The Changing Face of Attendee Marketing

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1 The Changing Face of Attendee Marketing Best Practices for developing and executing an effective audience recruitment campaign An AttendeeBuilder White Paper Today s Attendee Marketing Challenges Are you one of the 65% who open their mail over the trash can? Do you mine your for the typical cliché subject lines that indicate spam and delete without even opening them? One of the challenges we hear most from our clients is how to generate and grow an audience at their meeting or event, and rightfully so. Attendee marketing is more of a challenge today than ever before. We can no longer rely on traditional marketing methods to get the right people to our meetings and events. So what is the best way to gather better data and gain a better understanding of your audience? And once you have that data, how do you use it effectively? Marketing 101 To generate quality attendance, the first step is understanding your current attendee base and then using that information to target future marketing efforts and keep attendees returning. Who is your ideal attendee? What motivates them to invest time and money on attending? Developing a database of quality prospects and building an integrated, targeted marketing campaign is a laborintensive process if done by in-house staff who have many other responsibilities on their plate, says Andy McNeill, CEO of American Meetings, Inc. In today s busy, technology-driven environment, marketers are searching for alternative solutions to get the job done efficiently and effectively. In order to create a loyal attendee base, both clients and their attendees at a meeting or event must leave the event feeling they have received the ROI they expected. This has become increasingly difficult as the channels used to reach an audience have grown and changed dramatically over the past 3-5 years. Professionals in charge of recruitment are marketing to an evolving audience and the more traditional methods of reaching the right attendees (such as a static direct mail or campaign) have become less effective. Nevertheless, research consistently shows a direct correlation between marketing efforts and the growth or decline of attendance. A report released by The Frost Miller Group called AttendTrends + shows: Organizations that increased their marketing budgets reported a 64 percent growth in attendance. Of the organizations that decreased their marketing budgets, 68 percent reported a decrease in attendance. Of the organizations whose marketing budgets remained the same, 62 percent reported that attendance also remained the same. If marketing dollars has this direct effect in either direction.what can be a game changer? When the economy is down, the inclination of corporate meeting and event marketers is to reduce marketing budgets; however, as you can see research correlates this with a decline in attendance. We recommend that our clients put a greater focus on enhancing their prospect database and developing a strategic cross-media marketing campaign, using data, technology and current trends to their advantage. Meeting and event marketing professionals realize what a major responsibility is entrusted to them to continually grow attendance. The AttendTrends report + also found some other challenges reported by event marketers and meeting planners in maintaining or increasing attendance at events. 35% of planners said their top challenge is knowing how to communicate with a broad range of prospective attendees in today s market. 32% communicated challenges with promoting the value of a meeting or event to new audiences. +AttendTrends is an ongoing study of marketing within the event industry conducted by The Frost Miller Group.

2 When looking for help with attendee marketing and audience recruitment, meeting and event planners should seek: A cross-channel, marketing solution with the ability to be tailored to specific segments of your database A platform that automates the marketing process to relieve the labor-intensity for in-house staff The ability to track the effectiveness of each individual marketing channel, and what elements appealed to which segment of the database The ability to react to response rates by making mid-campaign modifications, immediately improving results This whitepaper will focus on methods recommended to generate and grow a quality audience at your next meeting or event. Identifying Strong Prospects and Building your Database There is a good chance that most meeting and event planners begin with some level of data when the decision is made to hold an event. If you re lucky, that database may also include some background information on past events attended and whether they returned year over year. What it may not include is information on what attendees value. The best ways to gather this level of understanding are to: QUALITY VS. QUANTITY Meeting and event managers were asked what is most important to their exhibitors and sponsors when recruiting attendees for an event. Connect and stay in touch with your attendees. It is easy to become engrossed in the details of the event content and logistics, but taking the time to build trusting relationships and then encouraging an open dialogue will work wonders toward learning what is important to them Incorporate pre-, during-, and post-show surveys in to every event and compare how effective you were at managing your attendees expectations vs. their perceived ROI after the event Give careful consideration to the questions you are asking and answer choices to be sure that there is no room for guessing results based on interpretation or perception. Use the opportunity to survey those who did not attend or did not show to find out why. Upon review of the data collected, meeting and event planners will learn: The trade show exhibitors that were most appealing to different segments of the database. The speakers or session topics that generated the greatest interest. Results based on a survey conducted by EXPO Magazine along with the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Whether there is there a registration price sensitivity and/or what the pricing threshold is for different segments of the database. The elements of the meeting or event that most interested or appealed to different segments of the database. And this information can and should be used to target future attendees on the next campaign. You will now know which exhibitors and products to target, how to best incentivize attendees to return, and how to attract similar prospects in the future.

3 Different Messages Appeal to Different Segments Now that you have cleaned your prospect database and have identified key segments, it s time to develop a marketing campaign that includes messaging and graphics that is relevant to those segments. AttendeeBuilder has the ability to automatically personalize the campaign for each individual based on your pre-determined database segments bringing your response rates to a whole new level. And while you have grabbed their attention, you can survey them to gather valuable data, specify demographics, filter new data against established criteria, accommodate real-time campaign modifications, and track real-time results. Here is an example of how to effectively use variable data and graphics to appeal to unique database segments in an effective way. With this campaign we segmented the medical audience for an orthopedic event to appeal to variable areas of specialty. All of these examples are for the same event, but you can see how we changed out a single image and some text to give the campaign a personalized look and feel. Surgeons Spine Specialists Sports Medicine Specialists

4 Gathering Data and Using it to Your Advantage Developing a personalized marketing message to segments of the list is only the beginning of the marketing process. Surveying is essential to qualifying attendees before the event, and building your program around those results is essential to success. Using the survey to determine session topics of interest and/or the products and services of the exhibiting companies are vital measures of the meeting or event s value and success for an attendee. In return, the number and quality and qualified attendees is an important success measure for exhibitors and sponsors. Analyzing Your Results & Modifying Your Campaign Once your campaign is live, real-time analysis and modifications are the keys to success. Are the segments responding to your messaging as expected? Why or Why Not? It is smart to consider tweaking the campaign accordingly to immediately improve results; however, we recommend using caution when making too many modifications at once. Changing elements of your campaign one at a time will help you to effectively measure the results of each change before determining if additional change is necessary. A cross-media approach like AttendeeBuilder provides 360-degree results that meeting and event marketers can use to measure and to improve their events, making them even more attractive to future attendees. Marketers can instantly evaluate the most effective delivery methods and improve messaging to increase future response rates as well as new attendee acquisition and retention. AttendeeBuilder collapses the recruitment cycle by streamlining and automating the campaign, allowing you to analyze relevant campaign data. Some insights you should draw from your data include: How to best link attendees with the meetings, events and topics that most closely match their interests How to best personalize your messaging to each segment of the database What changes to make to your marketing messages upon measuring what methods are and are not working Using the enhanced data you are collecting up front to reduce registration time and effort onsite Identifying the marketing channels that reach the best quality attendees, exhibitors and sponsors Gaining greater historical insight about attendees and exhibitors at all events, with attendee behavior information that covers topics of interest, exhibitors visited, etc.

5 Benefits of an Integrated Marketing Campaign With a goal to help our clients drive quality attendees to their corporate meetings and events, American Meetings has developed AttendeeBuilder culminating 100 years of combined experience with securing over 3 million attendees across the globe for our clients. American Meetings has the unique capability to combine our knowledge, resources, and technologies in the meeting management industry to deliver this cutting-edge marketing platform proven to generate audiences for any meeting under the sun. Once our clients begin using AttendeeBuilder, they realize the tremendous value of automating the marketing process and the power that this attendee marketing system holds. Once the campaign is setup, you have a reliable system to immediately track responses, provide instant data to your sales force, and gather the information you value the most from each respondent. To summarize, here are the key benefits of incorporating AttendeeBuilder: Complete campaign management including , direct mail, personalized URLs, personalized landing pages, opt-in SMS text messaging, social media and much more. Robust analytics and reporting on campaign effectiveness Increased attendee response rates through better data analysis Increased income by ensuring the right attendees at your event and their likelihood of returning Growth and retention of exhibitors and sponsors by increasing the number of qualified buyers at your event Increased staff productivity through the automation of your marketing process Pricing justification for exhibitors and sponsors by enhancing the quality of show attendees Greater historical insights and trend information about attendee behavior at events within a particular industry segment Enhanced data on session and purchase choices and exhibitors visited Maximized opportunities to identify and cross-market to attendees and exhibitors across multiple events Collection and tracking of attendee history annually and share findings with exhibitors and add value to the desired ROI of the exhibitors In the end, data is everything. Ultimately marketers gain more accurate attendee profiles, more qualified attendees, happier exhibitors, increased sponsorship dollars, more efficient data, a smoother registration process, and more time to spend on future strategies and messaging. For more information on American Meetings, Inc. visit us at: AmericanMeetings.com AttendeeBuilder.com