are, invest in secure cabinets, fit locking doors and ensure you have the proper mechanisms in place to dispose of this data if you need to.  At your events, don’t leave your registration lists, laptops and smart phones unattended and ensure that event data on your screens are not visible to unauthorised users.  Be cautious when discussing details over the phone and avoid discussing sensitive information in public areas where you can be overheard.

Lastly, make sure your employees understand how important your event data is and all the measures they can take to protect it. Encourage security awareness among your staff, training them not to leave sensitive material lying around and to operate a clear desk policy – both at the office and at your events.  The ultimate goal is for everyone, at every level, to believe that data security is critical, understand the policies and procedures for achieving a secure environment and ensuring these are followed every day.

Written by Steve Baxter, CTO of Eventsforce

1 Information Week: Insider Threats: 10 Ways to Protect Your Data

2 BBC News: Security snapshot reveals massive personal data loss

 

Why Hiring Students for Your Events is a Good Idea

Posted on by Eventsforce

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Many of you have probably read how the role of an event coordinator has been ranked as the fifth most stressful job of 2016.  In fact, the only jobs ranked more stressful were enlisted military personnel, firefighters, airline pilots and police officers. Whether or not you agree with these findings, there is no doubt that working in events is not something that everyone is cut out to do.  It takes determination and experience (as do most jobs) and a good mix of communication, creative and time management skills to be successful.  Many in the industry believe that these skills can’t be taught.  That we don’t need academic degrees in event management.  That experience is what matters most.  But not anymore.

Perceptions around whether or not we need qualifications in the industry are changing. In January this year, the UK government recognised the importance of the events sector by forming the country’s first Event Industry Board.  Meanwhile, the president of MPI (Meeting Professionals International) has called for new standards regarding the certification of event professionals.  There is also a growing trend in big corporate institutions investing heavily in executive certificate programmes and post graduate event management courses for their events staff to keep them updated on the latest processes and methodologies of this fast-paced industry.

Whichever way you look at it, a qualification in event management is a lot more relevant today than it was five years ago. Modern universities like Coventry University are offering courses that combine academia with experience, helping create a new generation of event professionals that already have proven skills in project management – from briefing and planning to on-site management and post event evaluation.  They have worked on real projects with real clients and are certified in the latest event management software. Even before they graduate, these students are able to provide important support on many aspects of an organisation’s event. So why not work with them?

What Can the Event Management Student Do for My Organisation?

Untitled design (12)Students today are very willing to take on any opportunity that can provide them with experience in the industry.  Meet and greet is probably the best place to invest in students – especially for those organisations who can’t afford specialist agencies. Many of our students man events like the Liberal Democrats party conference, where they are in charge of meet and greet, registration and other client-facing activities.

Placement schemes are another option. These can last up to a year and provide a cost effective way of hiring someone to do a specific job.  Our students do placements, and volunteering opportunities with organisations like the British Council. By working as part of their events and logistics teams for the ‘Going Global’ conferences, students have been able to work in places such as Dubai, Miami, London and Cape Town in 2016. The work they do includes building event websites, managing registrations, meet and greet, coordinating conference sessions, as well as running live reports and providing post event analysis. The feedback we get from these organisations is always positive and many decide to hire the students on a permanent basis once they graduate.

You can also look at internships.  These are usually unpaid positions that focus on short-term projects that can range anywhere from 4-12 weeks.  This can be a good opportunity to get someone to do important tasks that you may not have the resources for, such as conducting research on your competitive landscape, evaluating your social media performance or doing some post-event analysis. A lot of our graduate students choose to focus their dissertations on evolving areas in the industry such as wearable technologies and cashless events – organisations could suggest topics and work alongside these students for their own research and marketing purposes.

Where Do I Find Students That Add Value to My Events?

If you decide that working with an event management student makes sense for your events, the next step is to figure out where to find suitable candidates. There are a number of universities and other higher education institutions that offer comprehensive courses in event management, but the ones that stand out have some of the following attributes:

Industry-Driven Modules – Event management is still a very young, dynamic and fast changing industry.  Look at institutions that regularly consult with industry experts in creating their modules. Find out how often they expose their students to the industry through lectures given by event professionals, field trips to industry events, course works involving real events and projects, as well as opportunities for practical work experience. Find out what proportion of students are in full-time work six months after graduation – as this gives a good indication of the institution’s reputation and academic standard.

Staff with Industry Expertise – A combined staff of academic lecturers and industry experts (event professionals across corporate, PCOs, associations and government) provides students with a good balance of theory and practical insights.

Industry Partnerships – Find institutions that have dedicated employment and placement schemes with reputable companies. At Coventry University, students have done placement schemes with British Council, Schroders, Bank Sadler and BP and many have travelled to international destinations like Dubai, Cape Town, Berlin and the US for practical hands on experience.  Read through the testimonials of these organisations and find out what they say about the students and their abilities.

Technology Focus: Technology is such an important aspect of events now that any knowledge on the subject can add real value to what a student can offer to your event. Second year students at Coventry University, for example, need to pass the Eventsforce certification programme, which teaches them how to use the event management software to build event websites and registration forms, build agendas, manage sessions, link sites to social media and pull different types of reports.

 How Do I Choose the Right Student?

Once you have made a selection of the universities you would like to approach, the next step would be to select your candidates.  You can start by meeting students at university career days or take one step further and conduct an assessment centre – this is when a group of students are given a task and they are rated on how they react, who takes the lead, how interactive they are, as well as their overall performance on achieving the set objectives.  You can also get the university to make you a shortlist of their top students.

Once you have your shortlist, then you can assess your candidates on the following attributes:

  • Presentation and content of CV
  • Proven event experience (local or international)
  • Likeability, communication and networking skills
  • Knowledge of event technology
  • Social media presence (views/opinions)
  • Blogs (many students blog about their work experiences)
  • Research skills (eg. social media or industry analysis)
  • Industry recognition (eg. MyEvent.Vision award or the Vanessa Cotton scholarship)

Click to get in touchGood luck!

Ian Webster is senior lecturer and creator of the Event Management Honors Degree at Coventry University, which was recently ranked as UK’s number one university to offer a degree in event management (Guardian 2016 Subject League Tables). 

If you would like to get in touch, please email him at: bsx941@coventry.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

 

Why Your Events Could Benefit from Multilingual Websites

Posted on by Eventsforce

Choosing which event to attend is no longer restricted by borders and time zones, as delegates are increasingly happy to travel further afield for the right event. They are spurred not only by the abundance of cheap flights and budget accommodation, but by a real desire to learn about the latest innovations, best practice guidelines and the opportunity to network and share ideas with colleagues and peers from across the world.

But are we doing enough to reach delegates beyond our country’s borders?  A study by the European Commission in 2011 revealed that 90% of Internet users in the EU, said that when given a choice of languages, they always visited a website in their own language. A similar survey by the Common Sense Advisory in the US also found that 72% of consumers were more likely to buy a product or service online if the information provided was in their native language1. With this in mind and the fact that most people now research for events online, doesn’t it make sense for your events to have multilingual websites?

Why Multilingual Websites Can Boost Your Events

Untitled design (13)Multilingual sites today present one of the most cost-effective ways of marketing your events, attracting new delegates, building relationships with them and giving your organisation an international outlook:

  • Shows You Care – It doesn’t take much effort to create a multilingual website (more below) but that extra effort shows your delegates that you care about them and are considerate of their needs, which makes them more likely to book onto your event. We all know that personalisation is important to our delegates and what could be more personal than talking to them in their own language?
  • Builds Trust with Your Delegates – Trust is an important part of doing business. Trust in an event and the event organiser is even more important if a delegate is travelling from abroad. Communicating with these delegates in their native language helps them feel secure, understand what they are buying and who they are buying from.
  • Helps You Stay Ahead of Your Competitors – Make no mistake, your event has competition. Whether it’s from other events, alternative ways of spending budgets or time constraints, your delegate needs to make difficult choices. If they only go to a few events a year, you need to make yours stand out. Offering a multilingual website will give your event a competitive edge by demonstrating to delegates that your organization thinks, works and deals internationally.
  • Improves Search Engines Optimisation – Search engines lead people to your site. While it’s tempting to view Google as the only search engine that matters, in reality this isn’t the case as in many countries, such as France, Japan and China, Google is not the default search engine. Baidu is popular in China, Acara in Japan and Voila in France. Such search engines are a key to tapping those markets unless they have access to a particular language though your multilingual event website, then your event will not be found. In addition, search engines like Google are developing the capacity to run searches in foreign languages.  Having your website available in those languages helps to ensure it will be picked up in searches.

But the Internet is in English

If you assume your delegates speak your language well enough to skip the translation step, you’re wrong. Today only 35% of the Internet’s content is in English, and this number continues to diminish. Russian, Spanish and Portuguese, for example, are continuing to trend upward with no sign of slowing down.  If you are targeting delegates who speak these languages, it is worth considering translating your content to better reach and connect with them. And while other languages like German, French and Japanese are trending down, they still represent such a large portion of the online community that it is worth thinking through your targeting approach to those markets as well1.

It’s a Lot Simpler Than You Think

Having the ability to communicate to a whole new international audience in their own language will undoubtedly bring results not only in a financial sense but also in terms of marketing and creating awareness of your event. And luckily, creating these multilingual event websites isn’t a complicated process if you consider the following basic requirements:

Make Sure Your Event Technology Supports It – 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.  By providing tools that allow you to automatically translate things like website headings, button texts, warning messages and email communication, the software helps you copy templates from one language to another in no time. Organisations like the British Council do this with their in-country events and the system has proved to be very successful.

Make Sure You Have the Necessary Staff Resources – If it’s a simple event website with a registration form that collects basic delegate information (name, country and contact details), then having staff that can speak the language isn’t entirely necessary as you can manage most of it through an online translation service like Google Translate. In most cases, however, you will need to have someone on your team who has a working knowledge of the language to oversee all translation requirements and more importantly, manage all delegate communication – from sending registration confirmation emails, making changes to agendas and managing requests.

Click to get in touchIf you don’t have the staff resources, then there are other affordable options.  You can hire a freelance translator through services like Upwork and Fiverr, that offer hundreds of talented and reliable people to work with. Alternatively, you can also use an online translation service like Unbabel, that combines artificial intelligence with crowdsourced human translation to deliver fast and high quality services to companies who want to reach international markets.

Written by Lynda Browne, Client Loyalty Manager, Eventsforce

1 Unbabel: Top Languages of the Internet, Today and Tomorrow

 

Infographic: The ROI of Event Data Integration

Posted on by Eventsforce

We have talked a lot about data integration (Why is Data Integration So Important for Your Events) and APIs (Top 5 Things to Think About When Dealing with APIs) over the last few weeks.  It is a topic that is hotly debated across the events industry as more and more organisations try to find new ways of increasing the ROI of their event technology investments.

Integrating your event management software with other business systems within your organisation can bring a host of benefits. It can save you time by reducing manual data entry. It can eliminate errors and inconsistencies that commonly cause problems in communications.  It can cut costs and make your team more productive – and more importantly, it can unlock the true value of your event data by putting it in the hands of the people who need it.

So how does it work and what does an integrated system look like?  For a quick overview on some of the key integrations that make sense for your events, have a look at the infographic below (or click here to download):