The start of a New Year, for many marketers, is an opportunity to revisit some of your annual strategic measures. Perhaps you’re knee deep in event planning for an early Q1 event, or just now starting preliminary planning. Here are some tips to help you maximize your event agendas for 2015 and beyond.
1.Look for ways to re-purpose marketing messaging. It can be helpful to start with a specific theme to carry out across all event activities. This is a great way to reinforce your brand’s messaging to existing customers in attendance, as well as the press and media who will be reporting from the show floor. It also helps support the discussions that prospective customers are having with your sales and marketing teams by demonstrating continuity.
For instance, during Eloqua Experience 2013, we aligned our session tracks with messaging previously used in our content collateral, “The 5 Tenets of Modern Marketing.” It was a natural fit to tie in messaging points from verbiage that we knew what relevant and successful in speaking to our communities.
2. Cast a wide-open net with a public call for speakers. While this may be more challenging for companies with fewer resources, a great place to start in your search for session speakers is with a public call to action. Work with your event stakeholders to determine a 3-to-5-point criterion that highlights your speaking priorities (i.e. case study examples; metrics-driven stories) and create a short framework that can be shared across your social media, blog, and email channels.
Our event team creates templates that sales, field, and marketing professionals can use to do personal outreach to encourage customers and prospects to get involved by submitting a speaking proposal for the event. We also empower our internal teams with pre-crafted tweets and social media copy because getting the word out is beneficial to not only the speaker, but the company they’re talking about. Our internal employees love to use speaker submissions, and eventual on-site speaking presentations, as a great way to promote their customers and congratulate them on the great work that they’re doing.
2. Think big about an event-driving keynote speaker. And never assume that someone is out of reach. Think of someone you’d want to hear speak, as well as how that speaker can offer value and inspiration to your audience. For Interact 2014, we knew John Legend would be a substantial name, given his hit single, “All Of Me” at the time, and we envisioned him talking about his creative process and marketing himself. He really delivered on the promise of value and inspiration, and surprised many in the crowd with his business acumen.
When working with notable figures, their management contact typically will initiate a preparation questionnaire asking for relevant event highlights and themes pertinent to your event. They’ll share this with the speaker so he or she can develop an appropriate abstract. Be sure to schedule advance preparation calls to review this material with your speaker to discuss any necessary clarifications to maximize your investment, as well as the speaker’s time.
When creating your event agendas, make sure to tap the wisdom of the crowds, both internal and external. Host brainstorming calls with relevant team members to help inspire and ignite ideas. While there can be such a thing as “too many cooks in the kitchen”, event agenda planning is often a “more the merrier” task. Happy event marketing!
Tell us how your teams manage your resources and budgets to create killer event agendas! Check out our agenda for Modern Marketing Experience, March 31-April 2 in Las Vegas!
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