You can dress up your event with amazing décor, send out the most enticing and eye-catching invitations, book amazing speakers and more, all to charm attendees into showing up to your event. But how do you keep them coming back again and again? Data!
The more data collected, processed and put into play, the better information available for understanding the audience and how to best deliver what they are looking for in an event. Here are some ideas on how to get some valuable data so your next event ranks as an attractive offering.
Create Personas: Who comes to your events? They certainly do not fit one type. Sit down with your team and develop a persona for each type of attendee. This will provide a basis for how best to segment your database in order to create relevant messaging for each of your audiences.
Awards Programs: Though not all audiences can participate, some can. This is a great way to award those loyal to attending your events, plus help track attendees year in and year out. If a certain persona stops showing, what programs fell off that may need to be introduced? If a new audience shows up, what programs need to be nurtured even more in order to grow that audience?
Social Proof: Work with a digital marketer to create ways for those that sign up to your event to share it via their social media. This will help with organic reach and provide social proof to a connection’s connections, thereby adding validity to your event offering. Send out messages enticing attendees to engage and participate both before and after the event. Collect data on your social engagement and aim to grow it each year.
Collaborative Connections: Research other industry events that serve as a complement to your event. Then consider partnering with them to offer discounts or credits for each other’s events. Tracking which participants come to you via other events or organizations will help determine where best to create additional marketing efforts and collaborations.
Survey It: Surveying attendees both before and after an event about content, as well as the conference overall, brings in much needed data for creating all aspects of the next event. Get into to the mind of the attendee! They are privy to information that your organization may not be privy to; let them share what they want so you can deliver.
Happy data collecting, meeting planner. Of course, if you need extra time to make this happen, give me a call, I can take on site selection for you – and provide some awesome data on all that I do! 636-678-7661
