This post, Delivering Experience, by Anthony Iannarino stuck in my mind as it sparked new ideas about conference experience design. Iannarino recounts a dining experience with his wife at a "funky, cool, eclectic" restaurant. Within moments of arriving, drink orders were swiftly taken and delivered. Entrees arrived moments later. Then the check, lickety-split. The Speed Drill Speed is usually appreciated by dining patrons. It also makes for faster table flips. Yet Iannario and his wife … [Read more...]
Conference WOW Moments Require Perpetual Reinvention
Your mighty event team managed to transform a "what if?" idea into a five-star, conference greatest hit. The attendee WOW factor was off the charts. This big moment gave your brand a major boost, with social shares rippling out to others who didn't attend, but now wish they had. Everyone's talking about this incredible experience, including your boss. Way to go! Now for the tough truth: WOW moments have a very short shelf life. Each time they're repeated, the buzz diminishes substantially. … [Read more...]
Conference Growth Rests Squarely On Attendance Centricity
Since the dawn of time, things tend to follow the Pareto Principle with 80% of results driven by 20% of customers, give or take 10%. Translating this dynamic to the world of conferences and trade shows, more often that not: A very high percentage of revenue will be primarily dependent on (or influenced by) key customers and top investors. Others will participate because they are there. The lion's share of expense and staff attention will be spent on attracting and serving the "once and … [Read more...]
Conference Investors Crave Strategic Sponsorships: Will You Satisfy Them?
There’s a major shift going on. An increasing number of conference and trade show investors are scaling back on booth space and shifting that spend to sponsorships. It’s a ripe opportunity for organizers to diversify their conference business model. The Shift To Strategic Sponsorships There’s another shift that has even greater ramifications for conference and trade show industry. Today’s sponsorship buyer is far more sophisticated about sponsorship strategy. They’re less inclined to … [Read more...]
Six Early Behavioral Warning Signs To Monitor Your Conference Sustainability
Understanding conference shatterpoints is critical to comprehending your conference’s financial sustainability. Essentially, conference shatterpoints are fault lines pointing to areas of vulnerability. They’re leading indicators that illustrate areas of weakness that usually don’t fully appear in your results until years later. You want to know about these imperfections before it’s too late. Detecting them early and reversing those trends can lead to years of conference … [Read more...]
Post-Conference Debrief Tips To Improve The Conference Experience
The closing keynote was a big hit. Attendees head home. Your team has worked tirelessly for weeks. And they delivered beyond your expectations. You would love to get packed quickly. You know everyone on your teams deserves some time off now. Gathering The Team For One Final Meeting You think, "If I can just gather the troops one last time to quickly capture feedback while it's still fresh in their minds, it would be great." Then that full-scale debrief you do a couple weeks later will be … [Read more...]
Three Marketing Flubs That Cause Conference YES Decision Skids
Your email marketing blast generated plenty of clicks. But the registration needle hardly moved. What's up with that? Conference Registration Frustrations For every smooth registration journey, there are many other frustrating moments that cause people to bail. You worked hard to earn that maybe click. Now they're skidding and losing interest. Three Marketing Roadblocks Here are three messaging roadblocks that prevent you from converting them to YES: 1. One Size Fits All! You crafted a … [Read more...]
Conference & Trade Show Sponsors Want Relevance
As we strive to deliver outstanding attendee experiences, our eyes turn to sponsorship. After all, somebody has to pay for this. Yet sponsorship tends to follow the same random path: Logos are slapped on every last bit of real estate. Banner ads and app alerts multiply. As the promotional noise increases, attendee attention plummets – thus making sponsorship less appealing. While eyeballs and clicks might have mattered to some degree in years past, that era is ending. Sponsorship investors … [Read more...]
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