BRINGING BUSINESS PURPOSE AND MESSAGING TOGETHER WITH YOUR EVENT

Before beginning to design and plan any event, it’s crucial to dig deep to understand your objectives and why they exist. Ask yourself these questions: Why are you holding the event and what do you hope to accomplish? Who is your audience and what type of experience will resonate with them? How can your event reflect your company brand and culture? What kind of brand experience do you hope to create in and around your event? As you answer these questions, you’ll begin to understand how to build an integrated solution to deliver an experience specifically designed for your brand and audience.

FOCUS ON THE INDIVIDUAL

Event experience design is about intentionally addressing every element of an event and building content, communications and experiences that align with the motivations of your key attendee personas. Consider yourself an architect of the journey an experience elicits. Understand the character, needs and desires of your key attendee personas to gain powerful knowledge to guide the event creation from beginning to end. Ultimately, your purpose is not what you want to do; it’s what you want your audience to do and feel at the end of the journey. By identifying your audience and learning what motivates them (and how they like to consume content) you can create connections that matter. How do you want them to interact and how do you want them to connect with your content and your brand? These answers will drive your destination, venue sourcing, event design and content strategy. Audience-centric is the name of the game right now. Having a keen focus on creating impactful connections for attendees along their event journey is paramount. As event stakeholders, designers and planners, we can only leverage the power of face-to-face experiences by understanding there are basic principles that apply to connecting with others:

1. They are not you. 2. Participants will become actively engaged when they care. 3. It matters less what you mean and more what they feel.

The same principles apply to connecting with a single individual or a convention center bustling with crowds. Whether you’re planning impactful digital experiences and touchpoints, curating in person group activities or designing a gifting experience that resonates, the solutions lie with your audience.

MAXIMIZE POST-PROGRAM ENGAGEMENT & STAY CONNECTED

Commit to post-promotion as an opportunity to continue building brand affinity, spur an audience to action and drive interest in your next event. • Promote active conversations. • Create opportunities for networking. • Foster new ideas and innovative thinking. • Make it a 365 experience.