12 Tips to Build Brand Loyalty at Your Event

Online and print marketing can both build up your fan base, but live events offer your audience a unique chance to experience your brand for themselves. By meeting you in person, they are more likely to forge a meaningful connection with your company, which in turn will translate to sales. Almost three-quarters (74%) of customers say that their impression of a business improves following an event.

Events that connect with an audience are referred to as “experiential marketing.” They can take the form of festivals, concerts, pop-up shops, conferences, lectures, and exhibitions – in fact, almost any kind of event can be used to engage with your market.

The most effective events cultivate a sense of loyalty in attendees. Here are a few practical ways you can grab your visitors’ attention and leave a positive impression:

1. Generate excitement before the event  

Announce your event at least a few weeks in advance. Tell followers across each of your platforms where and when it will take place, and when they will be able to purchase tickets. Giving people the opportunity to sign up for notifications is a good way to encourage them to join your mailing list.

 Tell your visitors why they should attend; what’s in it for them? For example, if you have invited any notable speakers or plan to run any exciting contests, highlight it in your marketing materials.

2. Give your visitors a sneak preview of upcoming products or services 

Reward visitors for turning up by staging some kind of “big reveal.” For example, if you are a clothing brand, showcase a few of your new designs for the upcoming season. When you make them feel special, attendees will come away with positive memories of your event, which in turn will foster brand loyalty.

3. Engage your visitors’ senses

Let your guests see, touch, hear, or taste your products. The more senses you can engage, the better. Set up as many interactive displays as possible.

4. Stage a competition

Giving away prizes serves two purposes. First, it provides a good excuse to collect visitors’ contact details, which will aid your marketing efforts in the future. Second, offering a desirable prize encourages visitors to think of your brand as generous and fun, two attributes which will increase their loyalty.

5. Be generous with your freebies

Even if they have paid to get in, attendees still tend to think of gifts and merchandise as a bonus or “added extra.” Branded items that they will want to keep, such as fun toys or useful items such as pens and notepads, will remind them of the event long after they get home.

6. Localize the experience

“Always ask yourself whether your event is catering to your local market,” advises the CEO of PickWriters. Do not assume that just because an event was well-received in one city that it will be met with a warm reception in another. This requires a thoughtful approach. For example, you may need to translate written content, including signs, be sensitive to cultural norms regarding dress codes and greetings, and avoid casual references to controversial issues during talks and demonstrations.   

7. Offer a touch of luxury

Make your visitors feel special, and they will look back on your event with fondness. For instance, you could offer a limited number of passes to a VIP area, or sell tickets to a Q&A session. They will tell their friends about the great time they had, which will further improve your brand’s reputation.

8. Showcase your brand alongside others that target your market

Inviting your competitors to an event would be counter-productive, but what about teaming up with a brand that appeals to a similar demographic? In doing so, you’ll attract a broader crowd who will get the opportunity to experience your brand along with well-established favourites.

9. Invite speakers from outside your company to share their knowledge

If you are running a B2B event for professionals, recruit speakers to run workshops or give demonstrations. These should give attendees actionable strategies they can use in their business. Your guests will feel as though their time at your event was well-spent, and will respect your brand for caring about issues that affect them.

Hiring external speakers also equates to free publicity, because they will probably let all their clients and social media contacts know that they are taking part in an event.

10. Recruit enthusiastic, knowledgeable staff  

If even staff are indifferent to your brand and bored by the event, your visitors will notice, and this won’t inspire their trust or loyalty. If possible, send company employees to oversee the event, rather than workers from a PR agency.

11. Make it easy for visitors to share their experiences

Set up a hashtag for your event, and encourage your visitors to use it. Hashtags let your guests share their photos and questions they may have for you. Make sure someone is responsible for responding to social media posts throughout the event; a quick, friendly reply or acknowledgement will generate goodwill. You can also use hashtags to organize contests. For instance, you may run a competition whereby the 100th person to upload a tagged photo of themselves at the event wins a prize.

12. Livestream your event

Reach out to those who can’t get to your event by livestreaming it. Set up a video feed that gives viewers a sense of the event atmosphere. Be sure to broadcast talks, demonstrations, and Q&A sessions. Your viewers will appreciate your efforts, feel engaged with the event, and may direct other people to your stream via social media. Encourage viewers to submit live feedback and questions.

Obtain, and analyze, visitor feedback

Always conduct a post-mortem after the event, using both qualitative and quantitive data. Ask yourself these questions: Did staff receive positive formal feedback during the event? Did visitors share their experience on social media? How many people attended? How many sign-ups or purchases did you get? Overall, did the event live up to your visitors’ expectations?

If you held a conference or B2B event, you could use brief follow-up surveys to encourage attendees to give formal feedback afterwards. Whatever your industry, remember that consumers want to be heard, so give them the chance to tell you what they really thought of your event.

Elisa Abbott is a freelancer whose passion lies in creative writing. She completed a degree in Computer Science and writes about ways to apply machine learning to deal with complex issues. Insights on education, helpful tools and valuable university experiences – she has got you covered ;)

6 Event Planning Apps That Will Actually Save You Time

If you are a marketer, if you are doing something related to marketing and event planning, you surely have to know that things in this industry are dynamic. The trends can change in no time, you have to anticipate it all and your schedule is hence really busy. Of course, when your schedule is busy, you always look for ways to save time. Because time is money, right? Well, if you’re having difficulties hosting and planning events, or you’d just want to make your life easier and save yourself some time, take a look at these six useful apps that will help you do it.

Basecamp

Is it time to brainstorm ideas with your team? You guys want your event to be perfect but it’s kind of hard to gather around and stay updated? Well, have no fear, Basecamp is here to help. Basecamp is essentially a project management app, it is easy to use and hence quite user-friendly. Create task, assign them to your employees on the go. Basecamp will keep you posted by automatically sending notifications to your mail. You’ll know exactly what happened and when. It’s efficient, the interface is great, it looks nice and it is quite affordable.

Evernote

Don’t let your ideas slip your mind ever again? Something awesome came to your mind about your upcoming event, something that will make it better but it slipped? You can’t remember it anymore? Well, if you have Evernote, you’ll be able to write everything down on the go, this app allows you to capture, organize and share notes. There will be no need for you to plow through your bag looking for notebooks, folders, etc. Amenities that come with Evernote are numerous. You can save idea files, guest lists, vendor quotes, menus, to-do lists, etc. Basically, you can save everything important on Evernote.

Doodle

Event planners have heard of this app. That is guaranteed. If you haven’t, listen up. Doodle is an app that links to your calendar and always keeps you one step ahead of your appointments. There are numerous features that save time and make your life easier. One of them is called MeetMe and that feature will allow you to accept personal meetings online. If you need to arrange a meeting with a client, this app will enable you to do it quickly. Doodle really is one of the best apps that help with event planning out there. Be sure to check it out.

Zapier

Are you tired of repetitive tasks? Did you know that event planners use more than 4 tech tools to help them with event planning? Well, consider every app from this list since every single one is good in its own way. The story isn’t different for Zapier. Zapier lets you automate repetitive tasks, you can create automated workflows (they are called Zaps). That’s how you deal with time-consuming work. You hate pulling attendee contact info every time from the scratch? Zapier can automatically get that contact information for you when you connect your CRM to your email marketing tool. Useful, right?

Smartsheet

Do you like spreadsheet-style event management? If so, you’ll adore Smartsheet. This app really redesigns spreadsheets. It’s like classic spreadsheets but only 2.0. You will have the benefits of tracking projects, assigning tasks, your sheets can be edited through Outlook. Your team members will be easy to contact, you can easily hold discussions about the event or current planning stage. Event planning has never been easier with spreadsheets, umm, smartsheets. It is worth taking a look at.

Planning Pod

This app is one of the most robust event planning apps out there. You can do promotion, check-in, you can really manage your event through this app swiftly. There are 30+ implemented into this platform and there is really no surprise that this app exudes efficiency. Of course, it is not free but you can have a free trial before committing. Planning Pod puts focus on placing your most important info into a centralized dashboard. This way you’ll stay on track while you plan your event. It saves time, boosts productivity, makes communication with team members easy.

Conclusion

We are living in the age of technology, take advantage of it. It’s there to make our lives easier. Well, make your job easier and become a valuable asset at the same time.

5 Tips For Failsafe Online Event Promotion

All live events begin with an online presence. The majority of companies – 89% by one estimate – utilize some form of online marketing. You also have plenty of approaches, from social media to email newsletters. Diversify your approach to broaden your outreach. Here are some best practices for organizing an event marketing campaign.

1. Don’t Neglect Keywords
Contrary to what many people are saying, SEO is not dead. All online promotional content should be optimized with two to three longtail keywords. The keywords should include an industry term followed by a geo-location. If you’re hosting a tech conference in London, for example, then the keywords would be “tech conference in London,” or “IT conference in London.” Use the Google Keyword Planner to discover lucrative keywords in your niche.

Include your keywords in all written content, including blog posts and in the description of video content. Adhere to the basic SEO rules. Include the keyword or a close variation of it in the title, in at least one H2 title, and enough times in the body of the text to achieve a 5% keyword density.

2. Show Off Your Social Proof
Never heard of social proof? This is online content from your followers that you share with other
customers. This can be a post that you retweet, a testimonial, or a customer’s Instagram pic from a previous event. Social proof shows that other customers and event goers are active brand advocates. Showing off social proof may motivate others to follow suit. Just as you expect followers to spread your content, the reverse is also true.

The easiest way to show social proof is by reposting other people’s post. You can also get more creative and include a video compilation or slideshow of the posts.

3. Use Retargeting Ads Often
Retargeting ads are way underutilized. If you’re unfamiliar, these are ads that are shown to followers that went through a portion of the sales funnel process but fell short of purchasing a ticket. These people expressed some level of initial interest and are more likely to convert if you reach out to them again.

Retargeting ads may be directed towards those who, for example, clicked on the RSVP page link in an email newsletter but did not secure a ticket. The message in the ads should also apply FOMO, or the fear of missing out principle. FOMO are messages that convey a sense of urgency. An example may be “Only 20 tickets left,” or “Ticket discount offer ends in 12 hours.”

4. Get Creative with Ticket Sales
Don’t just set a ticket price and sell them via event page with a purchase link. Look for creative ways to part with them. How else can you sell or give away tickets? Consider these methods:
• Early bird pricing
• Discount for bulk purchases
• Give them away to those who perform a favorable action, such as refering X number of buyers

• Discount pricing for loyalty and VIP members
• Give them away in a social media contest, either as the winning prize or to everyone who participates.

5. Use a Social Media Wall
Online promotion continues even once the event is in progress. Even though you’re no longer selling tickets at this point, you still want to spread social media mentions. This helps spread brand awareness and helps promote any products you may be pushing at the event.

To drive in-event social media discussion, incorporate a social media wall. This is a digital signage that shows social media posts from various networks as they’re posted in real time. Seeing live posts should prompt other attendees to join in and submit their own tweets or Instagram posts. Encourage all posters to include the event hashtag with every posting.

The Web provides so many angles for approaching your event promotion. Achieve optimum results by exploring multiple methods and tweaking your strategy to improve analytics.

Dan McCarthy is an Event Manager at Venueseeker, an event management company based in the UK. Dan has 6 years of event project management under his belt. He has worked on many successful events, and currently, he shares his knowledge by writing on the company blog. Follow him on Twitter @DanCarthy2.

How events can help grow your print business

Before I began my journey with Mitingu, I ran a digital print business. About 8 years ago I had doubts about the longevity of print... how wrong was I ?! Print is the perfect physical communications tool and combined with technology and complimentary digital channels, the only limit to what you can do with it is simply one’s creativity.

There are lots of printers out there that have the technology and skill to make their clients’ communications come alive. The issue is there are far fewer who actually tell their clients and prospects what they can do and how they can help improve marketing ROI and cost efficiencies (via print on demand).

This is where running onsite, local and national events come into their own. It gives the print business the opportunity to inform, add value and raise awareness of what they can do and how they can help.

If you are one of those printers out there that thinks you don’t have the time or budget to organise one event, yet alone a number of regular events, I completely get that because I felt exactly the same! When I finally got round to organising an event (an open house), it opened my eyes to the opportunity. We attracted existing clients and some prospects who until that point we hadn’t managed to have a conversation with. We found out their actual pain points and got the opportunity to demonstrate how we could help them. The event gave us the opportunity to strengthen existing relationships and build new ones.

The great news is that it doesn’t have to cost lots of time and money to organise and manage a professional event for your business.

Mitingu can help printers or any type of business with event marketing, registration and ongoing communications from one platform. Here’s how… 

1. A mobile responsive event registration and marketing site - your branding, your URL..not ours!

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2. Event emails - invitations, booking confirmations, reminders, survey requests...personalised, branded and relevant to each recipient.

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3. Attendee management - plan ahead by seeing who’s coming and what they hope to get out of the event (use the registration form to get valuable information such as that).

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4. Analytics - see important metrics like registrations versus invitations, email response rates and total bookings and revenue (if you’re charging people to attend).

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5. Integrated payments -take card payments online as part of the registration process.

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6. Share on social media - helps to generate registrations and interest in your event.

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7. Check-in - a professional way to check attendees in via an iOS and Android app. Their status is upgraded in the event admin attendee list, so you know who has made it on the day and who hasn't.

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8. Surveys - your chance to collect more valuable attendee data to help you understand their pain points and how you can help them. It's also an opportunity to get their honest feedback on the event which can be used to refine the next event so it's even better! 

Print has a great future, especially if it utilises technology such as web to print and cross media marketing software. 

Events could be one of your business’s biggest opportunities to get the message out there and we’d love to help.

Delegate Data: Two of the biggest reasons to utilise it

I recently read a really interesting article on how a major UK retailer could and should utilise the customer data they collect to increase footfall into stores and drive more revenue through their online store.

It got me thinking about how event organisers could utilise the delegate data they collect to both enhance the event experience and share wider within their organisation to help build profiles of both existing and prospective clients.

1. Enhance the event experience

The event registration process gives you a perfect opportunity to collect all the information you need to ensure you’re creating a great experience for each and every delegate. That experience may have already been kicked off with event invitations or promotional material. The registration process can fine tune that experience to make it really relevant to the individual delegate. For example, if you already have some basic information about them, this gives you the opportunity to tailor their registration process. It goes without saying that if you know their name, email address, job title etc, then you shouldn’t be asking them to tell you again, their event registration form should be pre-populated with their details allowing them to edit easily if necessary.

A good registration process and effective event communications such as email and SMS leave the delegate with a great impression before the event has even started.

At Mitingu we know that abandonment rates at registration stage drop significantly when intelligent registration forms are used.

What does that mean?

Make and keep it relevant, not unnecessarily long. Mitingu allows the event organiser to create intelligent forms, personalised to the individual that only requires them to answer questions that are relevant to them. Mitingu filters based on what we already know as well as what they have just told us. If you’d like to see how, get in touch and we’ll quickly run you through how it works.

 

2. Build delegate profiles and share with the wider business

When a delegate registers to attend an event, they are generally more than happy to share additional information that they might be more cagey about sharing in the initial sales process. There are a number of reasons to attend an event, but most delegates will go to learn something new and/or network to benefit them and their business.

If a delegate is keen to attend an event, they know part of the registration process is to supply information about them and their business so it’s a good value exchange.

If you’re asking questions about their annual budget for products or services that fall into your business’s category, who is the decision maker, their buying cycle and preferences of how they like to be contacted, then it makes perfect sense to share this information with the wider business.

Likewise, if they complete a post-event survey then all of that data could and should be shared with the business to build the profile and turn a prospective client into an actual one or develop an existing client into an even better one.

The quickest and easiest way to do this is to integrate your event registration platform with your business’s CRM platform...we can help there too!

Alternatively, if an integration doesn’t fit in with your immediate plans, with Mitingu it’s easy to export the exact information you need and upload into your CRM.

We recognise the importance of delegate data which is why we have created a platform that makes it so easy to utilise data to enhance the event experience and build profiles of your delegate for continued use.

6 reasons to make business events accountable

Making events an accountable part of the sales cycle and culture has always been an issue for businesses. Believing any opportunity to meet customers or partners face-to-face, or bring employees together at a corporate event has always ‘felt’ like the correct thing to do. Time and time again budget holders were left questioning and unable to answer what the return was. The set up, management, delivery and measurement so often fell short of being properly planned and integrated into wider internal and external customer sales and experience strategies. But that is all changing.

There is now a growing recognition and a desire amongst corporate event managers and other lines of business (sales, marketing, procurement, finance, HR teams etc.) to be much smarter in the way that events are run, and how they can prove accountability to the business. Here’s why:

1. Businesses need to differentiate to win. Real world face-to-face interactions (via your events) allow these points of differentiation to be delivered, experienced, captured and capitalised upon.

2. Events can contribute significantly to the overall experience and perception customers, partners and employees have of your brand. By being joined up with business and sales objectives events become an integral part of their company’s purpose and accelerate opportunity and belief.

3. Without a strategy you're committed to and a plan to deliver against it, you are vulnerable. Knowing why, how and when you need to run an event will ensure it provides and delivers value to all.

4. The customer is at the heart of everything. Successful events are not run by a siloed department. They are an integral part of the sales cycle and experience process. The face-to-face opportunity events provide has relevance to every part of your business.

5. First class experience is expected as default. Providing a personalised experience to each delegate individually from the very first communication is paramount. The more you can demonstrate you understand their needs and preferences, the more relevant you will be to them and the greater their desire to engage and attend. You can also serve them better too.

6. Technology is an enabler. The right event management platform will enable your business to set-up and deploy an event in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost by anyone, at any time, anywhere in the world. Intuitive to use, aligning to your brand for a seamless look and feel and providing relevant data and insight to enable you to deliver a great delegate experience on any device, pre event, during the event and post event, should be the basic criteria.

By aligning to business strategy, applying good planning skills, integrating with other business activities and colleagues and using the right technology tools and applications, any event can now feed both the attendee and the business with richer and more valuable experiences and outcomes. All of which can be measured and reported more accurately and effectively than ever before.

Tool up to win

Event managers that have a good understanding of their organization’s purpose and strategy will be better placed to make lasting and valuable contributions to the sales and experience effort and ensure all future events are correctly funded and attended.

Choosing and using the right event management technology to bring it all together, attract the right delegates and remove the uncertainty of event accountability is time worth investing. A simple gap analysis of how you currently run events versus how you must plan and run events in the future is a critical first step. With that knowledge, there is only ever likely to be a limited number of event management platforms and applications capable of meeting your needs. We understand that and this is why we built Mitingu.

Welcome to the new Mitingu

It’s been over eighteen months since we launched the Mitingu platform and we’re really enjoying the ride (albeit with a few bumps along the way)!

Photo: Priscilla Westra

Test and measure

It was always our intention to focus on the business events market and, on the whole, we’ve been pretty successful keeping to that. From the beginning we decided to offer two options to potential users:

1. Pay as you go - Sign up via the website and start creating events immediately

2. Private/white label - A customised version with no mention of Mitingu

Like any good business coach will tell you to do, we have tested and measured the success of each over the last eighteen months. What we have seen is over 80% of our business (and growing) is coming from our private/white label offering. With that in mind, from August 2016 we stopped offering the pay as you go service to new users (existing clients are not affected by this) and have decided to purely focus on what we now call Mitingu Enterprise.

Say hello to Mitingu Enterprise

We’ve been busy developing this behind the scenes and it’s ready for release! It’s still simple to use as we like to keep things that way, but has a few more bells and whistles to help make your events even better. We also realised when it comes to pricing, it has to be simple too, so we have three pricing options, all flexible and designed to accommodate specific needs.

Here’s a brief introduction to some of the features we’ve added so far:

1. Improved analytics, giving you a better oversight of your events

2. Event accommodation

• Manage capacity and allocation

• Help your attendees choose the right hotel by providing information as part of the registration process

3. See which breakout sessions and workshops are the most popular and manage allocation and capacity accordingly

4. Pre-registrations: Gauge interest and manage invitations for limited space events

5. Incomplete registrations: View and contact attendees with incomplete registrations to encourage them to complete their registration

6. Reduce form abandonment with intelligent single or multi-page registration forms and surveys

7. Enhanced tagging and filters, personalise and segment your communications

8. Multi-lingual event sites and communications

Events and attendees from all over the world? No problem, with Mitingu you can quickly and easily upload translations for one or as many languages as you need at the same time, This allows the delegate  to decide which language they would prefer to register and receive the subsequent event communications in.

At Mitingu, we are all about providing our clients with “their” event management platform. A place where they can create and manage great looking, branded and multi lingual event sites as well as  communications, whilst collecting information about their clients and prospects that they can use to improve event experience and build long lasting business relationships.

If you would like to take a look at the all new Mitingu then we’d love to show you. No commitment necessary, but good honest feedback essential! Get in touch with us here or email hello@mitingu.com and we’ll set something set up. Our standard demo takes no longer than 20 minutes unless you want it to.

5 Social Media Tips to Promote Your Next Event

Social media is the place to be for promoting just about anything these days. Promoting an event is no exception. You have to be on key with your social network outreach in order to appeal to a wider base. To help kick off your next event promo via social media, here’s a few tips to put you on the right track.

1. Share an Event Teaser

How do upcoming movies create hype? With a trailer of course. You can do the same with your event by creating a teaser with highlight of last year’s event. You can edit it to include background music, CGI, or whatever you think is necessary to give the video an extra bit of pow. The teaser can also be supplemented with a more formal, unedited video of presentations and speeches from past speakers.

Here is an example of an effective teaser video from fragrance company Diesel to promote its musical concert Diesel On Tour. It’s rather short, less than a minute, but it gets straight to the point, featuring interviews from musicians slated to perform.

Photo credit: Oslo Hackney

2. Create a Referral Program

For best results, consider a double-sided referral program. Don’t know what this is? This is basically a referral where incentives are given to both the person that made the referral and the person that was referred. So, for example, instead of offering a $50 gift certificate to the person who referred a friend, why not give a $25 gift certificate to both the referred individual and the person responsible for the referral?

Here’s an example of a double-sided referral program from the dietary supplement company 22 Days Nutrition:

Photo credit: Referral Candy

As you can see, the customer and his referred friend are both rewarded. Promote the event heavily on social media and really drill in the fact that both the person referred and “refferee” get incentivized.

3. Promote Your Event Hashtag

Promote the heck out of your hashtag. Mention it on your event website, emails, printed flyers, and any social networks you’re active on. Of course, you have to be strategic with how you select a hashtag. For the most part, though, the rules are simple: keep it short and decipherable. By decipherable, this means your demographic audience should understand it even if it’s abbreviated.

The Amsterdam Dance Event, one of the biggest music festivals in Amsterdam, always recycles its hashtag, which is #ADE(year). So, for example, #ADE15 for 2015 and #ADE16 for 2016. This hashtag is very effective because it’s extremely brief, easy to memorize, and is easily discernable for the targeted demographic.

Photo credit: Sergio Tee

4. Share Your Story

Relay your story on your social network sites. People aren’t just interested in a company and its products but also the people behind it. People also like a good underdog story, so especially be willing to share your story if your company was rooted in humble beginnings. Don’t make it into a sob story, but do be sure to mention some of the stumbling blocks that had to be overcame.

The Facebook post below is an excellent example of someone talking about his origins and how it shaped both his company and who he is as a person:

Photo credit: Gevme

If you noticed, the story also contains some valuable life lessons towards the end. Stories like these are what really helps connect with our audience at a deeper emotional level.

5. Create Sharable Content

In the days leading up to your event, begin creating share-worthy content. Of course, sharable content can entail a wide range of things. This can be a funny meme or GIF, or a full-length blog post. A few other posts that you can incorporate might include the following:

• How-to articles or video tutorials
• A fun-facts article
• A white animation video of your industry or company
• Highlight of past events
• A Q&A event or U-stream

The content should tie back in some way to the event. The more specific you can be the better. If you’re running a digital marketing conference, for example, and a speaker will be speaking on the current state of SEO, then content should be SEO-related rather than, say, social media marketing. While the latter is a related topic, it is still a different subject. Disseminate the content on multiple social networks and particularly on LinkedIn since the content is industry-related.

You have (or should have) plenty of material to share to build up anticipation for your event. Social media is the place for spreading your content and creating word of mouth. Be consistent, and eventually all those views, shares, and likes will translate to a bigger event turnout.

Dan McCarthy is an Event Manager at Ultimate Experience, an event management company based in the UK. Dan has 5 years of event project management under his belt. He has worked on many successful events, and currently he shares his knowledge by writing on the company blog. Follow him on Twitter @DanCarthy2.

Start small, think big

A child’s first steps, just a few at first then within no time they are running; a business winning its first customer and then gaining more in the first few months, they’ve started small, but thought big.

When you're starting out in business, whether your aspirations are for a lifestyle business or to become the next Apple, there will nearly always be a staged approach to growth.

There is a real need for a plan! It’s critical to know where you are going and how you’re going to get there. You also have to have a firm grip on finances. Know how much money you’ve got, need to spend now and in the future, it helps to know that when you are shaping your objectives and goals.

It's worth saying at this point that I'm not a business coach (get one if you can, they can help you fly), but I have learnt some important lessons with Mitingu and previous businesses that I've been involved with. It's also a bit of self therapy writing this as it reminds me of what I have to focus on to get Mitingu where we want it to be and to keep my feet on the ground when it comes to realistic expectations.

It's been over 18 months since we launched out of private BETA into the big wide world. We’ve made great strides and are working with some fantastic businesses. It's been a roller coaster of a ride, but the team and our families have great belief that we will achieve our goals.

Dream big, but make sure you do it in baby steps!

Event communications...make them personal

It’s widely accepted that creating a personalised event experience that is relevant to the attendee helps build engagement and strengthens business relationships. However, despite these obvious benefits, there are still a large number of events that continue to use a generic, one size fits all approach.

We realise that a personalised experience covers many different aspects of the event and for that reason we are focusing on personalised communications.

At first glance, it might seem pretty obvious what we mean by personalised.

To us, personalised means a lot more than just using someone’s first name, company name or job title. They are important, but if a message is personalised and dynamic based on an individual attendee’s interests, preferences, choice of breakout session etc, it adds far more value and makes them feel special (Because everyone needs to be loved). 

Q: How do you achieve the personalisation?

A: By using a platform that is built to understand the need for usable and intelligent data. It should provide a simple admin and attendee pathway to capture and present the data in context and be relevant at every communication point. That is what Mitingu gives to both the event organiser and attendee.

Here’s a couple of examples of how adding a simple personalised element to an event reminder email can work.

Why it’s important to get it right

Before we continue, it’s important to emphasise that if you are planning to use personalised communications for your event, it’s important to get them right. Here’s an example that didn’t work well...

I recently registered to attend an event and it gave me two registration options:

1. Attend in person

2. Attend via a live web stream

I chose the second option. All good so far, but when I was taken to the "thank you for registering page", it gave me details on the event as if I was attending in person. The automated "thanks for registering email" also suggested that I was attending in person. I have to say I was questioning myself, so I double checked to make sure my registration was for the live web stream only, it was!

So, my first piece of engagement with that event wasn’t fantastic and you know what they say about making first impressions count!

Planning your communications

Depending on the size and nature of your event there are opportunities to engage with your attendees before, during and after. Planning and scheduling your event communications means that the whole process can be automated from the first touch point (perhaps a Save the date email), to the final post event message, or even ongoing marketing communications.

The beauty of planning and scheduling is that once it’s done then it will look after itself. The right messages will go to the right people at the right time.

Just some of the personalised messages you could send

Below are just some of the messages that you could include in your event communications strategy. They should all be personalised, using a combination of what you already know and the data collected during the journey to create relevant and engaging messages. Where applicable, you could also include attendee specific agendas, menus, accommodation details and more.

Before the event:

• Save the date
• Invitation
• Invitation reminder
• Booking confirmation
• Event updates and news
• Event reminders with attachments

During the event:

• News on the day
• Workshop/breakout session reminders
• Quick survey feedback requests
• Local places to eat and visit (if the event is across a number of days)

After the event:

• Event summary with presentation slides
• Event statistics
• Invitation to attend next event
• Ongoing marketing communications

Mitingu makes it easy for you to build and schedule all your personalised event communications from one platform. If you would like to see how then please contact us hello@mitingu.com and we'll happily schedule a demo to show you how they could work for your events.

4 activities to help you deliver successful events

The majority of people do not run or attend an event without having a good idea about what they want to achieve or what they want to take away from it.

The process of engagement and achieving mutual objectives starts with the very first piece of event communication; save the date or invitation emails for example.

We think there are four key activities to consider:

1. Give information

2. Get information

3. Use information

4. Stay on brand

1. Giving the right information

Clean, accurate data is the key. We've said it before and we'll say it again, Information is Gold Dust! Make sure the data you are using is up to date, it shows attention to detail and that you’ve taken the time to think about it.

Good data enables you to tailor your communications, even if you only know my name and company name then use it, I’ll appreciate it (I’m easily pleased!).

The event registration process gives you the perfect opportunity to gain valuable information about the individual attendee. Once you have information, such as their specific topics of interest, where they travel from, dietary requirements etc then it’s really important to include this in your ongoing communications before, during and after the event.

The more information you collect the more tailored your communications can be. If they are regular attendees of other events you run, that information should also be used. Mitingu enables tailored communications which evolve with every piece of data you collect, helping you enhance your attendee’s experience as well as building and strengthening engagement and relationships. Not using the data you collect is such a missed opportunity, knowledge is power after all and showing you know your attendees will leave a lasting impression, no one wants to feel like a number.

2. Getting the right information

I don’t think I’m on my own here when I say that I really dislike filling out long registration forms that are asking me questions that have no relevance to me; I’ve told you I’m driving to the event, so there is no need to ask me my flight number and so on.

Intelligent registration is the way forward! Only show me questions that are relevant to me, either based on what you already know or how I have answered previous questions upon registration. This means some questions will only appear based on how I have answered a previous question ('Show me you know me'). Make sure the form does not look daunting and time-consuming when I first land on it.  My point here is that registration forms are not ‘one size fits all’ and should be the right length for each individual attendee whilst only collecting information that is relevant to them.

Tailoring registration forms makes completing them quicker, easier and continues to build on the good feeling they have about attending the event.

3. Using the information

A few years ago I attended a Xerox event, the event registration process has always stuck in my mind, amongst other questions like my dietary preferences, they asked the following:

     i.        Which breakout seminar topic I was most interested in

    ii.        They had a prize draw at the event and asked me which prize I would like most

All the follow up emails I received from that point on used that information in both text and imagery, it kept me engaged and reminded me of why I wanted to attend. On a lighter note, it meant that any prize I may have been lucky enough to win (I didn’t!) was something that I would like and more importantly associate with the good event experience that Xerox had provided.

So, if you use information taken before (via a registration process), during and after (via feedback surveys) and tailor it to the attendee, that will build attendee engagement and give event organisers meaningful statistics and reports that will enable them to measure the true return on investment, success of the event and give them valuable insight on where future events could be even better.

4. Staying on brand

Staying on brand, whether that is the specific event brand, your business brand or a combination of both is another key factor. The attendee should immediately associate all communications and registration site with your event and your business.

As we say at Mitingu, it’s your event not ours!

It will not come as a major shock to hear that Mitingu can help you with all of the above, so if you would like to know more we’d love to hear from you.

‘Show me you know me’ why personalisation is a great idea for your event

A big driver for us when we created Mitingu was to make personalisation a key feature in the platform. Having worked in print and digital marketing for over 20 years, I have seen the positive impact that personalised communications have on response rates and ultimately a client’s bottom line.

These two quotes highlight our reasons for making this such an important feature of Mitingu’s offering to users...

“74% of online consumers get frustrated when content (e.g. offers, ads, promotions) appears that has nothing to do with their interests.” Janrain & Harris Interactive

“Personalized emails improve click-through rates by an average of 14% and conversion rates by 10%.” Aberdeen

Personalisation has to be a whole lot more than just “Hi Firstname”! Of course that’s important, but so is the content. For example; if you are running a conference on marketing communications with slots featuring on digital, print and multi-channel and you already know that I have a particular interest in print, then my invitation and event site content should be tailored to focus on that. It’s far more likely to get my attention and encourage me to register for the event. 

Once registered, I’ve given the organiser a whole lot more information about me, so subsequent communications should be tailored to what they know. For example. They know my address, so could include personalised travel instructions to the venue. They may also know my dietary requirements, so it could be tailored to and include a food menu specific to them. It engages with me and shows that the organiser is taking an interest in me as an individual and will cater specifically for me. It makes me feel special and the event experience has kicked off on a really positive note weeks ahead of the actual event.

We are passionate about promoting the correct use of personalisation across event sites and email communications. We’d love to show you how.

If you’re already a Mitingu user or would love to find out more, then contact me direct greg@mitingu.com and I’ll gladly walk you through how easy to set up it is and how it can make your events even better.

Data...anything but dull!

Recently, I’ve been lucky enough to work with a global marketing agency that specialises in the creative use of data. One of the things that really stands out for me is how a lot of people’s perception of data is that it’s quite, well...boring!

Maybe it’s the actual word “Data”?

If I tell someone that we have a lot of data on an individual or business, then their perception is a lot of analytics and metrics that don’t mean much. If I tell the same person that we hold a lot of information on an individual or business, then they can see the value and the positive impact that it can have.

Data is the key to building relationships in business. Use what you know about someone in a creative and engaging way, by utilising personalisation and content that is specific to their demographics, interests, previous buying habits etc. It gives you a much better chance of getting noticed and in turn, winning new clients and retaining existing ones.

I often get asked “What’s different about Mitingu?”. I could come up with answers such as we make it easy to brand your event sites as your own or it’s super simple to use. These are key features, but not necessarily differentiators. The real difference is in the way we collect, store and use data to personalise the registration and subsequent event comms, making it an engaging experience for the attendee.

There are only two driving influencers for anyone engaged in any form of event management - the event itself and the people who attend it. By inference, every event, no matter how large or small, is designed to deliver a positive and rewarding experience for those who attend it.

Mitingu is great at collecting and storing data in an elegant way. Why have great big event forms which are another potential barrier to someone completing a registration when you can give them a journey based on their previous answers and the information that you already have? i.e. Make it relevant to them. Using the data you collect to drive personalised and targeted communications before, during and after the event helps you to engage with your attendees and make them feel loved. What’s even better is that data can be used across the business for other marketing and customer service activities, giving it even more value.

So, the collection and intelligent use of data is what makes Mitingu and you special.

Zero to hero #2

Last month we promised you a bare all monthly post about our journey as a start up and how we've targeted £20k a month by March 2016. I'll be honest, right now that seems a big number, but we've always aimed big.

October 2015 saw us invoice circa £1500 so you can see that we have some real hard work ahead of us! The good news is that we picked up a new white label account and had six new pay as you go accounts. I know Eventbrite won't be quaking in their boots just yet, but give us a chance!

As I previously mentioned, all three partners of Mitingu have day jobs to pay for everyday life and to invest in Mitingu so our talented development team are well looked after and get rewarded for their amazing work. That does present a bit of a challenge because it means the hours we put into our business comes after a full days graft at someone else's. The only thing I have to say about that is that it's a whole lot easier when you're as passionate about Mitingu as we are and have great belief in it as a product. Also having an understanding family and friends helps enormously. They put up with seeing less of us during this time, their support,  encouragement and faith in Mitingu is invaluable. 

 

What we tried last month and what the results were like

Networking

Last month, we went to our first ever networking event. I have to say that it was surprisingly good! We made some really useful contacts and it was an education listening to how different people adopt different angles on promoting their business. The upshot of it was that we are now talking to an event management agency who are interested in the white label platform for a number of their corporate clients. We'll definitely be doing that again! 

Emails

We haven't got out as many as we'd like. The results we get from emails are generally really good, so we know it's a channel that's worth pursuing. To make us stick to it I will set a minimum target of 100 (we prefer to research and target rather than buy lists) personalised emails sent out by the middle of December 2015.

We have a number of active prospects from previous email sends, so we know it is worth doing.

Face to face meetings

These are my personal favourite, but right now we are limited to early morning/evenings. The good news nowadays, with dynamic and flexible working becoming more and more accepted as business are seeing the benefits of allowing staff flexibility in structuring their working week, is that we are still managing to get out and meet people.

Face to face meetings give us the chance to properly engage and build rapport with prospective or existing clients. I've always enjoyed business development so that's probably why it's my favourite method of engaging with clients. It's always much easier to gauge the level of interest and when a decision will be made from meeting them in person.

Online demos

We've had some interest from the US and Canada this month, so the only tenable way of demoing Mitingu is via the web. It's a great way of showcasing our product, but does have limitations as it's a bit tricky sometimes to gauge interest if you're not sitting in the same room.

That said, we'll persevere with them as we have won business from online demos in the past and I'm sure if we fine tune our approach, we'll win lots more.

Social media and blog posts

We go for the quality and not quantity approach mainly as we've not had as much time as we'd like to devote to Twitter and LinkedIn in particular.  The posts and tweets we have put out there have been well received and it's definitely something we will continue as it obviously helps to get our name out there and shows we have real passion for the events industry, marketing and start ups.

The most important thing is for us to stay passionate, enthusiastic and together as a team. We meet and talk regularly which helps us stay connected and keep on track. We are ready to take Mitingu to the events industry and know that we can make a positive impact.

Our message to any other start ups or in fact anyone at all reading this is to keep the faith and never give up!

Charge for add-ons at your events

We realise building a great event registration and comms platform isn't about what we think are great features, the most important opinions come from our current and prospective users.

You talk and we most definitely listen.

We've had a number of requests to be able to charge for extras at an event at the same time as registering to attend. Some examples of this include accommodation, gala dinners, breakout seminars and merchandise. We wanted to separate this from the actual registration cost, so we came up with the idea of allowing the organiser to set up a question in the registration form that could have a price attached to it. If selected by the attendee, then that price (including tax if applicable) would be added at the checkout stage.

We wanted to do it this way as it avoids having a long list of registration options to cover all the different permutations if things like gala dinners and break out seminars are part of the event.

Contact us anytime if you'd like us to talk you through this or any other feature. You can also find out more here.

We hope you like it. There's more exciting enhancements and integrations coming soon.