Most of us are clamoring to return to face-to-face events and conferences. Yet conference planners and attendees are not necessarily on the same page.
Valuegraphics, a noted research firm out of Vancouver, Canada, recently did a study of 1850 very avid conference goers. Here’s what David Allison and his research team discovered: there is dissonance.
Attendees see conferences as an opportunity to join community; they want to belong. And yet events planners themselves don’t value community or see community as a high value item. (see chart below)
In a recent episode of the Mindful Marketer Live Stream, I sat down with expert event strategists Jake Fabbri, Christina Marmor, and Joan Carrese-Sineni. Combined, they represent 68+ years of experience in the industry.
We unpacked how we can close that gap so that planners and strategists co-create events and conferences that make a lasting impression, and fuel higher customer loyalty and learning.
Here are some of the highlights (40 minutes total)
04:29 – What customers are currently craving: community and learning
08:16 – How to create intimate interactions and communities within larger events
10:45 – How can we meet customers where they’re at?
16:00 – What event technology is going to be important for the future of events?
19:16 – How to embrace, versus fear data
22:29 – How to leverage influencers
23:27 – How do we measure the return on investment from our events?
29:42 – Creating community ahead of your events
32:54 – How can you monetize events in new ways?
36:58 – Don’t be scared to throw out the playbook
You can join Lisa Nirell the first 3 Fridays of every month at 1:30pm ET for the Mindful Marketer Podcast. Just follow her on LinkedIn to be notified when she goes live. You can also click here to view the upcoming schedule and watch past episodes.