Total Event Resources’ CEO & Marketing Specialist Share Insight
Being an event strategist in the ever-changing meeting and event industry requires continuous innovation, being an early adopter, and living in the future. An event strategist can really add value for client and attendees by being smart with data and build invaluable attendee experiences. Events are the single-most effective marketing channel, beating out digital advertising, email marketing, and content marketing. While it is important to continue measuring and proving your event success, you will also need to know what your attendees want. So how do you create an ‘experiential marketing’ event that leaves your mix of Millenials, Gen X-ers, and Baby Boomers satisfied and happy?
This article provides solutions for your next event by addressing challenges to understanding your attendees that will prove your skills as an event strategist. We sat down with our very own marketing specialist, Delanie Olsen, and CEO, John McHugh, to discuss 3 challenges and solutions to attack that ensure Millenials, Gen X-ers, and Baby Boomers are satisfied and happy at your next event:
Increase the Happy, Eliminate the Frustrated, Hungry and Lost
As soon as guest arrive the all-important where/when/ how details of the event must be front and center. Imagine the traffic flow from when guests park, attend the event and leave. Create a welcoming environment for all attendees by making all event location details easily accessible. By doing so, you will drastically decrease their frustration levels. John McHugh, CEO, said “It can be as simple as having staff ready and able to direct. Especially since the attention span of Millenials and Gen X’ers is much shorter than Baby Boomers.
Attendees are hungry for information at an event and expect information to be accessible at their fingertips with answers in as little as .73 seconds. Let’s examine the demographic known as foodies. More than half of Americans consider themselves foodies. 62% of Americans would go to an event JUST for the food. What type of information is your foodie attendee looking for and are you able to provide it, quickly? Delanie Olsen, Marketing Specialist, said “Engaging food and beverage is a current trend in the events industry. Anymore, engaging visually appealing food is just as important as how it tastes.” In addition, Millenials and Gen X-ers are more subjected to be excited about food that is slightly healthy, or so they feel so.
Delanie Olsen
Digital Strategist
Total Event Resources
“Your event will be remembered by the connections and relationships it helped to facilitate. Your event strategy must encourage networking among attendees for them to get the most return on their investment.”
Networking Opportunities and A Pocket Full of Business Cards
While Baby Boomers are historically known to be keen on face-to-face communication and networking, that isn’t always the case for Millenials and Gen X-ers. Therefore, it causes disconnects between all three generations. It is proven to be beneficial to have networking scheduled into events, however, it is important to make sure that it flows naturally for all generations involved.
Our experts encourage community building and networking through unique seating layouts. The baby boomer generation would be engaged with something specific on the table or screen to talk about or discuss. However, Gen X-ers and Millenials are constantly multi-tasking and their attention span is minimal. If you really want to engage these generations it is important to make the content relevant, fun and useful. Hour long workshops won’t do the trick.
No More Boring Speakers
89% of those who organize B2B events find landing a speaker one of the top challenges of event planning. This stress causes many of them to secure the first semi-relevant speaker they can find. However, it is imperative to know your general audience demographics and psychographics. After this is identified it will be more natural to narrow down the NOW influencers that would provide not only information relevant to their current career but can be transferred into any part of their life. When vetting out speakers, know the content they will be presenting to your audience before they do. Ask yourself, do you find it useful and engaging? Would you benefit from this information?
The overall goal is to innovative ideas that enhance an event and the attendee’s overall experience. It is important to stay relevant in a saturated market. By addressing the consumer challenges head on your next event will be already on the right track. Check out our blog post on *event marketing trends now* to further your knowledge after you have become an expert on your audience.
Encouraging Attendees To Network and Have Fun
You can move this idea to the cornerstone of your event strategy and see where you land. The planning and execution of an experience that leaves attendees, sponsors, and planners happy is one worth repeating. There are plenty of tips we can share, such as ways to segments first-timers, the best practices in creating network hubs — The benefits of people matching, and the power of incentivizing ticket sharing discounts. In the end, make connects personal and provide experiences worth sharing.
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