Extend the life of

your event and drive ROI

In partnership withFeature report

Capturing excıtement

Whether it’s helping you create a high impact stage area, or developing innovative ways to track and guide your attendees, our team will advise, guide and inspire you on how to engage your audience and make a long-lasting impression. Looking to get started? Contact our live events team today. live@ges.com +44 (0)2476 380 176

2

Seven key takeawaysKnow your participantsLock in your objectives

Collect good, actionable dataLeverage channels your

attendees useCreate a clear,

continuous narrativeUse analytics to dig deeper

Be useful

3

Imagine the following. Participants sign up to an event, access an online platform where they connect, interact and network and

share content on social media. And that’s weeks before your event has even started.

An event is now much more than its live date. In today’s online and socially-connected world, events start long before the doors open or the webinar starts. They exist before and after, online and offline, and any pre-event strategy needs to engage attendees or potential attendees on both rational and emotional levels.

For event organisers, this means shaking up marketing and communications and creating a participant-centric strategy. The time to act is now.

“Your attendees expect useful and connected experiences, they want your marketing to deliver value, and you – the event organiser – to remember and act on the information given” John Sanders head of strategic client engagement, GES EMEA.

The likes of Airbnb, Uber and Facebook can teach any sector a thing or two about engagement – by making customers’ lives better, one positive experience at a time, they are building lasting relationships with their user base. So how does this apply to event organisers? By adopting a similar digital disruption strategy – be it through online payments to personalised itineraries

or registration, to sharing content, attendes demand a seamless event.

More than ever, event organisers need to create a relevant conversation at critical touch points in the customer journey, driving by participants’ interests and needs, rather than the traditional way of converting leads from a sales pipeline. Your event needs cut through to carry participants on a journey they care about and one that provides them with value from before to long after the event has finished.

“Make your marketing so useful people would pay for it.”Jay Baer marketing guru.

Getting the right message, to the right person at the right time, has never been more critical. Select the right tools and channels and build a strategy that encourages real-time, proactive and responsive interaction, underpinned by personalised and relevant marketing and communications.

EVENT STORY NO.1Event360 tailored meetingsEvent magazine’s flagship event, hosted in the Roundhouse, London in 2015. The organiser’s research discovered that time-poor event professionals attended events to find specific solutions to obstacles faced.

So, in addition to the insight from speakers and workshops, Event360 developed a forum-like model, where meetings between suppliers and participants were pre-arranged. Based on pre-event questionnaires and conversations, attendees were matched to the suppliers that had the perfect solution for their needs. Participants could then compare offerings and decide which provider they wanted to work with – in turn, suppliers had meeting-after-meeting with hot leads.

Win-win!

4

To innovate inevitably entails some risk. A popular way to manage this risk from the outset is to adopt the 70:20:10 principle. Spend 70% of budget on tried and tested approaches, 20% on new areas, and 10% goes towards experimental projects.

Grow an event out from the live date. What an event delivers – thought leadership, networking with industry VIPs or sourcing leading suppliers – is just as relevant before, during and after.

For example, if it’s networking, consider community building; if it’s cutting-edge insight, interview expert speakers or share research.

Pinpoint specific and actionable objectives, as this determines the route your brand, marketing and technology will take and will shape how you develop your attendee relationship.

These objectives might be lead generation, attendee satisfaction, re-bookings, sales, happy clients, enhanced staff morale or acquired behavioural insight.

Underpinning all of this is data capture. In today’s world, digital sources can provide a full view of your participants, with data on their interests, what they are seeking from the event, their preferences, social connections and their

Laying the foundations of a successful participant journey

5

level of brand interaction. Every event touch point is a source of data

– whether it’s scoring leads (eg via marketing automation software) or helping you allocate resources in real time during an event (eg using real time analytics).

In an ideal world, if any attendees are existing customers – those who have attended previous events for example, this should also be reflected in the data, giving that all-important 360-degree view.

Yet any marketing automation system or analytics software is only as good as the data you feed it – if you don’t have the right prospects, or your data is not ‘cleaned’ on a regular basis, or is inaccurate, it doesn’t matter how sophisticated your systems are.

Data capture can also help inform event organisers in real-time. This could be insight on a marketing channel has been particularly

successful at driving sign-ups, or tracking the peaks in event registration, enabling the event organiser to reallocate resources to manage particular pressure points.

Collect but do not view an event’s USP, objectives and data in isolation, they mutually inform each other. Similarly, before, during and after an event are not separate stages but an overall journey, with a brand’s tone and message visible throughout to build both a genuine and lasting relationship with participants.

For example, a pre-event questionnaire might dictate which case studies are distributed to which attendee pre-event, which can then be used to produce tailored itineraries for participants. This means organisers maintain the relationship and knowledge, both online or offline, of each attendee, while they in turn are given ownership of which sessions they attend and when.

88% of companies acknowledge that inaccurate data will impact their bottom line.

As data moves from stage to stage it is susceptible to errors, from humans inputting information incorrectly, to storage not having relevant data fields or failing to identify duplicate entries.

If using marketing automation software, ensure each touch-point reports to a centralised database. A great way to keep data up to date is to show prepopulated fields when re-engaging attendees. For example, if a participant enters a competition, show them select information that is held in the database, enabling them to make corrections if needed.

Keep data clean!

Gathering

Delivery

Storage

Retrieval + analysis

6

To create a lasting brand experience, events should excite and connect with potential participants on an emotional level – achieving this can be one of the hardest tasks but also one of the most rewarding.

Surprise and delight participants from the start. Even the most ordinary of actions –such as event registration, needs to be an experience. Filling in forms provides useful data but take this to the next level with an app platform that creates a conversation, where people can comment once they’ve registered and share their attendance with peers via social media.

Create a sense of exclusivity – by giving attendees advance information on the speakers or content, incentivising them with a competition once they have registered or offering perks for early registration, you can make them feel special, enhancing the experience. Providing a sense of ownership and choice is also vital – highlight industry developments and how the theme of the event will cover these and allow participants to choose which sessions they can attend.

In today’s always-on world, event planners need to make a digital impact – to execute a successful omni-channel presence, every action

should connect with the customer’s experiences – you need to build

a rapport regardless of the channel used. This could

be as simple as triggering a personalised welcome tweet once a attendee registers, to tailoring messages based on a participant’s profile and captured data, to offering an app for sharing content or setting up a forum to discuss topics pre- and post-event.

Engage with influencers and create attendee advocates by identifying a network of relevant publications or media, bloggers and social-media personalities. Tap into the marketing resources of sponsors – give them exclusive interviews or data from the event, and in exchange consider using their channels to promote the content and event. This is not only a way to generate a buzz pre-event, but can keep the conversation going post-event.

Build anticipation and a sense of ‘must attend’ through gamification, running regular competitions or incentives with winners announced at the live event. And let participants have their say, via social media or through a dedicated pre-event online forum – the information gathered can not only shape agendas and planned panels but will also give your audience a vested interest in the event, something they want to buy into.

By harnessing data from all the above actions, event organisers can gather rich insight on attendees’ behavioural patterns pre-event, which can help to further refine levels of personalisation.

INFORM AND ENTERTAINThe secrets to building genuine relationships before, during and after

Before: hit the ground running before an event

7

During: an unforgettable live experience

Data from the show floor is ultimately the most valuable – both for creating a more tailored experience and for gathering real-time insight. Use digital and social media tools to give your participants a role in the event, turning them from attendees into participants. Display social conversations and consider real-time polling tools to turn presentations into dynamic question and answer sessions.

If you have created a sense of exclusivity pre-event, consider extending this during the event. For example, if an event has different types of attendees, such as VIPs, limit the access or permissions accordingly. This can be achieved by using QR codes or NFC passes to restrict or allow entrance to sessions or areas as required.

Participant tracking tools or beacons are increasingly mainstream, alongside the use of RFID technology – not only can they push

notifications or content to attendees in real-time, but they also act as data capture tools – passing on details to exhibitors after a visit to a stand, for example.

“Technology should exist in the background, silently feeding you information and optimising the participant experience. Beacons are a perfect example, they can update you on footfall, while simultaneously activating useful push notifications for your attendees.” Graham Pope group commercial director, BLITZ|GES

What to say?No secrets. This will depend on your event. But create a content calendar created around themes, to keep output fresh and of interest to as many of your attendees or prospects as possible. Here are some ideas:

Quick hitter – short articleComic

Interview with speakersVideo trailer of previous event

eBookStats of upcoming event

Advise

WarnFuture-gaze

Champion

Unite

AmuseInspire

EVENT STORY NO.2Third Sector, Fundraising Week pre-event webinar seriesThird Sector’s Fundraising Week is in the diary of all senior professionals working in the charity fundraising space. But, being based in London, the reality is that not everyone is able to make it. In turn, each session, lasting about an hour, is never going to be enough time to cover all issues or answer all questions.

So, Third Sector delivered a collection of live interactive pre-event webinars the week before. This proved an effective way to generate pre-event discussion, shape questions for the live sessions, enthuse participants and convince a good number of prospects to convert. Speakers and sponsors were happy to participate, further building up momentum and generating content to promote the following week.

8

‘Gamifying’ sessions or creating event challenges can also increase engagement levels and gather additional participants data. This encourages participants to use the tools available at an event, such as an app, encouraging them to discover more information, share content or even space for advertising.

“The goal of social media is to turn customers into a volunteer marketing army.” Jay Baer

And don’t overlook those who haven’t turned up. Data on no-shows can be just as important for helping organisers understand how to improve the content of future events and more importantly, increase registration and attendance rates.

9

Follow up as soon as possible after an event, ideally no more than 24 hours. This can be a simple as showing your appreciation and thanking attendees, reminding them that online platforms and content are available and prompting them to check back later when you can unveil some interesting content post-event. This will give you time to both prepare and analyse post-event data – the eventual content could be highlights, statistics, insight or other information tailored to participant interests and behaviour.

In turn, keep the conversation alive and ask attendees for their thoughts. Positive messages can be mined for marketing future events and constructive feedback can help with the planning. Share quality content on social media – both a way of drawing people back into the event and inspiring new content, via feedback, tweets or further sharing.

One event leads to the next, but in-between there are plenty of revenue opportunities, from digital events, to workshops, or awareness campaigns. Sponsors can gain credibility by being associated with the key takeaways or findings of an event, such as white papers or infographics.

And it’s just as important to keep the event front of mind for attendees – if it’s an annual one, for example, consider asking previous attendees to suggest speakers or find out whom they would like to hear from.

Engagement – before, during and after an event – is a serious revenue driver. It opens the door to cross selling, rebooking

or upselling. It’s also proven to increase order size, which could tip a participant from buying a standard ticket to upgrading to a premium package.

In turn, loyal attendees bring new participants. This is truer than ever in today’s connected world, and an event will risk competitors driving the conversation if they fail to engage their audience. By building authentic relationships, these participants can soon turn into vocal advocates for your event and brand. This is where a functional relationship – that is, being genuinely useful –

After: a healthy participant relationship after the event

EVENT STORY NO.3Money 20/20, i2i and GES leveraging RFID insightMoney20/20 is a world-leading financial services event that started out in the US and came to Europe for the first time this year. With 4,000 attendees, 150 key sponsors, 400 speakers and a number of media partners exhibiting at the Bella Centre, GES were tasked with helping i2i Events deliver an outstanding debut event in Copenhagen.

A key component was GES’ implementation of RFID technology, which has the potential to facilitate a truly frictionless attendee experience. To ensure large events run without a hitch, RFID can be used to track session attendance. This enables the seamless flow of attendees without the need to scan each badge upon entry. In turn, undersubscribed sessions can be identified, to direct real-time notifications and drive up numbers. Organisers can use this attendance data to inform future similar events. Footfalls can be continuously heat mapped, so changes can be made to manage popular areas and insight gained into where attendees are congregating. RFID worked in the background, silently supporting Money 20/20.

10

combines with an emotional connection – that is, being trusted.

But, being liked, having a high open rate, or thousands of Instagram followers is not an optimised revenue generator in and of itself.

The engagement on these channels needs to support an event’s objectives, such as driving traffic to landing pages for data capture or encouraging social sharing to build greater awareness.

As well as building loyalty, monetise event communications by including sponsored content. But, a caveat is that this must be inline with the type of useful content that would otherwise be distributed.

Keep your event and brand on your attendees’ radar by being at the forefront of distributing relevant and insightful content, and always know whom you are talking to.