Get fresh ideas, actionable insights and expert guidance for your B2B events and webinars.
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Discover how you can make your events more inclusive and accessible in 2024, from adaptive registration processes to selecting diverse, accommodating venues.
How are event marketers reimagining accessibility and inclusivity for 2024?
Our recent survey revealed that 59.6% of event marketers are prioritizing these aspects.
This change is not just about compliance; it's a deep-seated commitment to inclusivity, reflecting a genuine concern for every attendee's experience.
Today, we’ll look into some of the strategies shared by event marketers.
Event marketers are adopting a multifaceted approach to understand and cater to diverse attendee needs. This involves recognizing a spectrum of disabilities and tailoring events to accommodate various needs, such as mobility, visual, hearing, cognitive, and neurodivergent conditions. Strategies extend beyond physical accommodations to include virtual and hybrid event formats, closed captioning, sign language interpreters, and mindful gifting. Marketers are also focusing on multiple language offerings, increased website accessibility, and promoting women in leadership and sustainable businesses to cater to a broader audience.
The registration process has evolved into a critical touchpoint for inclusivity. Detailed questions about attendees' needs are now standard, setting an inclusive tone from the start. Onsite, ensuring wheelchair accessibility, providing quiet rooms, and accommodating service animals are essential. Event marketers are also adopting flexible scheduling and hosting events at times ideal for various time zones, ensuring diverse speaker lineups, and choosing venues accessible to individuals with disabilities.
Diversity in attendee lists is now a deliberate strategy. Ensuring representation across various demographics is becoming a norm. Engaging with diverse communities, checking for unintended bias in invites, speakers, and hosts, and intentional speaker selection are part of this inclusive approach. Event marketers are utilizing diverse networks and promoting small customer businesses and sustainable businesses as key strategies.
Creating a welcoming environment goes beyond logistics. It's about fostering a sense of belonging through networking opportunities for underrepresented groups and implementing clear Codes of Conduct. Simple, clear language in signage and materials, along with staff training on respectful interaction, are vital. Many marketers are working with advocates to ensure accommodations for mental and physical needs and conducting training sessions on inclusivity for organizers and staff.
Choosing the right venue is critical for accessibility. Venues with accessible features and navigable spaces for all attendees are preferred. Utilizing assistive technology like screen readers and ensuring compatibility with various tools is essential. Designing event websites and materials on platforms that meet accessibility guidelines supports attendees with visual impairments or color vision deficiency.
The integration of inclusivity and accessibility into B2B events is a response to a growing demand for empathetic and responsive events. This approach enriches the event experience for everyone and contributes to a more inclusive and accessible business world.
Explore the changing dynamics of event teams and the key roles that drive success in today's event marketing, guided by insights from industry experts.
Event marketing has evolved significantly, shifting focus from merely attracting crowds to aligning with direct business outcomes.
This evolution has also reshaped the structure and function of event teams. Insights from industry experts Stephanie Pennell, Director of Event Marketing at Zoominfo, Rachel Chinapen, Event Marketing Manager at Zoominfo, and Nick Bennett, CCO & Co-Founder of Tack, provide a fresh perspective on this transformation.
For event marketers, being resourceful and efficient is more than a desirable trait; it's a necessity.
Stephanie Pennell emphasizes this, stating, "You need to be scrappy... how do you prove the value of what you're doing and how can you do more with less... they (your leadership team) are always going to want you to say - you can do more with less.”
This mindset encourages innovative solutions that maximize impact without inflating budgets, crucial in times of limited resources.
The trend towards smaller, specialized teams is evident in modern event management. In 2023, 75.4% of organizations reported having event teams of 1-5 members, reflecting a strategic shift towards efficiency and adaptability. This approach allows team members to focus on specific aspects of event marketing, such as trade shows or privately hosted events, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness through collaboration and integration with other departments. Stephanie Pennell highlights, "Having those niche areas has been really beneficial... provided they all (her team members) work closely to share best practices... it's integrated with other teams."
Here's a no-brainer that also cannot be overstated: strong communication is crucial for successful event marketing.
Rachel Chinapen points out, "Especially working in an organization like Zoominfo, being able to communicate across departments is essential. To find out how to report back to the C-Suite on our event success, to make sure our messaging at the event is tied back to the broader campaigns, communication is the first skill you need."
Her insight underlines the importance of strong communication channels and skills within the event team to ensure a cohesive and collaborative effort in every event.
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Revolutionize your events with event hubs, Parmonic AI integration, custom access groups, and trigger-based communications!
As we step into 2024, we’ve handpicked 4 key features of Zuddl that can be game-changers for your events this year.
Let’s get started.
Easily group and access your events and webinars
Event hubs are your go-to solution for organizing and showcasing a series of events and webinars in one central location. This feature allows you to manage each event or webinar individually, tailoring settings like registrations, venue setup, and communications to your needs. You can create a Landing page or a Hub widget, adding your events and webinars to the Hub for an all-encompassing view for your attendees.
Use Parmonic’s powerful AI tools to edit your session recordings
With Parmonic integrated into Zuddl, you have access to advanced AI tools for editing your event recordings. This feature enables you to push recordings to Parmonic for precise editing. You can trim your recordings to create engaging, concise content and generate accurate transcripts, making your content more engaging and accessible to your audience.
Group your attendees exactly the way you want
Custom access groups give you the flexibility to organize your attendees exactly how you want. You can create groups based on specific criteria from registration forms. These groups are perfect for targeted communications and implementing access control restrictions, ensuring a personalized experience for each attendee at your event.
Learn how to create a custom group
Fine-tune your event communications
Trigger-based communications offer you automated and efficient messaging tailored to your event's needs. This feature allows you to set specific triggers for sending communications, ensuring that your messages are timely and relevant to each segment of your audience. The available triggers cover various event scenarios, making your communication process more streamlined and effective.
As you plan your events for 2024, these features will enhance your ability to create memorable and successful events, ensuring a more meaningful experience for both you and your attendees.
Here’s how EverAfter drove 18% more demo bookings and 60% more website traffic from their debut virtual conference ‘Happily’.
When Adi Gorelik, Brand & Communications Manager of EverAfter (a leader in the B2B customer interface platform industry), first took up the challenge of hosting the company’s debut virtual conference titled ‘Happily,’ her goal was simple: make it a fun and impactful experience for everyone.
The conference hit this goal and didn’t stop there, going above and beyond expectations. The results were truly a B2B event marketer’s dream come true, with a high registration, turnout, and engagement rate that contributed to incredible tangible results: 18% more demo bookings and 60% more website traffic.
Here are 3 things that Team EverAfter did that led to this outcome.
Easy customization let the team make fonts, colors, buttons, and CTAs across the conference - from landing page to virtual stage - reflect EverAfter's lively, happy branding. The end result truly looked as if it was EverAfter’s own platform.
This branding capability helped to drive a registration rate of 134% more than was expected.
The team used a blend of tools, such as Polls, Chat, Emoji Reactions, the Leaderboard, as well as a Photobooth to create an upbeat and energized atmosphere that attendees enjoyed.
It worked well.
63% of the virtual conference attendees stayed until the end.
2. CTAs in the virtual venue let attendees easily book demos.
3. Polls and Chat intel helped Sales follow-up be more targeted
The combination of all these elements working together led to a 60% website traffic surge and 18% more demo bookings.
Extremely thoughtful event planning and execution of the virtual conference, aided by clever use of platform features, translated into real-world gains for EverAfter, evidenced by a substantial 60% surge in website traffic and an 18% increase in demo bookings.
In crafting this success story, EverAfter has set a benchmark for fun and results-driven virtual conferences.
Learn key strategies for extending the life of your conference, converting attendee data into business opportunities, and using feedback for future success.
The curtains have closed on your latest conference, but hold off on that celebratory drink just yet!
The post-conference phase is as critical as the event itself. It's time to roll up your sleeves and dive into the crucial steps that will amplify the impact of your event.
Let’s explore how you can turn your recent user conference into a springboard for future success.
Your event's extended life: First up, collaborate with your content and design teams to make recorded sessions available online. This is not just about providing value to attendees who want to revisit sessions or catch up on missed ones; it's about extending your event's reach. By making this content easily accessible and shareable, you turn your conference into a content flywheel, reaching even those who couldn't attend.
Next, it's time for some data magic. Reconcile attendee data, session information, and reports. Share these insights with your sponsors and use them for targeted follow-ups. Remember, the data you've gathered is gold – use it wisely to nurture leads and provide your sales team with actionable insights. The goal here is to convert interest into concrete business opportunities.
You can use this checklist to track your after-event activities
Now, let's talk feedback. It's not just about collecting opinions; it's about creating a feedback loop that aligns with your event's objectives. Use the insights to understand how well you met your goals and where to improve. Remember, feedback is not just a formality – it's a tool for transformation. Involve your attendees in the process; you'll get more honest, actionable insights.
Here's a framework you can follow:
When it comes to collecting feedback from attendees, involving them in building their experience can significantly impact the quality and honesty of the feedback received. By giving them a sense of ownership in the process, attendees are more likely to provide thoughtful and insightful feedback that can help improve the overall event experience.
Discover 5 expert-recommended ways to ensure your field marketing events are driving maximum impact.
How do you build field marketing events that truly stand out from the rest?
That's exactly what we asked three event marketing experts - Nick Bennett, CCO & Co-Founder at TACK, Rebecca Martins, Revenue Marketing Leader at Jellyfish, and Arthur Castillo, Head of Dark Social & Evangelism at Chili Piper, in our recent edition of Events About Events.
Today, we're excited to share five sharp insights from their conversation, offering a glimpse into the future of field marketing events in 2024
In a landscape brimming with similar messages, standing out becomes more crucial than ever. This means thinking beyond the standard pre-event meeting requests.
A more effective strategy involves creating offsite activations. These events offer a refreshing alternative to the usual field marketing event experience, providing an opportunity for attendees to engage in a more relaxed and enjoyable setting. This approach not only differentiates a company from its competitors but also fosters a more personal connection with potential customers.
Arthur suggests that hosting an event with intriguing acts, keynotes, or activities relevant to the attendees' interests can create a more inviting atmosphere by shifting the focus from a direct sales pitch to a valuable and enjoyable experience, which can leave a lasting impression.
Additionally, incorporating unique and fun elements at the booth itself, like offering branded items that start conversations (In Arthur's case with Chili Piper - custom hot sauce :)), can draw people in and spark interest in a more organic way.
Aligning with sales teams for field marketing events is essential for several key reasons.
Firstly, it leverages the unique insights and creative mindsets of sales representatives, who often have a deep understanding of customer needs and preferences. Their involvement in marketing initiatives can bring a fresh perspective that enhances the effectiveness of these events.
Secondly, field marketing events like dinners provide an ideal platform for facilitating direct interactions between a company's best customers and their most promising prospects. This setup creates an environment conducive to organic and meaningful conversations, which can significantly influence decision-making processes.
Thirdly, these events can play a pivotal role in advancing deals that are stuck in the pipeline. By providing an informal yet focused setting for discussions, field marketing events can help overcome barriers that might be difficult to address in more formal business contexts.
The importance of quality over quantity in lead generation at field marketing events is a key takeaway.
Relying solely on badge scans at events for lead generation can be ineffective, as it often provides little context or qualification information about the prospects. This approach can result in sales teams receiving a list of contacts without any insight into their relevance or potential interest, making follow-up efforts less efficient and potentially unproductive.
A more effective strategy involves engaging in meaningful conversations with attendees to understand their specific needs and interests. This approach ensures that any follow-up is tailored and relevant, increasing the likelihood of successful engagement. It's crucial to understand the role and challenges of the person you're speaking with, whether they're a marketer, VP of Sales, or Head of Customer Success, to make the interaction as relevant and impactful as possible.
Focusing on booked demos rather than badge scans is a more targeted and meaningful metric for measuring success at trade shows and other events.
Effective event planning and marketing don't necessarily require a large budget; creativity and resourcefulness can often lead to significant impact. Utilizing available resources can be a cost-effective starting point. Rebecca shares an instance where resourceful and creativity outweighed the budget factor: "I remember my super scrappy days - we just happened to have this like event space in our office building and I think I had like $1,000 dollars to do something in Boston that quarter and I just like scrappily got some drizzly drinks delivered hired a bartender just had some cool music playing and I think I got Whole Foods delivered as well was like under a thousand bucks - we had 50 people there and it was great."
Collaborative brainstorming sessions are a powerful tool for generating innovative ideas, as they bring together diverse perspectives and experiences. These sessions, which Nick refers to as "Inspo Sessions", involve members from various teams, not just those directly related to the project at hand. This inclusivity is key, as individuals from different backgrounds can offer fresh insights and approaches that might not be considered in a more homogenous group.
Typically, these brainstorming sessions might start slowly, but as ideas begin to flow and participants become more engaged, the quality and creativity of the suggestions improve significantly. Through his years of carrying out such activities, Nick points out that the most productive part of the session occurs after an initial period of warming up, around 35 to 40 minutes in. The outcome of such sessions can be surprisingly effective, with teams frequently finding themselves impressed by the innovative and diverse ideas generated.
Field marketing in the B2B world is evolving, and staying ahead requires a blend of creativity, strategic alignment with sales, thoughtful measurement of success, budget savvy, and collaborative planning. By integrating these insights into your strategy, your field marketing efforts can move beyond the conventional, creating memorable experiences that resonate with your audience and drive tangible business results.
Inclusivity and DEI are increasingly crucial for organizations of all kinds. Learn how to incorporate inclusivity in your association’s event in this short guide.
The topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is an increasingly common consideration for organizations of all kinds, including associations. With DEI on the rise, it’s more important now than ever to prioritize inclusivity in your association’s operations. That means offering your members inclusive resources, workshops, and events.
As an association professional, you’re no stranger to hosting conferences, webinars, and even fundraising events to meet your purpose. However, while you may have already established DEI practices for your association’s everyday operations, you may not have tackled the idea of inclusivity for your events yet.
To help you avoid feeling overwhelmed or confused about where to begin, we’ll outline three tips for prioritizing inclusivity at your events. Let’s get started!
It’s almost impossible to discuss inclusivity without also discussing diversity and equity. DEI refers to three related values of organizations working to be more supportive of groups from all walks of life. This includes people of different races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, genders, and sexual orientations.
Historically, marginalized groups have not been included or offered the same opportunities as members of the dominant group. That’s what inclusivity aims to address—it refers to the process of providing equal opportunities for individuals who might otherwise be excluded.
Aside from equitably including members from all different backgrounds, inclusivity also brings the following benefits to your association’s events:
As an association professional, your goal is to maximize the value your organization offers its members. By prioritizing inclusivity at your events, you’ll also be able to maximize the number of individuals who can attend and benefit from them.
Now that you know what inclusivity means and why it’s important for your association, let’s learn more about how you can prioritize it at your association’s events.
Whether you’re hosting a conference or a fundraising event, inclusivity starts from your planning committee. Before you begin planning your event, ensure that your committee is diverse to gain a wide range of perspectives. This will help you plan an event that is inclusive to all of your members.
Once you start the planning process, consider how you can facilitate inclusivity with your:
These are just a few of the numerous ways you can be more inclusive during the event planning process. Now, let’s take a look at ways to make your event more inclusive once it kicks off.
Incorporating inclusivity at your event usually takes place in the planning stage. However, even after the event has begun, there are steps you can take to be more inclusive. For example:
Make sure to be transparent about your commitment to promoting inclusivity at your next event, such as highlighting the measures you’re taking in your marketing materials. Your members will appreciate the effort you’re putting in to prioritize DEI.
After your event ends, you need to thank and reconnect with attendees to steward relationships. One of the ways you can accomplish this and help improve your inclusivity practices is to solicit members’ feedback on how inclusive your event was.
In your follow-up communications, send them a survey with questions such as:
By asking these questions, you’ll show your members that you’re serious about your commitment to inclusion and DEI as a whole. Plus, you’ll be able to crowdsource advice and feedback from those who truly matter. Carefully consider the suggestions made by event attendees and implement them at your next event to show members that their opinions are important.
While society has a long way to go with inclusion and DEI as a whole, you need to take small steps to improve and push these values forward. Only by actively prioritizing these values will your association be able to create a more equitable experience for its members and ensure that you give them the value they deserve out of their membership.
To drive growth through conferences, your organization must constantly improve attendee experiences. Learn how attendee feedback can guide those improvements.
Take a moment to think through how your organization collects and implements feedback after conferences. Do you have a structured, thorough system that encourages attendees to leave actionable comments? Do you simply do your best to jot down what you hear from attendees during the event? Or, is your organization missing this step altogether?
Collecting constructive feedback from attendees gives your organization the keys it needs to unlock better conferences in the future. For example, you might learn which sessions, speakers, and topics attendees enjoyed the most and even inquire about logistical processes like ticketing. Of course, some feedback will reveal your conference’s weaknesses, allowing you to allocate resources to the right areas of improvement.
In this guide, we’ll explore strategies for collecting insights from attendees and making the most of their feedback. To get started, let’s walk through how and when to ask for feedback from conference attendees.
The best feedback is specific and demonstrates a clear path forward. To get these responses from attendees, you’ll need to ask them the right questions.
Avoid asking questions that are too broad such as, “What did you think of the speakers at the conference?” as well as those that could be answered with a “yes” or “no.” Request that attendees elaborate on their responses (e.g., “Who were your favorite speakers, and what made their presentations engaging/interesting?”).
Another critical part of collecting quality feedback is knowing when to ask for it. Here are some of the best times to send surveys to attendees:
Without feedback that translates into concrete improvements, it can be hard for your organization to move forward. Strategically creating and timing your surveys ensures that you get useful feedback from attendees.
While well-designed survey questions will earn your organization more helpful feedback on average, you’ll likely still receive some comments that you don’t know how to use. This is why it’s essential to understand the difference between actionable insights and those lacking actionable components:
In general, your organization should allocate its time and resources to making changes that don’t involve any guesswork. However, if you see the same comment again and again (e.g., “The conference was not engaging”), consider creating a follow-up survey to dig deeper and uncover the next actions.
As you work to improve your conferences, it may be tempting to dial back your efforts once you overcome the initial, common points of feedback from attendees. However, your organization should keep striving to put participants’ suggestions into action no matter how far its conferences have advanced from the starting line.
Adopt these strategies to promote continuous improvement:
To keep your team motivated, remember to take the time to celebrate your wins along the journey to consistently improving your conferences. To identify these wins, be sure to set up a way to accurately measure the success of the changes you make
After devoting time and effort to improving an aspect of your conferences, you’ll want to know if that investment paid off. The only way to get a definitive ROI is to measure specific metrics before and after making changes. Make sure to keep any data you collect secure and organized within your organization’s CRM or management system so you can easily reference them at any time.
Some of the key metrics that reveal trends over time include:
Remember to adjust the metrics you study according to your organization’s current goals and needs. Keep older records on file so you can track long-term trends and compare them to industry benchmarks.
While your conferences should bring benefits like increased revenue or membership to your organization, they should serve attendees first and foremost. Implementing their suggestions into future conferences not only creates more positive, engaging experiences but also shows that you greatly value their opinions and satisfaction.
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Discover the top 3 features that have made Zuddl a favorite among event marketers.
As we approach 2024, here’s our round-up of key features that have been instrumental in elevating the experience of event organizers and attendees alike in 2023.
Embed fully customizable speaker and schedule widgets on your landing page.
Why event marketers love it: Our embeddable widgets are very easy to edit and are responsive across all device types. Create once and use it everywhere!
You can use them on your event pages or embed them on any landing page or third-party website. Customize to display essential information and align with your brand's look and feel using custom CSS.
You can also embed them to your website effortlessly by copying the provided embed code into your website's HTML.
Customize access across different types of attendees for sessions or zones.
Why event marketers love it: The Access Control feature simplifies how you manage and control attendee access, ensuring a smooth event experience for everyone.
Whether your event is in person or virtual, you can choose to select specific roles or ticket types and then control their access to specific days, zones or sessions.
It's designed to cater to both ticketed and registration-based events, organizing attendees effectively.
Track and measure your Salesforce Revenue directly inside Zuddl.
Why event marketers love it: Our integrated dashboard with Salesforce has been a valuable asset for organizers looking to monitor revenue attributable to events.
Available exclusively with Salesforce integration, this revenue dashboard is found in the Analytics section, accessible at both the organization and event levels.
Just enable the integration and sync your data to get started. The system will prompt you if any issues arise with the integration or data synchronization.
The dashboard offers a detailed view of various financial metrics, including Pipelines influenced, Revenue data, Win rate, and more, with filters for Time range, Event type, and List of events.
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Here are 4 ways to get sponsors involved at your conference to make the engagement mutually beneficial.
As you plan your association’s annual slate of events, there’s one essential task you shouldn’t overlook: how you’ll involve and engage sponsors. Involving sponsors in the event itself adds value to the event for your association, its members, and the sponsoring business.
Sponsors not only cover fixed event costs, but they also provide credibility, additional networking opportunities for your members, and open doors to long-term partnerships. They also get exposure to your audience, and your association gets the chance to expand your membership.
Here are four tips for getting them involved.
Collaborating on a conference, a specific event or even a series of events is a great way to involve your sponsors. If you have a major association sponsor, you might even consider including their name in the event’s title. Be sure to involve their team in the planning process as early as possible to make the event more cohesive and the engagement mutually beneficial.
Start by ensuring everyone has access to planning documents and event management platforms. This keeps everyone on the same page while keeping your teams—and processes—organized and efficient. Cloud tools like Google Drive or Microsoft One Drive are good options to allow team members to work together on documents. You might also consider a joint project management tool.
Above all, make sure you have regular in-person or virtual meetings to strengthen their involvement and your partnership for the event. These regular touchpoints keep sponsors in the loop about the event’s status and what’s needed from them. For example, you could set up biweekly fifteen-minute Zoom update meetings and a monthly hour-long coffee chat with each sponsor so you have multiple opportunities for making contact. This structure allows sponsors to share their questions, ideas, and concerns so they feel heard and respected.
Sponsors want the opportunity to connect with your association’s members, and events are the perfect opportunity for them to do so. When sponsors can build relationships with members, it increases the likelihood that they’ll continue the engagement after the conference is over, boosting value for sponsors and your members.
There are a variety of ways to foster these connections at an conference, such as:
For example, let’s say your student legal association is sponsored by a local law practice. You could set up an “Ask a Lawyer” segment where students can submit questions ahead of time and learn new insights from seasoned professionals in their field.
Not only do sponsors see valuable exposure in these options, but they also get to interact with your members. Consider allowing sponsors to take the lead in planning their involvement in these types of events. Frequently check in with them leading up to the event day to confirm the details and that it stays consistent with the event’s theme and provides value to members.
Your association’s sponsors will have specific goals or outcomes in mind when it comes to sponsoring conferences and other events. You can help them meet those goals by working directly with them to create a tailored sponsorship opportunity that’s mutually beneficial and features options for their involvement.
For example, if you’re hosting a hybrid event, you might craft sponsorship packages that include interactive elements for a sponsor interested in boosting their online presence. Include a live-streamed portion of the event, such as a specific speaker, that they can share through their communication channels. Or, if you’re holding a charity golf outing, for instance, work with the sponsor to see if they want to mingle with golfers before, during, or after the event.
Whatever the case, it’s essential to keep lines of communication open and not take a one-size-fits-all approach. Be willing to be flexible and design sponsorships that fit everyone’s needs.
Networking is an excellent way for your members and sponsors to get to know one another and build lasting connections. And being able to market something as “exclusive” adds immediate value. Look for ways to build networking opportunities into your conferences. For example, you could host a meet and greet for new members, a post-golf tournament banquet, or a hybrid conference for a select group of members for members and sponsors to talk face-to-face. Ultimately, the goal is to give sponsors a chance to connect with your association’s members meaningfully.
Sponsors might also be interested in obtaining the contact information of members who participate in an event so they can follow up with those who show interest in their brand, so build this option into your sponsorship offerings.
Treat sponsors like true partners throughout planning and execution and stay on the same page. You’ll be in a good position for not only a successful event but also successful sponsor engagement. With the proper communication cadences and tech stack on your side, you can provide an unbeatable ROI for your sponsors and cultivate long-lasting relationships.
A strong web strategy can help your association increase event registration numbers and drive value for attendees. Use these expert tips.
If you’re looking for a tool to strategically engage your members throughout your upcoming event, you’re in luck because you likely already have it in your toolkit: your website.
Your association’s website serves as an all-in-one marketing, registration, and engagement hub that can help you boost attendee numbers and provide important information once your event kicks off. Plus, sharing compelling website content makes it easy to stay connected with attendees long after your event concludes.
Let’s explore how you can use your website before, during, and after your event to drive high engagement levels and create a lasting impression on your attendees.
Your website is a key piece of your association’s event marketing plan. Here’s how you can wield your website into a powerful marketing tool in advance of your event:
Create a dedicated landing page on your website that covers everything prospective attendees need to know about your event. Specifically, you’ll want to cover:
You’ll also want to spotlight the perks of attending your event to pique your members’ interests; for instance, you might bring attention to benefits like networking opportunities or notable speakers who will be in attendance.
For example, the National Association of Biology Teachers created an engaging landing page in advance of their upcoming 2023 conference. Here, they describe logistical details like the date and location, purpose of the event, and registration information.
They also summarize why members should go, writing: “Join other leaders in biology and life science education for presentations from renowned speakers, interactive workshops, and the special NABT events that you can't get anywhere else.” This kind of emotionally compelling language shows the unique value in attending their conference, helping to drive more registrations.
To entice prospective attendees even further, the National Association of Biology Teachers lists out special perks like special events and speakers.
On top of including logistical details, make your event landing page visually appealing to keep members engaged. Follow these best practices to enhance your event landing page design:
Taking a look at the National Association of Biology Teachers’ event landing page again, you can see that they’ve incorporated their brand colors of green and blue, used an engaging design of a bridge and lobster related to Baltimore to grab users’ attention, and incorporated ample white space to create a clean and professional look.
Once you launch your event landing page, share it widely with your members through email, social media, and direct mail with a QR code. This will help to get the word out about your event and encourage members to sign up.
Not all members will be regularly checking your website for new landing pages, but they might consistently read your blog, especially if you mention new posts in your email newsletter. A blog post about your event can help to boost awareness and spark members’ interests.
For example, you can generate blog content about how your event will help members progress in their professional careers, provide a sneak peek of an engaging workshop, or ask members who attended this event in the past to author a post about their experience and why others should come.
Rather than directing prospective attendees to an external website to sign up, centralize the entire registration process by embedding a registration form in your event landing page. This way, members can register as soon as they feel inspired by your content.
Make sure to limit the number of prompts on your registration form so members can register for your event in just a few moments and have a positive user experience. For example, only require members to fill out their name, contact information, and billing information if they’ll need to pay for a ticket. Other prompts, like asking people how they found out about this event, can be made optional.
Your event has officially kicked off! To keep your members engaged and dialed into everything that’s happening, leverage your website to provide key event information. For instance, you might:
While attendees will have access to this information on your virtual event platform, it helps for members to know that there is a more familiar source of information available to them, too.
To make this information exclusive to your attendees on your website, consider using a membership website builder that enables you to create a private intranet. Here, attendees can readily access a dashboard with information about your event. Let registered participants know in advance of your event how to log in to these private pages and stay looped into your event updates at all times.
Congratulations, you’ve wrapped up another amazing event! But, your hard work isn’t finished just yet. Post-event follow-up is a critical part of keeping participants engaged and eager to stay connected to your association, and a strong digital strategy can help. Use your website in the following key ways after your event:
You might also share a message on your event landing page that thanks members for attending and summarizes the key takeaways from your event. Make sure to also send personalized email communications that show appreciation so you can form strong connections with your attendees.
From pre-event planning to post-event follow-up, your website can take your event strategy to the next level. Remember to keep your audience’s interests and expectations in mind as you roll out content so you can encourage them to register, follow your event updates, and stay connected to your organization long after the event.
As your user conference grows, it's not just about having a bigger audience; it's also about maintaining the same quality of event experience as you scale. Here are 4 hacks to do just that.
Scaling your in-person user conference from a modest gathering to a large-scale event is a remarkable feat, when done right. One of the most critical aspects of this transformation is maintaining the quality of both content and speakers.
Luckily for all of us, Lauren Olerich, Sr. Director of Events at Gainsight, has shared some super-important insights on how she’s been consistently delivering quality content at Gainsight’s user conferences right from the time they had about 300 attendees to their now massive 20,000+ attendee base.
As your user conference expands, the task of curating high-quality content and securing exceptional speakers becomes increasingly challenging. Lauren acknowledges that there are no easy hacks for this process. Instead, it requires a significant investment of time and careful planning.
Here are 4 hacks that are essential to getting this right.
To maintain the quality of your user conference, start with a solid track plan. Select new tracks that focus on forward-thinking topics, avoiding repetition from previous years. This approach ensures that the sessions align with the conference's goals and provide fresh insights.
The way you carry out your speaker outreach matters a lot. While you can always conduct a call for speakers, don't hesitate to sometimes deviate from the submissions,
Consider the diverse audience personas attending your conference, from executives to individual contributors and different professions. Ensure that your agenda caters to their interests, offering options in multiple tracks and sessions. Nobody wants to leave your event feeling like you just scratched the surface on a certain topic of keen interest.
One striking insight that Lauren shared was around how Gainsight follows is a thorough session review process. They review every single session multiple times, even involving their CEO in the process. This commitment to detail demonstrates their dedication to delivering top-notch content.
Whether it's an internal subject matter expert or a leader who can provide valuable insights, having someone review and provide feedback on each session ensures the highest quality content. It'll require extra coordination and a few back-and-forth moments, yes, but is it worth it? Totally!
Maintaining the quality of content and speakers as your in-person user conference grows is no walk in the park, but the payoff is unmatchable!
With diverse tracks, effective speaker outreach, and meticulous session reviews, you'll be able to ensure that your conference continues to provide valuable experiences to attendees, regardless of its size!
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4 tips to design conference badges that take the 'work' out of networking.
While the average person might see a conference badge as just a name tag, to a conference organizer, it's an unsung hero, a networking cornerstone, a conversation catalyst, and an important factor in building a great event. Its importance in the conference world is second only to the Wi-Fi password.
In other words, a lot is riding on this unassuming piece of rectangle.
But there’s more than meets the eye to getting it right. It’s not just about slapping a name on a piece of plastic – conference badge design is a delicate balance of art and functionality.
In this piece, we’ll delve into how to design a conference badge that helps make the attendee experience a great one.
First, let’s get the basics out of the way. Follow the following best-practices to create a fun and functional conference badge.
If you use the commandments mentioned above, you should be able to create a great-looking badge.
But there’s still more you can do to elevate your conference badge. Read on.
Just follow these tips:
Let attendees add a little personality to their badges by including a couple of topics of interest or areas of expertise where they're open to collaboration. This lets other attendees get a glimpse into their passions and these serve as potential conversation starters.
The questions can be professional and/or fun, such as ‘My hidden talent is…’, ‘The emoji that best describes me is…’ or ‘My go-to karaoke song is…’ making it easier for attendees to ask a follow-up question or respond in kind.
But if you don’t have enough space on your badge or need to prioritize other information, you can simply make other smaller badges with this prompt that attendees can wear alongside your official badge.
Let attendees add items or objects to badges that employ visual cues, with color coding being especially effective. This approach allows attendees to be swiftly sorted into interest groups, making it easy for them to spot and connect with like-minded individuals.
For instance, badge ribbons can be used to highlight the individual’s role at the conference - as an attendee, guest speaker, sponsor or organizer. These can help attendees quickly identify and connect with the people they’re looking for.
Different ribbon colors can also be used to show how many years an attendee has been to the conference, providing an easy segue into discussing their conference history and experiences. If you're new to the conference and spot a fellow newbie's ribbon, it's a natural conversation starter, making introductions less daunting. On the flip side, if you notice a seasoned attendee's ribbon, it's an opportunity to delve into their wealth of past experiences and get valuable insights into the event.
Stackable stickers are another great option to add to badges too.
A QR code badge simplifies the check-in process (it took only 90 Mins for all of the 672 attendees at Catalyst by Partnership Leaderships to check-in + get their badges) and it can be programmed to include quite a lot of extra attendee information. Details such as social media handles or a link to a company website can be easily exchanged via the QR code, boosting networking opportunities and engagement at the event.
Not to mention, using a QR code allows you to provide more information without taking up space on the design of your badge.
All too often, badges flip around when you're walking around the venue, which can lead to missed opportunities for connections and conversations. To maximize engagement, consider printing relevant information on the backside of the badge, ensuring that details remain visible from any angle.
Or at the least, use it to share the conference agenda or the layout of the venue.
Don't underestimate the power of a well-designed badge. It's the small touch that can lead to big connections and make your event truly memorable.
Five strategies for building your customer profiles so you can take a data-driven approach to event marketing
You may have some assumptions about your customer base due to the nature of your product or service or your interactions with customers at events over the years. However, the best way to target current and potential customers is through data.
Data provides a concrete way to assess your customers’ needs, interests, and preferences. In turn, you can build comprehensive customer profiles that guide your event marketing efforts.
In this article, we’ll review five strategies for building your customer profiles so you can take a data-driven approach to event marketing. Whether you’re creating customer profiles for the first time or enhancing your existing information, these tips will help you uncover powerful insights about your customers.
Take a look at your current customer database. What data do you already have on them? Do you have the same data points for each customer, or are there some that have more or less data?
After taking stock of the data you have, determine what data you still need to learn more about your customers and better market your events to them. For example, B2B organizations may know the industry of the companies they work with but not the size of each company. This information could be useful because it would allow B2B organizations to personalize their event messaging and outreach based on the nature of each company.
This is also a good time to assess how you’re storing data. Is it in a spreadsheet, physical forms, a customer relationship management platform (CRM), or a combination of different methods? For easier analysis, migrate all data to the same place—preferably a customer relationship management (CRM) system or other platform intended for data storage.
When you have a better, more complete understanding of your customer base overall, you’ll be able to identify the major attributes of different types of customers and add those to your customer profiles for more targeted event marketing.
While auditing your customer database, you may notice you’re missing key data from your customers. To fill in the gaps in your database, conduct a data append. During a data append, data providers solicit information from third-party sources to supplement your customer database.
Considering that businesses that use data-driven marketing have a return on investment (ROI) that’s five to eight times higher than businesses that don’t, appending data should be a top priority to elevate your event marketing strategy.
Depending on the data provider that you work with, you can append the following information:
Additionally, B2B organizations may want to append firmographic data, such as industry, company size, and location. With this information, you can put data at the forefront of your customer profiles. For instance, when you know that certain customers like to buy your products online while others like to make in-store purchases, you can tailor your profiles for each group accordingly.
Once you have all the data you need, you can segment customers based on shared characteristics, including demographics, buying preferences, and purchase history.
Segmenting your customer base will help you organize your data and create event marketing campaigns that align with their unique preferences. This approach can also save time and resources by only reaching out to customers likely to be interested in certain events.
For example, if you’re hosting an event that would interest CEOs and other high-level business executives, you can create an appropriate segment and only reach out to that group. As a result, you’ll see a higher ROI than if you were to contact every customer in your database.
After segmenting your customers into different groups, you can create profiles within each segment that further specify your customer base. In the CEO segment, you may have a profile for a younger CEO looking for networking opportunities and one for an older CEO interested in attending events about keeping up with emerging technology.
Even though you can source most of the data you need for your profiles from a data append, reaching out to customers for feedback can enhance your profiles even further. With the qualitative information elicited in surveys, you can expand upon the data points you have and focus your event messaging for each segment.
Some of the most useful pieces of information you can obtain from surveys are customer challenges or pain points. When you ask customers what they’re looking to accomplish by using your product or service, you can ensure your solution addresses their needs and tailor your event messaging to touch upon those pain points.
For example, business executives looking for software might indicate that their company is quickly growing, and they need a platform that can keep up. As a result, the software company can note this as a pain point in their customer profiles and emphasize the scalability of their product when hosting events for this segment.
You can also send out surveys after events and campaigns to determine their effectiveness in addressing your customers’ needs. The feedback may help you uncover new pain points or other customer information that you can add to your customer profiles.
If you want to take your customer profiles a step further, create customer personas. Customer personas are similar to customer profiles, except they include a fictional representation of each profile type.
Continuing with the CEO segment example, customer personas may include a young CEO named Lauren Smith who wants to increase brand awareness and an older CEO named Emmett Thompson who wants to expand his company’s product into new markets.
When you attach personal attributes to your customer profiles, it’s easier to picture your customers as real people and market your events to them accordingly. Customer Profile #37 may effectively guide your event marketing efforts, but thinking about Lauren Smith’s pain points and interests is a more tangible way of incorporating customer data into your next event marketing campaign.
When data is at the forefront of your customer profiles, you’ll make better, more informed decisions about your event marketing efforts. As a result, you can reach customers in each of your segments and provide them with an individualized experience that addresses their needs and preferences.
Catch up on all the latest enhancements to Zuddl that we can't wait for you to experience!
It has been a while, but we're back with some super-fresh updates for you!
This time around, we bring you more support for event and webinar management with event series, registration by approval, and surveys for webinars.
Here’s all you need to know about these new features:
Create a series of events, webinars, or a combination of both.
You can now organize multiple events and webinars and promote them under one theme by setting up a Series. Your series can have its own Landing Page, using which attendees can register for all the underlying events and webinars in one go.
On registering once, your attendees will get automated email reminders for each of your events organized in the series.
Learn how to create your own event series here.
Curate your event the way you want
To add an extra layer of control over who participates in an event, you can now enable registration by approval and use it for a specific audience.
When this is enabled, you’ll be able to approve or reject users who have registered for your event. After registration, users will be kept in the Pending state till you take any further action.
Once done, registrations will receive emails based on the status of their approval.
Dive deeper into this feature here.
Gather timely insights from your attendees on their experience
Getting feedback on your webinars is critical to improving and scaling up your event experience. With surveys, you can get quick feedback at the right time.
A survey can be created in a 3-step process; add basic details, add questions, and add an end screen. Choose from different question types: short text, multiple-choice, multiple-choice multi-select, and rating.
All the responses will be saved in your organizer dashboard for ready reference.
For more info on surveys for webinars, click here.
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Ideas for conference activations that you can steal for your next event.
How do you plan a conference that’s so extraordinary that attendees are still raving about it months after it’s over?
It’s a confluence of factors, to be sure; engaging and relevant content, dynamic speakers, interactive sessions, and networking activities all play essential parts in making a conference impactful. But these are now baseline expectations. Without them, your conference might indeed become a topic of conversation, but for all the wrong reasons.
We're emphasizing that while you must get all the fundamentals right, that might not be enough to make your conference stand out.
You need something extra - an X factor - to elevate the conference experience from meh to memorable (and drive traffic to strategic areas in the venue, of course). “We try to build in moments of childlike joy into real-life experiences.. says Lauren Olerich, Sr. Director of Events at Gainsight in our webinar. “At [Pulse - Gainsight's annual conference), we have had people dressed up as superheroes who walk around the conference; we’ve hired a Taylor Swift impersonator to sing and serenade and walk around on stage; and we had a ferris wheel in 2018."
And that’s where activations come in.
What are activations? A quick refresher.
Activations are engaging experiences that encourage attendees to participate in the conference - beyond the sessions, panels, and workshops, and which leave a lasting impression on attendees.
They can take many forms, such as interactive exhibits, experiential installations, workshops, games, live performances, etc. Organizers can use activations to meet strategic goals, such as driving traffic to the sponsors' area in the venue or driving awareness around a concept, product, or service.
Here's what Lauren recommends keeping in mind when planning your activations:
(1) Experiences for attendee to self-explore in their own time: If you think about the footprint of your event, [you can put activations on different zones and floors]. You can put activations throughout the Expo Hall or the hallways as people are starting to walk to different breakout rooms.
(2) Encourage attendees to seek out the activations: You can encourage people through push notifications to find the activations. And you can gamify [it] by giving people points if they scan [the event app] at certain activations to encourage them to experience these things.
What is it: A real-time, interactive artistic display that is built by attendee submissions
Why it’s a great idea: Conferences often focus on knowledge sharing and professional development, but incorporating live art serves as a creative counterbalance, stimulating senses and imagination and providing a unique way to express ideas and narratives.
A real-life example: The Brightline Initiative, in collaboration with Domestic Data Streamers, had a participatory art installation at their 2019 conference. Attendees were asked to write down their thoughts about speakers, sessions, and conference content on transparent tiles with permanent marker, creating a visually engaging and interactive experience that allowed participants to contribute to the event's narrative actively.
We love this idea.
Another example: At the TED Bigger Than Us Exhibit, attendees were invited to write an idea worth spreading on a piece of paper. They were then photographed holding it and their photo was added to a gallery. This activation engaged attendees in the core mission of TED, allowing them to actively participate in sharing and promoting their own innovative ideas, while also fostering a sense of inclusion and community.
A fantastic embodiment of the theme of the conference.
What is it: Quite simply - puppies at the conference!
Why it’s a great idea: Incorporating puppies into a conference provides a delightful and unexpected element that can reduce stress, boost mood, and encourage social interaction among attendees. It adds a unique and memorable touch to the event, as it's not something commonly associated with conferences.
A real-life example: At Quantum Metric’s user conference, the team set up a puppy adoption center in the sponsor area. Attendees were thrilled to encounter adorable puppies, which not only attracted significant traffic to the sponsor area but also ended up with two dog adoptions.
Honestly, if you had this activation at your conference, you'd have trouble getting us to leave.
What is it: Smoothie bikes let attendees select their preferred flavors and then pedal to blend them into their own custom fruit smoothie or signature cocktail, which they can take with them.
Why it’s a great idea: People love an activity, and people also love free food and drinks. Smoothie bikes cleverly combine both by offering a hands-on and fun experience that you definitely don’t expect at a conference and a yummy payoff.
A real-life example: HP set up smoothie bikes at Curry’s Peak Conference, as it perfectly exemplified HP sustainability, but works well at just about any event organized by a company that cares about sustainability (because you produce your own electricity!).
What is it: VR/AR/AI adventures are usually immersive and interactive experiences that leverage virtual or augmented environments, often involving headsets or devices. An AR scavenger hunt is an interactive game or activity in which participants use AR technology, often via a mobile app, to locate and collect virtual items or complete challenges within a physical or digital environment. Like Pokemon Go.
Why it’s great at a conference: VR/AR/AI adds oomph to your event and lets attendees explore a concept related to your conference’s theme in an exciting and cutting-edge way. The scavenger hunt, in particular, is a creative and fun way to get attendees exploring the venue, and interacting with products, services, and sponsors, which promotes deeper engagement between participants and event stakeholders.
A real-life example: The AR scavenger hunt at the 2023 Advertising Week APAC conference was a big hit. Attendees were encouraged to explore Lunar Park - the conference venue - to find and collect rewards from sponsors throughout the park. Participants would be entered into a draw to win a major prize.
This is a smart way to employ gamification at the conference in a way that feels authentic and enjoyable to attendees, and helps you meet strategic event goals too.
What is it: An arcade of retro games designed to connect attendees with positive memories of the past.
Why it’s great at a conference: It adds a touch of fun and familiarity, making networking easier through shared memories, and conversations more enjoyable, and the event itself distinct and memorable.
A real-life example: AWS re: Invent in Las Vegas featured educational sessions, networking opportunities, as well as a variety of retro games, including a Giant Human Claw Machine in which attendees played the part of the Giant Claw. They were lifted into the air by the machine and lowered into a giant pit of untold treasures that were up for grabs.
There's no denying the power of a 90s throwback.
In the quest to make events truly memorable and strategically impactful, activations stand out as powerful tools.
But to make them truly effective, organizers need to carefully align the experiences with your company and event’s personality, goals, mission, and values, and with strategic objectives you’re trying to meet through them - for instance, driving footfall to sponsors.
So, be thoughtful, be strategic, but above all, be boldly unexpected.
From AI's role in the cloud-native community to the nuances of modern IT sustainability, here's what to expect at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon 2023.
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2023 is fast approaching! This premier event is a must-attend for anyone in the open-source and cloud-native community. Here's a quick rundown of what to expect.
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation's flagship conference, KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2023, gathers adopters and technologists from leading open source and cloud native communities. This event serves as a nexus for knowledge sharing, collaboration, and networking among professionals in the field.
Its 2023 edition is set to be a hybrid event, combining in-person interactions with virtual participation. The first day is dedicated to preliminary activities, while the main conference spans three days.
Over these four days, attendees can expect a mix of in-person and virtual content, featuring keynotes, over 10 conference tracks, tutorials, and networking opportunities.
Environmental Sustainability in the Cloud: A deep dive into the importance of environmental sustainability in IT. Learn about power consumption accountability, energy efficiency, GreenOps, and cost optimization from experts at Grafana Labs, Red Hat, Intel, Microsoft, and more.
Performance Profiling with Ryan Perry: Explore performance profiling across various programming languages and platforms. Understand the significance of observability in modern software development.
OpenTelemetry Contribfest: Get introduced to the latest features and developments of the OpenTelemetry project with Juraci Paixão Kröhling from Grafana Labs and other Prometheus project maintainers.
Measuring Kubernetes Costs: Gain insights on tracking cloud costs, especially for Kubernetes clusters, with JuanJo Ciarlante and Mark Poko from Grafana Labs.
AI Hub: The first-ever AI Hub is set to be a highlight. This one-day unconference will delve into AI topics impacting the cloud-native community, covering areas like LLMs, AI policy, AI operations, AI data governance, and more. Attendees can engage in active conversations and learn from industry peers about AI implementations.
Security Hub: The inaugural Security Hub will focus on security topics vital to the cloud-native community, offering insights into the latest cloud-native security practices and challenges.
All in all, KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2023 is poised to offer a comprehensive view of the future of cloud-native technologies and opportunities for networking with industry leaders.
Organizing multiple related events or webinars? With Zuddl's new Event Series feature is here to streamline the process for you.
Our new Event Series feature allows you to link related events or webinars, simplifying repetitive tasks like registrations, attendee management, and communications.
You can now organize multiple events and webinars and promote them under one theme by setting up a Series. Your series can have its own Landing Page, using which attendees can register for all the underlying events and webinars in one go.
Follow these steps to set up your series landing page
On registering once, your attendees will get automated email reminders for each of your events organized in the series. Every email goes with a calendar block that helps you boost attendee turnout.
Learn how to set up attendee emails for an event series
By releasing events under a series, you can boost attendee turnout, have deeper engagement with your attendees, and build a stronger connection with your audience.
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Directly sync your attendee data to your CRM. This drastically reduces the turnaround time for follow ups and help your teams run targeted campaigns.
Get granular data on what polls or questions each attendee engaged with. Get analytics on their interests, time spent per session and CTAs clicked. You’ll find all analytics across each event, organized in one single dashboard.
The Event Series feature is all about efficiency and enhancing the attendee experience. By linking related events and streamlining processes, you can focus on delivering value and ensuring each event in the series is a success.
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