Photo Credit: Sloek Prey for Adobe Stock
In today's fast-paced event-marketing landscape, strategies need to evolve to align with audience expectations and the shifting dynamics of digital engagement. In a recent webinar, Wendy Porter, founder of Wendy Porter Events LLC, and Bill Zimmer, vice president of strategy for 360 Live Media, shared insights on the current trends shaping the meetings industry. Watch the full webinar now, and read on for some highlights.
The importance of pre-event engagement
As meeting planners face increasing competition for attendee attention, encouraging early registration is crucial.
"It's harder than ever to get people to register for an event," Zimmer said. "So we're being really intentional about the types of teaser campaigns and ways of pulling that registration curve forward, whether it's offering things on social media or partnerships to amplify the message earlier."
From the attendees' perspective, they need to know that a meeting will be valuable before making a commitment. This means being thoughtful about not only the content, but also the logistics and overall experience.
"Travel has gotten very expensive and time is sort of at a premium, so people are looking for the events that resonate with them the best," added Porter. "We're really having to lean into that as planners, making sure we're thinking about our target, and creating messaging and content that's going to attract them."
Additionally, organizations can announce they will launch thought leadership or research pieces at the event to entice people to register, promising attendees an exclusive preview of industry data.
Personalization is key
One of the recurring themes through the discussion was the need for deeper personalization. As Porter put it: "The one-size-fits-all marketing is not going to cut it." With advancements in artificial intelligence, organizers can use the technology to create personalized messages that cater to specific audience segments.
Zimmer recommends testing different creative formats and seeing which ones generate the best results. Switching messaging strategies and paying attention to engagement metrics are part of the approach to ensuring that marketing efforts are resonating with the intended audience.
"Make sure that there's a rigor to measuring that and not just getting stuff out the door because it's 4:00 on a Thursday," he said. "Let's take a minute and send this at the right time or deploy this in the right way, so we can learn as we go and really hone that voice-value proposition."
Gathering attendee data
Beyond marketing, delivering tailored experiences also is a must. To do so, Porter suggests using registration platforms to capture key information. While there is a trend toward simplifying forms, collecting more granular data allows planners to build more customized itineraries.
"We are building out registration platforms that are a little more robust," she said. "And we'll ask some really key questions of people so then we can get more information about them and plan our agendas accordingly."
Those details can be used for building education sessions that resonate with the audience, or even creating customized journeys for attendees, where they receive an individual QR code with recommendations for keynotes to attend, booths to visit and people to meet.
The role of AI in event marketing
Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming an essential tool for event marketers.
"I am using it for all kinds of things: helping write emails, helping write copy, helping with even creating agendas," said Porter, whose preferred engine is ChatGPT. "There are so many things now that you can do with AI and it's all about getting the appropriate prompts set up and making sure you're very defined in what you're asking it to do."
At the fintech conference Money 20/20 in October, AI was referred to as a "force multiplier," exponentially helping marketing efforts.
"Everyone needs to get on board with it, start playing with it," Porter added. "It's very powerful and I think it's going to really revolutionize what we do."
Zimmer also mentioned Gemini, Jasper and Microsoft Copilot as platforms that 360 Live Media is evaluating.
Adapting to evolving consumer behaviors
We're all guilty of it: being on our phones during a general session. Rather than viewing this as a distraction, planners can leverage the behavior by creating complementary information, offering attendees useful content on their phones while sessions are happening on stage. This could be through an interactive app, additional resources or live updates that enhance the event experience without taking away from the main content.
The power of social media
Social platforms are indispensable tools for marketing, and the panelists offered tips on how to use them effectively before, during and after an event.
"I've seen great success in getting sponsors to be part of the social media campaign's awareness-building phase, where they're talking about the topics at the event that are coming up," Zimmer said. "They all have their own followings, and that can be a really nice way of getting the ball rolling early."
Porter listed a variety of content that can be used both mid- and post-event, such as videos to use for the following year's sizzle reel, white papers written from education sessions and podcasts that begin onsite and continue afterwards.
"Really well thought-out events have what we call this red thread that starts with the experience beforehand, how you're engaging [attendees] ahead of time, how you're keeping them excited during, and then what's going on post-event — and it all ties together," she explained. "That creates an amazing experience, and creates memories and stickiness and some loyalty, where people get excited about it and they want to show up next year."