Ready to welcome your future attendees?

In the last few years, we have read (and written) countless articles on Millennials and how this generation is changing the event industry and consumer habits. Now I would like to include the Z Generation in this article on how things are going to change; although Z generation members are still too young to fundamentally change the event management industry they will start to be a very important part in the next 24 months.

young lady with headphones holding a mobile phone

But first, let’s remember who exactly can be included in these 2 categories:

Millennials: name used for those born between 1980 and mid 90’s

Generation Z: name used for those born starting with mid 90’s (there are many discussions regarding the ending birth years for this generation).

Let’s see some figures on these two generations:

At present time, 1/3 of the global consumption power is owned by millennials (and this percentage is going to grow in the next few years)

It’s estimated that by the year 2020 Generation Z will represent over 40% in the USA consumption market

2 years from now, Millennials and Generation Z will represent almost 60% of the worldwide employees. 

The first common feature is their lean toward technology. But while millennials grew up while the rise of technology, Gen Z members were born into an already technologized world. For them, a world without search engines, social media, and smartphones is simply unacceptable. This first common feature draws our attention toward 2 extremely important aspects:

  1. Online marketing, using both search engines (and search engine optimization) and social media platforms. If you need any help please read one of the multiple articles that we have written about how to use keywords, email marketing, Instagram and Snapchat to promote your events.

P.s. if you think social media marketing works great for millennials you should know that Gen Z members are 4X more likely to convert on it. Great news or what?!?

  1. The movement toward smart event management tools, tools that allow your future attendees to buy online tickets using their smartphones. Why? Because a recent study shows that gen Z would rather give up TV for a day (80%) or event money and friends (28%) and keep their smartphones in return. So a software that allows them to buy tickets using smartphones is more than welcome.

Another important aspect is represented by the importance Gen Z members give to the environment and social responsibility. According to fusemarketing.com, “85% of Gen Z believes companies have an obligation to help solve social problems.” This also includes the environment and a paperless ticketing system is one way you can show that your event registration software cares about the environment.

Short attention span for both Millennials and Generation Z members

If in the past we were shocked by the short attention span that millennials had, now things are even more complicated. The average attention span for gen Z is 8 seconds (4 seconds shorter than the average one of millennials), forcing us to become a lot better when trying to get their attention. This is one of the most important aspects why our partners use NFC technology for on-site interactions. If attendees see something that captures their interest they just need to tap the wristband to let the exhibitor/sponsor know that they would love to find out more. And an NFC-ready event registration software (like Oveit) does the rest.

The future of event payments

Forget about cash or physical tokens, the future is 100% digital. Modern times allow us to take event payments to the next level and allow attendees to pay with just a tap of their wristband. No cash, no queueing, no worries. Attendees should be able to top up credit using a designated top-up point (or even the event app) and payments will be instantly processed, allowing your guests to concentrate on the things that really matter at events (networking and having fun).

As you we can see around us, by each passing day technology becomes more and more important. For us, but especially for those that never lived in a tech-free world, the future cannot exist without smartphones, apps, gadgets, and wearables. And neither the event industry.

June 1, 2018 Event management, Event professionals, Events No comments yet

Are you using Instagram’s latest updates?

2018 brought some really exciting updates on Instagram, making the Facebook-owned platform one of the hottest places on the internet. We have talked about Instagram before, and I would like to start by letting you know that over 100 million new users joined since our last article on how event planners can use Instagram to promote their events. We have already mentioned the general features, today we are going to focus on the latest updates and how event planners can use them in their best interest.

picture of a phone logging in on Instagram

You can now follow a hashtag

I would like to start with my favorite update, the ability to follow hashtags. Yes, this is correct, Instagram now allows us to follow hashtags just as we follow people or brands. The result is that all posts with that particular hashtag will appear in the user’s feed.

This new option is very helpful for event planners that have created a unique hashtag for their events. Fans will be to join an online community by simply following the hashtag; their feed will gather content that uses that particular hashtag, no matter who posts it (official account of the event, performers, attendees of fans).

Carousel ads for Instagram stories

With the help of a few lucky advertisers ( from brands like Coca-Cola, GAP or Bottega Veneta) Instagram is testing the way Carousel Ads fit into Instagram Stories. As an event planner, Carousel Ads are perfect because they allow you tell a short story about your event. As a marketer, Instagram Stories are great because they have a higher conversion rate than Feed Ads ( in a 2017 study conducted by Agorapulse – Instagram Stories had a 23% higher conversion rate than Feed Ads). I think it’s safe to say that Carousel Ads for Instagram Stories will be a great tool that combines two powerful features. For start, the carousel format will allow marketers to use just 3 pictures/videos, but according to Instagram officials this is just the starting point and things may change.

 

series of 3 pictures showing how carousel works on Instagram

source:adweek.com

Scheduling for Instagram

In the past, it was impossible to schedule a picture to be automatically posted on Instagram. The process involved push notifications, meaning that when the time came for the post to go online we would still need our approval. The good news is that starting January 2018, Instagram allows business accounts to schedule single photos (and it automatically posts them) – the changes in Instagram API allows 3rd party apps like HootSuite, Later or Buffer to do that for Instagram users. For videos, ads, and multiple photos scheduling still involves notifications, but this update shows us that things are moving towards what we all want. For event planners, this new feature means more posts with fewer interruptions.

P.s.  there are signs that scheduling will become available for regular users as well.

An improvement made to Instagram Stories

Instagram made it easier for users to upload pictures and videos into the Stories section. Following its latest update (April 2018), it is now possible for multiple photos and videos to be uploaded at once. Great news for content creators, this new option helps them save precious time.

Earlier this year “Stories” received another update, the “Type” mode initially used for status update on Facebook. “Type” allows you to create personalized messages using stylish fonts and backgrounds and can be used by event planners to deliver live messages to their followers. It may not be the best way to communicate but it is an option that may come in handy.

 

The Facebook-owned platform seems the hottest place to be right now, and the new features developed by the team behind are a clear sign that Instagram is shooting for the moon. The new Instagram Updates can help event planners better connect with their followers but also to reach new ones. 2018 seems to be Instagram’s year and it would be a shame not to use it to promote your events.

April 30, 2018 event marketing, Event professionals, Events No comments yet

How to improve your events. 7 tips for event professionals

updated: 14.06.2023. While the original post focused on 7 tips that will help event professionals create better experiences, the updated version contains 9 suggestions. Feel free to share your opinions and suggestions using the comments section.

“The only person you should be better than is the person you were yesterday”

This is the thought that gets me out of bed on those mornings when all I want is to turn off the alarm and get back to sleep – we all have this kind of morning.

This quote applies to our work as well. And I had the pleasure of discovering that many of our event planners partners think the same. They aim, with every new event, to create a better experience for their attendees. To be better than last time. To make the smile on attendees’ faces slightly wider than last time. And talking to them about what they work on I have managed to extract some common points that can improve any event.

Improve your event

Start (planning and executing) early

‘“If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail”

We all know it, no matter if you are planning a one day conference or a multi-day festival, it takes months of preparation and work to make sure everything goes well. Start early and create a schedule for the whole process. If you leave things for last minute you whole event can be compromised by unexpected situations that may occur (and there will be quite a few of them).

Set early bird tickets

When you decide to sell tickets online, early bird tickets are a way of repaying your most eager (and loyal) attendees, but also a great way of making sure you don’t have cash flow problems. Using an event management software that has a direct payments feature money will go straight into your account, so you will have a back up if needed. As Sir Richard Branson said, cash flow is extremely important for every business, and revenues from early bird tickets can be your safety net.

Choose an “arresting” venue

The human eye craves beauty, and a beautiful building will always arouse admiration (the positive feedback that we have received for our Beautiful theaters article is good proof of that). The venue where your event takes place will influence the overall experience of your attendees. Make sure that the building offers optimal conditions in matters of location, access (for people with disabilities), heating/cooling system, sound, and lights. Even though we can’t all just book the most impressive building in the city, make sure it offers you everything you need.

Well-balanced and diversified menu

People don’t attend events (just) for the great food that you offer, but this too will impact their experience. How do you act when you are hungry? Are you still able to focus? Are you still interested in what somebody else has to say? When it comes to food, not all attendees have the same preferences, and although you can’t please them all you should at least have both normal and vegan menus.

Engage your attendees 

Let attendees feel like part of your event. As humans, we want to know that our words/opinions matter, and asking for feedback is a great way of letting your attendees know that their do. Feedback will also let you know how your event looks from “outside” – no matter how critical you are to your own work, you should always try to see it from your attendees’ perspective. If possible, ask for feedback before, during, and after the event.

Keep your attendees informed

From my own experience, I can say that attendees like to know as much as possible about the event that they are attending. Yes, a little mystery is always welcome, but don’t keep essential information from them. Questions like “Where can I find the event app”, “Where/when is lunch served”, and “What time will Speaker X be on stage” will surely be asked, so verify that your team has the answers. People will also want to have access to the Schedule of your event, it would be nice to have it displayed in visible places (and also in the event app – if you use any).

Deliver personalized experiences

Tailor certain aspects of the event to cater to individual attendees’ preferences. For example, using our ticket add-ons, you can empower your attendees to create their unique experiences. Allow them to build up a ticket from (almost) scratch by adding different content tracks, special access, or even merchandise. Help them build unforgettable experiences.

Sustainability Initiatives

Incorporate eco-friendly practices into your event planning, such as reducing waste, using sustainable materials, or promoting carbon-neutral options. Communicate these initiatives to your attendees, as many people appreciate environmentally conscious events. But most importantly, in order to improve our events, it is our responsibility to craft experiences that have a minimal impact on the environment.

Take advantage of event technology 

This is my favorite part because I have seen how technology in general (and Oveit in particular) can help event planners in their “pursuit of happiness”. I will point out just some of the most important aspects:

Online registration: Nowadays, no matter what event you are hosting, you should offer your customers the possibility to purchase tickets online. Making it easier for them to register will increase the total number of attendees and will also offer you more information about them (through registration forms).

NFC technology: The tap-and-pay system is great because it makes it really easy for attendees to purchase the desired products. It can also be used for interaction purposes, transforming the old event wristband into an extremely powerful high-tech tool.

Smooth registration process: Undoubtedly, time is our most valuable resource, and we all cherish it. It’s clear that we don’t like to have our time wasted, so you should always use a smart tool that will ensure a fast and smooth check-in process.

You are creating forever-lasting experiences. Now, you can sell NFT tickets and allow your attendees to actually own a part of your incredible work.

It is hard to change all those mentioned above at once, but even the tiniest improvement can have spectacular long-term effects. And the story of Dave Brailsford and the British Cycling Team is a great example of how small things can bring unthinkable changes. Keep up the good work and never stop improving!

April 10, 2018 Event management, Event professionals 1 comment

Create copy that sells your events

You work hard to create the (almost) perfect event. And nothing compares to the feeling that you have when seeing the smiles on peoples’ faces, smiles that are a guarantee that they will attend your next events as well. You know that they will tell their friends, colleagues, and families what a great time they had and will act like ambassadors of your great work.

But what about those that never attended one of your events and neither do they know any of your past guests. How will you convince them that you deserve their time (and money)? What will make them decide to come to your events and not do anything else? The event management industry is highly competitive, nowadays there are so many events to choose from.

Here is where the power of words comes to the rescue. And even though marketing works on many channels (and we have talked about keywords, Twitter, Instagram and more) one thing is more important than anything: the way you tell your story. Words have the power to transfer feelings and the message that you choose can bring people towards your events or it can make you go unnoticed.

open laptop with "create copy that sells your events" text

Here are 5 things that you should have in mind when creating the message for you future attendees:

  1. Define your audience

You will never know how to adapt your message if you don’t know who you are writing for. Defining your audience should be the first step when building a marketing campaign. The better you know your potential customers, the higher the chances are that you will speak their language. And speaking their language is the key to getting to their hearts. Why get to their hearts? You will see later in the article.

  1. Have (just) one goal

Setting too many goals can keep you off track. After all, we all have a limited amount of time and energy. If you want to gain more from your texts you should create them by having just one goal in mind for each of them. Trying to build a road that leads to too many directions you may end up with a road that leads nowhere. What is the ultimate goal of your text? To convince people to buy tickets for your event? To convince them to read your blog posts? To subscribe to your newsletter? No matter the goal that set up for your message you should make sure that it leads the reader towards it.

  1. Look for the emotional response 

In sales, there is a theory stating that “people buy based on their emotion, and afterward use logic to justify it”. If you want to convince people to come to your event try to call for their emotions, dreams, and aspirations. Planning a business conference? We all want to be our best version of ourselves, and your conference can bring us one step closer to it. A 3-day festival? We all deserve a break from work, calls, and emails. We all crave for a long weekend surrounded by friends and good music in a landscape worthy of a fairytale.

  1. Always tell a story about your events

“Stories are a vital part of any business. And they are one of the most powerful tools you can use to engage your audience.” Tony Robbins 

You create experiences that, over the years, transform into your attendees’ memories into unforgettable tales. Stories have the power to carry us through time and space and show us that dreams can be fulfilled. Let people know your story and the ones of your attendees and they will want to be a part of your remarkable journey.

  1. Keep it simple 

In order for a message to touch us, we first need to understand it. With hundreds of messages that are “pointed” toward us each day we have started to filter things to see what deserves our time and what does not. Things we cannot understand easily will have a hard time getting our attention.

ex:

I can be that your attendees don’t care about the technical details of NFC technology, but will love the fact that they can add credit on a wristband and pay with just a tap of the hand. Too many details will make things more complicated than they need to be.

People should know the passion you invest in your events, but they should also know their gain from attending them. After all, there is one Radio channel that we all listen to and that is WII FM: What’s In It For Me? A medical conference, festival or concert, your attendees will choose to come to your event only if they can picture themselves in your story.

March 30, 2018 Event management, Event professionals, Events 1 comment

The shift towards experiential marketing

experiential marketingIt’s one thing to imagine that you are driving a sports car, it’s another to actually be behind wheel and hear the purring engine. It’s one thing to watch a billboard that invites you to visit the Canary Islands, it’s another to feel the sun comforting your skin. It’s one thing to see an online ad and it’s totally different to FEEL the benefits a product can give you.“…Involve me and I learn”, Benjamin Franklin’s quote can be adapted to the experiential marketing scene. “Involve me and I will see and feel how your product can help me”.

More and more brands are using experiences to create a bond between customers and the brand.  This is why I think that more and more event planners should be prepared to host experiential marketing events. Or to include experiential marketing campaigns as part of their existing events.

What is experiential marketing?

If we reach Wikipedia we will find that “Engagement marketing, sometimes called ‘experiential marketing’, ‘event marketing’, ‘on-ground marketing’, ‘live marketing’, ‘participation marketing’, or ‘special events’ is a marketing strategy that directly engages consumers and invites and encourages them to participate in the evolution of a brand or a brand experience. Rather than looking at consumers as passive receivers of messages, engagement marketers believe that consumers should be actively involved in the production and co-creation of marketing programs, developing a relationship with the brand.”

By using experiential marketing brands want to create an emotional connection between themselves and the consumer, connection that most of the times have the power to transform customers into advocates of that particular brand. In a world where the new generation values experience more than things, it is only normal to value powerful memories more than ads and pop-ups.

Experiential marketing is based on one main idea: the live interaction between the potential consumer and the brand. Although we focus on organized events, (and how event planners can partner with brands to create branded events – or even to implement experiential marketing within an existing event) engagement marketing comes in different shapes.  Its purpose is to create a memorable experience, even though sometimes it may seem that there’s no direct connection with the brand itself. A wonderful example is the Piano Staircase, from Volkswagen, a campaign that at first has almost no connection with an automotive company. But innovation and fun will always stick to people’s minds, and this campaign was highly appreciated all over the world. A good experiential marketing campaign can be more powerful than any form of “classic” marketing.

An example of a great experiential marketing event is Smirnoff’s Comic Book party, where attendees walked into a…you guessed it. Whether you like comic books or not (if this is even possible) I think that walking into a Comic Book will make an impression. Will make you take pictures and share them. Will make you talk about the party. And definitely will make you remember the brand.

What about the numbers?

I know, the theory sounds good, but do the numbers support it? A study conducted by Mosaic and the Event Marketing Institute revealed that  74% of consumers said they are more likely to buy products after they had a quality experience within a branded event. Furthermore, 98% percent of consumers said they take at least one photo during experiential marketing events and all of them (100%) said they share this content!  

Event planners can create experiential marketing events from scratch for clients that understand the power of experiences. A bond between the consumer and the brand is more important than an individual sale made using an AdWords campaign. Don’t get me wrong, keyword campaigns are very important, but their direct effect is different from that of an experiential marketing campaign. Aiming for different objectives, but not excluding each other).

Experiential marketing campaigns can also be integrated into already existing events. Festivals and conferences offer brands the chance to interact with a large number of people that are craving for memorable experiences (this is why they are there in the first place).

Oveit will support your efforts

Using a smart event management software, like Oveit, you will be able to make the experience even more memorable (especially through NFC technology). As you probably know, you can set up cashless payment systems to reduce queues, a very important aspect related to attendees’ overall satisfaction. But for experiential marketing events NFC wristbands can also be used for:

Gamification: the NFC chip is paired with the ticket (that acts like an account) and attendees can use it and mark different checkpoints in the game. You can also use them for interactive screens, to connect the character in the game with your attendee.

Perks: the wristbands can store perks (gifts, promotional merchandise, etc) and attendees can claim them by simply tapping the wristband to a reader/NFC-ready mobile device. We all like surprises, so why don’t you and your partners use it to create an even more memorable experience?

Data transfer: the NFC chip can be used by attendees to transfer their information to the brand that hosts the experiential marketing campaign. It’s easier than ever, with a simple tap, and the best part is that the transfer works both ways: the attendee can receive an email with a link that opens his/her way to new memorable experiences (for example, a registration link to an exclusivist party, sent only to those that take part at this experiential campaign hosted at a large conference).

We see how more and more brands are turning towards experiential marketing campaigns, and how more and more people appreciate the work event planners put in. Shifting our attention towards real experiences can only enrich us and more and more people will focus on feelings and memories. So be prepared, event planners.

February 21, 2018 Event management, Event professionals, Events 3 comments