The internet has made world-class content front, center, mobile and affordable—often free. Anyone can hear the best experts for free (or nearly free) on almost any device they own. Anyone can get thought leadership at their fingertips. And your conference audience does. They have access to the same information you do. They can hear, watch and read the greatest speakers anytime. Technology Disrupts Traditional Content-Driven Conferences So why should someone pay a registration fee, book a … [Read more...]
Getting Attendees Wrong: The Age Of Discontinuity
Some conference planning teams get their attendees wrong! So why do we get it so wrong? It has everything to do with the rapid pace of change—the age of discontinuity as Drucker called it—and our default thinking. The heart of our current organizational challenges is that we rarely diverge from our default thinking. We assume that all of our conference attendee challenges can be solved by analyzing our past. We embrace quantifiable metrics which is particularly ill suited for analyzing … [Read more...]
Your Conference Needs A Customer Vision Statement
What is your vision for your conference customer? In case you are confused by the term conference customer, I mean your paying attendee or registrant. What is your vision for your conference customer, the paying attendee? How do you hope to help your paying attendee to grow, evolve or transform? What traits and characteristics do you desire to create in your customers through your conference experience? Those are some tough questions we need to consider. Many conference organizers have … [Read more...]
Designing Conference Customers, Not Just Traditional Conferences
We are thinking about conference innovation from the wrong perspective. We usually think about conference innovation as something we create for our paying attendees. Or we think about innovation as something we design with attendees through crowdsourcing. We need to make a critical leap. Conference innovation is a way to design attendees! Innovation should be treated as a medium and method for (re)desigining customer. ~ HBR author Michael Schrage. Evolving Your Conference … [Read more...]
What Do You Want Your Conference Customers To Become?
“It’s not the attendees’ job to know what they want,” paraphrase of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. “Larry [Page] is into making people what he wants them to be—which is a little smarter,” former Google Executive (from author’s private correspondence).” So who do you want your conference customers to become? Adopting The Ask In Conference Design This simple question, “Who do you want your conference customers to become?” can transform your traditional conference planning. HBR author … [Read more...]
Who Is Your Conference Really Attracting?
Attracting first-class, first-rate, quality attendees is one of the most complex and important keys to your conference’s business model. Too many conferences attempt to be all things to all people and end up with a watered-down offering. You need a process to help you identify your various attendee segments and who your target market is. Once you peel back the layers to see who is really attending your event, you may not like what you see. Attracting Low Quality Attendees Can Harm Your … [Read more...]
Your Attendees Are More Than Transactions. They Are Unique Individuals!
The traditional approach to understanding your conference attendees has been to consolidate and analyze their transactions, attendance and activities at various events. Knowing the customer has been confined to segmentation, statistical averages and historical inferences. This is no longer enough! Organizations need to have a much more holistic view of their customer based on how he or she engages in the rest of the world, not just their organization. Huh? We're Going To An Exotic Hunting … [Read more...]
Using Content Marketing To Grow Conference Attendance
Joe Pulizzi shares how he uses content marketing to grow attendance at the Content Marketing World Conference. Here’s a rundown of his video if you want to fast forward to a specific area. 00:10 – Who Is Joe Pulizzi & What Is The Content Marketing World Conference 01:00 – What Is Content Marketing? 02:07 – How To Use Content Marketing To Grow Conference Attendance 03:39 – Tips For Creating Content For Your Conference Marketing 06:59 – For More Information On Content … [Read more...]
