One of society’s greatest paradoxes is that we have more connections today than we did in the past but there is less community and conversation. As a conference organizer, you can seed your annual meeting with experiences that nurture authentic conversations, deep connections and community. You don’t have to sacrifice honest talk for today’s casual chat through digital communications or to sidestep sensitive polarizing topics. You can design, structure and facilitate conference experiences … [Read more...]
The Conference Owner’s Guide: Steps 2-5 To Transition From Conference Touchpoints To Journey Experiences
Once you’ve observed the conference through the lens of your target customer and gained insights from conference data, you can move to the next steps. These steps are critical for you and your conference planning teams to embrace, enlist and employ. You want to move from conference touchpoints to conference customer experience journeys. And remember, someone needs to own and to advocate on behalf of the conference customer's experience. This is part two, steps 2-5 on transitioning from … [Read more...]
The Conference Owner’s Guide: From Conference Touchpoints To Journey Experiences Part 1
Too often conference and meeting professionals assume that their role is best suited to planning and executing the conference. They leave the big decisions about target customers, their needs and their aspirations to the organization’s leaders, the marketing department or even the education division. Sometimes they say, “Well, I’m not in charge of programming, content or speakers. I get that from the education section or the conference technical teams.” They assume that this default … [Read more...]
The Conference Owner’s Guide To Customer Experience
Who owns the overall experience that customers have at your conference? Who oversees and manages the conference customers’ journey? Is it you or someone else? Or perhaps no one is considering the holistic experience of your conference customer? Are you functioning as a scheduler and executor of the conference with a divide and conquer mentality where every leadership team hands you their planned component and you schedule the details? Do you consider how these pieces fit together creating … [Read more...]
Is Your Conferencing Treating Its Customers As Tourists Or Explorers?
How does your conference treat its participants? How do you and your leadership team view them? Are your conference customers more like tourists? Seeking conference swag, amenity room drops, welcome bags and quick ideas? Or are they more like explorers? Craving authentic experiences, no matter the size, that enhance their lives and change their attitudes, behaviors and skills? The Tourist Conference Experience When conferences view their customers as tourists, they plan and offer … [Read more...]
Creating A Customer-Centric Conference Strategy
Established, successful conferences have leadership that are usually adept at incrementally improving their event each year. They focus on securing better content and speakers. Or improving registration and marketing practices. Or creating unique receptions and parties. Or decreasing expenses and increasing revenue. One improvement tactic--curating conference programming that meets your customers’ needs--is foundational yet proving to be insufficient for innovation and new growth. … [Read more...]
Learner- And User-Design Key To Next-Gen Audiences
Wikipedia defines design as the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object, system or measurable human interaction (as in architectural blueprints, engineering drawings, business processes, circuit diagrams, and sewing patterns). So, when you read the word design, what pops into your mind? Artists? Fashion Designers? City planning? Interior design? Graphic design? Meeting and conference professionals? Wait! Go back and read that last phrase: meeting and conference … [Read more...]
En Route For Next-Gen Conference Audiences
Will Millennials be joiners and conveners? Who are some of your next audiences to attract? Will your organization accumulate comparable lifetime customer value from next-generation members as it did from loyal Boomers? This is the first of two posts that are intended to be a helpful resource for conference organizers as they develop their attendee succession-plan strategy. Key Indicators For Most Conferences While every association and profession has its unique issues, I’ve picked up on a … [Read more...]
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