Category: Attendee Engagement

 

There’s nothing quite as gratifying as hosting a well-attended event.  It may look effortless, but behind the high turnout and the buzzy atmosphere, there is — as every planner knows — nothing but careful preparation and hard work.  A key indicator of event success, attendance should never be taken for granted.  But as this blog explores, there are certain tactics that planners can reliably lean on to pull in the crowds to create an occasion that is memorable, meaningful and valuable.

1. Start Right With a Clear Vision

Before you begin planning in earnest, define the purpose and objectives of your event.  This will ensure that you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve while allowing you to tailor your decision-making process to appeal to your target audience.

2. Know Your Audience

On that point, it’s absolutely crucial for planners to know and understand their audience — especially if maximum event attendance is the goal.  By researching and gathering data on preferences, interests and demographics, you as a planner will be able to build an event that piques your attendees’ interest at a personal level, encouraging them through the door and into your event.

3. Mix and Match Tactics for a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy

An effective marketing strategy plays a key part in driving event attendance and so it makes sense for planners to deploy a rich mix of traditional and digital marketing tactics to reach potential attendees.  To that end, consider the following ideas:

• The creation of a bespoke, compelling event website.  This should be well-designed and user-friendly and contain all essential event details — including registration information — as well as engaging content.
• The savvy use of social media.  Because you’ve already done your research into your audience, you’ll know their favoured platforms.  Take the time to promote your event on these channels and be sure to include striking visuals, event teasers, and carefully targeted ads. Social is a great place to tap into your attendees’ sense of FOMO, all the while playing up your event as an unmissable occasion.
• A carefully deployed email marketing campaign.  Once you’ve built your list, craft personalised invitations and updates to keep delegates and potential attendees up-to-speed with your event.
• Make the most of collaborations and partnerships.  Work with influencers, industry leaders, or complementary businesses to expand your overall reach and credibility.

4. Set Realistic Goals

In order to gauge and ultimately build on the overall success of your event, you should take the time to establish measurable goals.  When considering event attendance, this, for example, could be something as simple as the number of attendees you aim to attract.  Setting clear benchmarks will help you to track your progress and to adjust your strategies, as needed.

5. Offer Early Bird Discounts and Incentives to Boost your Event attendance

Tactics such as early registration discounts or exclusive incentives for delegates who register in advance can be a useful tool for increasing attendance.  These strategies help to create a buzz of urgency around your event while rewarding attendees who commit early.

6. Create and Hype Engaging Content to Build Anticipation

If you really want to pull in the crowds, then compelling content is a must.  Build an occasion that features inspiring speakers, lively panel discussions, practical workshops and outstanding entertainment.  Tease your incredible content via pre-event activities —  think behind-the-scenes footage, countdowns, carefully crafted email campaigns and social posts — to build anticipation.  The goal here is to leverage a sense of FOMO to get delegates through the door.

7. Seamless Registration to Smooth the Way for Increased Attendance

A straightforward and intuitive registration process is yet another way to encourage attendance.  By taking the time to ensure that your event has an easy-to-navigate online registration system with clear instructions and secure payment options, you can help to increase the likelihood of delegate attendance.

8. Utilise Event Management Software for Maximised Event Attendance

In a similar vein, event management software can play a significant role in event attendance by enhancing the overall attendee experience.  In addition to streamlining the planning process, a good event software system can help with tasks like registration, ticketing and delegate communication.

9. Leverage Your Event as a Networking Opportunity

As our recent whitepaper indicated, networking is the number one driver behind event attendance.  Maximise attendance at your event by incorporating dedicated networking sessions, icebreakers, or even a mobile event app that connects individual attendees and their peers with similar interests.

10. Offer Unbeatable Value

If you want to maximise event attendance, you have to be sure that your event is delivering value to your attendees.  Think: what does my event offer? Be it outstanding session content, expert insights, networking opportunities, freebies or exclusive perks, broadcast what you’re offering to attendees and make it absolutely clear they can’t get it anywhere else.

11. Collect and Act on Feedback

Finally, after your event, take the time to survey your attendees to identify areas for improvement.  Actively use this information to enhance future events with a keen eye to increasing both attendance and the strength of your relationship with your audience.

The satisfaction of a well-attended event is unparalleled and yet, from a planner’s perspective, there’s more to a successful occasion than a high turn-out.  By deploying specific strategies and tactics and taking due care to know and understand the needs of their delegates, a planner can build on the success of each and every occasion, drawing in and engaging with their audience time after time.

 

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If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This mantra holds true…except for those working in the events industry. Offering up the new and the fresh is an inherent part of a planner’s job and yet so many are still leaning heavily on serving up the same old experiences to their ever-changing audiences. After three years of disruption, it’s understandable why — when faced with the challenge of change — we’re all falling back into our former routines, but now is the right time for planners to stop, take stock, and finally break free from repeat events and the old, stale habits that no longer serve them or their audiences.

Why Planners Are Still Falling for the Siren Call of the Familiar

Yet, there’s no denying it: routine — especially in these uncertain times — is comforting. The post-pandemic era is a space in flux; indeed, while live events are making their return felt, hybrid continues to demand its share of consideration from both planners and the audiences they serve. As a professional group, planners have had a very short period of adjustment to this new kind of normal, a place where change is the only constant. No blueprint or schematic exists to guide planners as to how they should interact with their audiences in this new sphere and so old, familiar habits act as a secure mental foothold for event professionals in a continuously changing sector.

It’s worth acknowledging that — due to the changes brought about by the pandemic — the roles once undertaken by planners themselves have in many cases been incorporated into a broader marketing function. This means that the professional knowledge accrued over the years by so many planners within the sector is lost and that — with resources at a premium — it’s now much easier to simply keep repeating those tried-and-tested routines. It’s also worth recognising that planners are notoriously stretched for time and so, from the perspective of efficiency, the repetition of past events is a perfectly understandable practise.

Finally, it’s to say that, in some cases, planners themselves have not acknowledged that the needs and wants of their once well-understood audiences have also changed during the last three years. With the predominance of remote working, planners now find themselves having to compete for attention against the domestic and family lives of their would-be audiences. For some, this sudden change of tack is and move away from repeat events is daunting and so — whether it’s returning again and again to existing event formats or previously used venues and suppliers — it’s understandable why some can’t seem to shake the siren call of the safe and familiar, even if that means serving up the same as last year and risking disengagement from their audiences.

Break Old Habits, Reap the Rewards: The Benefits of Stepping Away from Tired Event Experiences

Stepping away from the known can be a decision fraught with trepidation, anxiety, and even fear, but the benefits of doing so are very much worth the effort. Think: even by making just a slight change to a tried-and-tested routine, a planner not only keeps their event relevant to their target delegates, but also potentially taps into a brand new audience. The first step, of course, is to take the time to understand who your target audience is, what their needs are, and what you — as a planning professional — can offer to get them out of the house and participating in your event. This is precisely why the easy rehashing of tired, old experiences is simply no longer effective or impactful as an event strategy.

From a practical level, your data should be your starting point for a fresh beginning. Whether it’s gleaned via apps, your event management software, a list of past event attendees, etc., any information you have will help you to assess who your audience is, what they want, and how you can best engage with them. During the process, you may even find that you need to create different personas, ones that better jive with the current needs and wants of your audience. Once you’ve thoroughly mined and analysed your data, you can then set to work on overhauling your event strategy, doing so with the total and complete confidence that you know your audience and exactly what they want. It’s worth saying, however, that a new event doesn’t always necessarily have to mean starting entirely from scratch. For example, your basic initial planning documents may still serve you well if you find that making slight adjustments to your event offering is the most efficient and effective way to offer up something completely fresh, new, and engaging.

It’s undeniable: the siren call of a repeat event offers security to many planners looking for stability in an ever-shifting time and space. But it’s a false comfort, for with that supposed sense of safety comes the very real danger of disengagement. Now is the time to look beyond the fear of the unfamiliar and embrace change for all the opportunities it has the potential to bring.

 

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