Putting The Strategy In Event Planning

I just spent 3 days in New York City at The Glass House for Skift Meetings and Global Forum - a gathering of leaders in the events and travel industry. Skift Meetings Forum was a separate, intimate gathering of leaders in meetings and event planning, followed by the Global Forum where the event grew to 1000 attendees in the events and travel industry.

There was so much great content, but two of the speakers stood out for me. I'll do this in two posts because there's so much to share! First up - the opening keynote by Seth Godin, Author, Entrepreneur and some would say, marketing genius. His talk encapsulated for me what event driven strategy is. I've put all the brilliance he shared in quotations.

Strategic Event Planning

"We’re in the business of creating tension. If your event has tension that leads to change than you won't struggle with success. The hard work is to push back and say the hard things."

"We're not in the business of being convenient, inexpensive and our job isn't to maintain status quo but to decide how we are going to define it."

Whoa - Let's bring all that to our next kick-off meeting. It might make some uncomfortable, but you can simply start with asking the right questions, so you develop the right event strategy. We have a project brief we take clients through, and it always surprises me that many of the questions we're asking, the client doesn't have answers to or hasn't thought about them yet. That's our job as event planners - to ask the tough questions, define the event's purpose, get those event goals in place, attract your target audience with the right event marketing and meaningful content, then create an attendee experience so that not only are you producing a successful event, but one your audience can't do without.

For clarity, by tension he means not in the sense of opposing forces "but by not doing what's expected. Exposing ourselves to things that might not work, over and over. It's not an art, it's a skill. It's about embracing fear and doing the unexpected."

Event Strategy

Write this one down: "Strategy is easy to decide and hard to implement."

Probably one of the most powerful things he said was, "Choose your customers, choose your future." It's really up to us how we spend our days. Who is hiring you and demanding mediocre work? Every time you work with them you won't get challenged because, "Systems fight and defend status quo. Think hard of what you're taking on." This really resonated. When you're an event agency it can feel like you're chasing all the projects, all the RFP's (a new trend in our industry it seems is to RFP even the smallest of projects). But most of all, it reinforced for me that we need to keep striving to do what's next, not what's always been done before.

The challenge for event organizers is to "Do something that scares you and make change happen."

Final Tips For Event Success

"Why is the whole conference not like the Green Room?" I want to hang this on my wall! If you've ever hung out in the Green Room at a conference you know that feeling Godin is describing. It's intimate, a place where bright minds gather, bold statements are made. Make your event experience have that kind of feeling. That same feeling people get when attending a festival or a trendy restaurant - a place where the cool kids hang out. Create that place everyone wants to be at. Or as Godin put it: "Create tension so that people say something's happening here."

A few years ago, we managed a series of events for a client's sponsorship of a festival that was spread around the city. Our strategy for the closing party was to make it 'the' place to be, to stand out amidst all the other parties taking place on the same night. We created demand with a lead generation strategy utilizing brand ambassadors with giveaways, and an invite only 'pin' handed out to the most qualified leads at the client's activation outside the main event venue. Suddenly everyone wanted that pin. We designed an immersive entranceway from the street that stood out to festival goers, and all at once we had line-ups, drawing attention to our event. Everyone wanted to be at our client's party.

“They don’t dance,” a client said. But suddenly, with the overall event strategy and attention paid in the planning process to event flow, décor, activations and entertainment, we created a place and mood that was specifically targeted to the client’s demographic. And they were there for all of it, including letting loose on the dance floor. Sometimes it's the little things, but most of all, it's the feelings and emotional connection your event generates. In both these examples, the event was successful, simply by being that place where 'something was happening.'

"Create the environment for networking to take place." (All the research shared at the conference reinforced it's the number one reason people attend in-person events - to network, and in the world we're living in - to connect with other human beings).

"Make your event app so good, attendees have a reason to stay in it." Another example of not just sticking with the status quo, but really examine your event tech for all stages of your event - pre-event promotion, on event days, and afterwards.

"Why is an event only 3 days? What is the conversation before and after?" Hello again event technology and the power events hold in building community.

And finally: "Cancel your most mediocre speaker, put people in groups of 8 and get them to solve a problem." Skift Meetings did this, and it was one of the highlights for many of us. They had note takers circulating at the tables and taking down each group's tips and then sharing them all from the stage.

With the right strategy it won't be difficult to measure event success.

The ROAD TO PLANNING A SUCCESSFUL EVENT

The common sentiment from event planners in the audience was how tough it is out there right now to bring an event to life - that we do feel like we're fighting the tide so to speak in a constant struggle - with budgets, time, global economic factors, so many influences that are outside our control - the list goes on. But this keynote inspired me and reinforced once again why we do what we do. It brought the magic back for me. And when he said, "There’s no question you’re going to succeed you have already done it. Will you choose to matter, will you be the person to push and be the voice to be better and make change?"

Powerful and inspiring. What will your future events look like?

Also, go get Seth Godin's new book, 'This Is Strategy, Make Better Plans'.