Tag Archives: marketing

Don’t End Up on the Naughty List

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As meeting and event planners, it is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day work of planning, publicizing, and measuring events. However, this can often lead to overlooking some of the basics or getting caught in the "that's the way we've always done it" trap. Looking around the web for advice, we found five tips on ways to avoid common event failures.[Tweet "Five tips on ways to avoid common event failures. #GovEventsBlog"]

  1. Make them "Just do it" - every communication you send out should have a call to action. Even a 'Save the Date' can invite potential attendees to download a promo code or register to attend a pre-event webinar. Don't let them click by your emails--make sure there is something in it for them.
  2. Be practical - make it easy for attendees. Include details on parking, public transport, nearby hotels, restaurants, and dress code. This will build goodwill among attendees when they realize they don't have to do independent research to figure out the basic logistics they need to attend your event.[Tweet "Tip #2: Be practical - make it easy for attendees. #GovEventsBlog"]
  3. Search for the best deal - while most event planners are shrewd negotiators, it can be easy to get complacent when a price seems "fair." Be it printing, venue, or catering, always make a final ask of vendors to ensure you are getting the best price. Think about ways you could compensate vendors with advertising in exchange for lower rates.
  4. Make metrics measurable - make sure revenue and attendance goals are reasonable and achievable. Look for multiple ways to survey attendees (online, in-person, social channels) to get a bigger number and range of feedback on your event.
  5. Take it with you - in a content-centric marketing world, organizations are always looking for something to share and events are ripe with information. Make sure to capture all of the content presented at your event either through recordings, notes, or speaker materials.[Tweet "Capture all of the content presented at your event for future use. #GovEventsBlog"] Then you can use it for the weeks and months after the event ends. One keynote can become three or more blog posts. A panel discussion could be re-broadcast as a podcast. A number of related sessions could be combined into a whitepaper.

 

We'd love to hear from you. What are some of the biggest "gotcha" traps you see events and their erstwhile planners fall into?

The Case of the Disappearing Links

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While we were at the AUSA Annual Meeting & Exposition a couple of weeks ago, we heard from a number of attendees that they have had trouble accessing information from emails because of a change in policy at DoD. New email security measures within DoD and throughout the federal agencies are taking live links out of emails (stripping links) and, in some cases, removing characters from the URLs. This means even if you copy and paste the web address it may not work if there are missing characters.[Tweet "New email policies at DoD/federal agencies are removing links/URLs from messages. #GovEventsBlog"]

The motivation behind this is likely to thwart foreign hacking attempts and phishing schemes where hackers will send an email that looks like it is from an official/legitimate source but contains links that, when clicked, take users to sites with malicious code.  We've written here before about the need to educate all employees, not just those in IT, as to their role in cyber security. Simply removing access to links does little to educate people about their role in protecting government data and systems.

While we applaud the effort to step up security, the practice of link stripping is concerning for all involved. Federal employees shared their frustrations with their inability to navigate to information they need to stay informed, be it a news article, registration for a training opportunity, or to download a whitepaper.[Tweet "Federal employees shared their frustrations with this new practice of link stripping. #GovEventsBlog"]

We encourage our members to communicate concerns to their IT departments and we'll do our part in talking to IT managers as well. But as we all know, policy, once enacted, is hard to change. So how do we work around this new reality? A couple ideas:

  • Make key events or news visible and accessible from your home page. If you are trying to drive people to a specific link, "advertise" it on your homepage. Email recipients may not be able to get to the exact page, but they should be able to find your home page and get to the info contained in an email message.
  • Look for other venues to drive people to links. If your audience cannot access links to your content at work, see how you can drive them via more "personal" channels. Look into Facebook ad campaigns or upping the number of posts you put on Twitter and/or LinkedIn.
  • Think about plain text. Everything old may be new again. While it may not be as pretty, plain text emails may help get better conversion rates. You can also try a mix of HTML, where in addition to the embedded links, you also list the URLs within the message.

We'd love to hear your feedback. For our government users, have you found a work around to stripped links? Let us know in the comments.

Tactics to Drive Webinar Registrations

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web_registerWith readily available and user-friendly technology, webinars are easy to produce. The hard part is getting people to register. Your topic may be interesting and your speaker may be engaging, but with most webinars being free to attend and requiring no commitment in terms of travel, it is hard to get people to commit to attending. [Tweet "Webinars are easy to produce. The hard part is getting people to register and attend. #GovEventsBlog"]They may see your email advertising the event pop up in their email box but there is no sense of urgency to register nor is there a driving force to attend since they (usually) do not need to commit money or a huge block of time. So how do you get people to register and then (more importantly) attend your webinars? We've looked around the web for advice and added some of our own in this quick tip list. [Tweet "Tips to drive registrations AND get people to attend your webinars. #GovEventsBlog"] Continue reading →

Speaking from Experience: Get on Message

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In an earlier post we provided some 'been there, done that' tips around the logistics of exhibiting at trade shows. Today, we want to share some thoughts on how to prepare for what you're going to say while you are there (in your comfortable shoes, enjoying the carpet padding).

  • Set measurable goals - know what you are looking to get out of the show - leads, brand recognition, venue for a product launch, etc... Knowing the goals will help you craft the messages your team needs to use at the event. [Tweet "Set measurable goals - What you are looking to get out of the show? #GovEventsBlog"]

Continue reading →

Make New Friends: How to Attract First Time Attendees

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In some of our more recent posts we have provided ideas for changing up regular events. From unconventional venues to slowing down event pace, to changing the content delivered--we've found a lot of inspiration for how to make changes. One more change you can make is attracting new attendees. A new group of people will bring different perspectives and will view your content (be it old or new) with fresh eyes. So how do you find these new people? This article in BizBash provided some great ideas that got us thinking. We wanted to expand on some of the ideas that are most applicable to government events. Continue reading →