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When is a hybrid event not a hybrid event
hy·brid: (h
br
d) noun
a composite of mixed origin; a conceptual whole made up of complicated and related parts
As with the evolution of all new technologies it takes a little while for the terminology to settle down and become general use. For the early adopters this can be an incredibly frustrating experience. Why? Because we’ve already been part of the (extensive and believe me exhaustive) debate, discussion and intellectual tussle and just as we sign off on that particular topic, along come the newbies and start it all again.
So it is in the land of virtual/online/hybrid events. As conference professionals and other interested organisations begin to understand that the technology isn’t going to go away; that rather than being frightening in its complexity the right solution can simplify marketing and communications; and that there are other people just like them creating very successful conferences and events; so does the supplier network. The latter are not slow at getting on a successful bandwagon, and nor should they be, but never does caveat emptor apply more than in an emerging market. Not least because you won’t get many chances to get this right with your audiences, and if you are billing something as a hybrid which falls in any way short of other experiences they may have had, your credibility will be questioned.
With hybrid events rapidly becoming flavour of the month, it is incredibly important that conference organisers are very clear about what constitutes a hybrid and what does not. So here’s a quick synopsis:
- A recording of the event posted online two or three days afterwards; sorry but this is just an online post-event recording.
- A live event with a Twitter feed running on a screen at an event; no – this is just an injection of social commentary into your live event
- A selection of individual blogs, chatrooms and social media forums; aren’t these already essential parts of your integrated communications strategy?
- A series of event photos; honestly…?
And if you are a purist you would also say:
- A simultaneous stand-alone webcast; because this is a stand-alone webcast
Why are none of the above really hybrid events? Because they fundamentally miss the point. A hybrid is something where two parts meld seamlessly together to form a unified whole. A post-event recording doesn’t allow first-time viewers to participate in the debate; a twitter feed is a one-way stream of consciousness; and a standalone webcast does not allow the live and online audiences to interact with one another.
What a hybrid event IS:
- An event where a technology solution is used to permit both a live and an online audience to view the same content at the same time. PLUS,
- Where the online and live audiences can interact simultaneously with the speakers and other commentators via spoken questions and typed chat. AND,
- Where the online and live audiences can interact with each other within the timeframe of the live event.
With the right technology solution, or blend of solutions the latter point could also be extended so that the conversation with the audience starts in advance of the live date(s), is developed with the input of relevant and well-informed experts and then continues post event. What is imperative is that you, the conference or event organiser, create an environment, beit online, live or a hybrid of the two, where there is no barrier to integrated conversation and networking.
Hybrid events are delivering great results for organisations such as The Economist so they are there to be embraced. Just make sure that when you step into the water you are taking the right equipment with you.
What did you expect?
Having recovered at last from all of the excitement of London2012 I am reminded of a comment made to me by one of my children at the end of last year. As I opened the envelope to reveal the results of recent exams I reacted with unbridled delight to the thinly veiled surprise of my son. “What did you expect Mum?” was his retort as he turned on his heels and went off to play football with a group of friends.
I’d like to think that everyone involved in that wonderful spectacle that took over our world for two weeks this August is reacting with similar insouciance. Because after all, what exactly were we expecting?
The UK boasts (we’re not good at using that word) one of the world’s finest event and exhibition industries, packed with brilliantly creative employers, employees and freelancers, backed by exemplary technical expertise and sound health and safety practices. Across the country there are thousands of students studying the intricacies of all aspects of event management and every day teams of hard-working and downright clever individuals are producing some form of festival, exhibition or meeting. Year in, year out very talented people create mass events such as The Edinburgh Festival, Trooping of the Colour, Glastonbury, Glyndebourne, Goodwood etc*… with the odd Jubilee and Royal Wedding thrown in for good measure. And if you have been to the West End recently and seen what a proficient and professional technical crew can create in what is a relatively small space then the wonderful sets at the Opening and Closing Ceremonies can be celebrated as a showcase of the mastery of this particular craft.
There are so many, many things to celebrate: our attention to detail (though I think David Brailsford has now set the bar just that little bit higher); our ability to create laughter and joy; our respect for every culture and idiosycracy (including our own); and just how good we are at events.
So go on: give yourselves a pat on the back; walk tall; talk yourself up; look the world in the eye and say:
“Of course it was great. What did you expect?”
Hellen @missioncontrol
p.s. and a huge pat on the back to every athlete whether they were a medal winner or not, Katherine Grainger in particular.
* events that popped into my head at random
Using social media to market events
Once upon a time it was all so simple…
Providing you owned, could access or buy, good data and had the budget to hit your target universe five times on average with your message you could more or less guarantee an audience for your event. For exhibition marketers, preregistration was a very clear indicator of footfall on the day, with conversion rates of between 60 and 75 per cent. In the conference market a twelve week cycle of marketing would, possibly with the input of some telemarketing, produce enough registrations to cover costs and deliver that all important margin.
And then life got a whole lot more complicated…
The advent of online and email marketing brought with it a more instantateous way to talk to audiences. Unfortunately though, like a child gorging on the pick-and-mix, many marketers have abused the latter, flooding their database’s inboxes with messages on a far too regular basis. Others have treated their web presence as an online brochure, asking visitors to sign up for updates and news when in reality there would be none because noone factored in the time or resource for either the marketing or the main event team to curate such things.
Into this already crowded, and rowdy, room marches social media…
It’s like a toddlers tea-party. You want to make yourself heard above the cacophony: so you shout louder; you run hither and thither until it seems you are everywhere at once; you wear the gaudiest outfit because you think it will make you stand out; and you try everything, briefly. But when you leave you are hoarse, tired and, if the truth be told, you didn’t actually get very much done or make much of an impression because you were just one of a group of over-excited, slightly out of control children in inappropriate clothing.
For event marketers, the biggest problem is that the promotional cycle for an exhibition, conference, awards etc. is actually very short; very rarely does the campaign last for more than four months. This really doesn’t lend itself very well to social media because relationships in places such as LinkedIn and Facebook, and long lists of followers in Twitter aren’t built overnight, and if you want to establish a well-read blog then there is no point starting it ten weeks out from your show. And if you stop talking to your audience, they lose interest and go somewhere else.
Let’s look at two examples, both expos with conferences and seminar programmes attached and a technology bias, though not IT events as such, and with similar attendance figures at their live days:
Our first event takes place annually in February. They have a LinkedIn group which was established in January 2008 – a month before that year’s event. It’s growth profile looks like this:
While the group shows a steady growth in membership over the last four years, it is interesting to note that there are identifiable spikes in the number of new memberships in February of each year., i.e. when the event happens. Just three weeks later both increase in membership and activity, as shown in the chart below have fallen dramatically.
In contrast, the second team have created a LinkedIn group which began life based around their event (which takes place in March) but has been nurtured and developed to deliver to the expo’s existing and potential audience all year around. The group was established in December 2007, four months before the event was scheduled and their growth and activity profiles look like this:
As with all statistics you can look at these two sets of information in a number of different ways, but at face value the contrast is clear. One team started earlier and kept the momentum going whereas another only focusses their effort in the final push towards the event. The groups have been around for approximately the same amount of time, yet one has nearly six times the number of members as the other and is showing a positive growth pattern. One team is clearly putting the time and effort into creating a community that isn’t abandoned as soon as the last speaker has left the building…
Utilities like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. aren’t just another medium into which information can be lobbed out to the target audience in the same old way. Think about it: you strive for coverage in relevant magazines and industry journals because you want your product to appear in an environment that has kudos and stature. This is delivered by the editorial content created by the teams that manage those media. If you want to do the same thing via LinkedIn etc. then you have to create an editorial and community environment that makes your potential audience want to interact with you.
To deliver real ROI and marketing with impact for your event you can’t just dip in and out of social media, ignoring your audience for 11 months of the year and then shouting at them for four weeks before you want them to attend. You need to spend time getting to know them, finding out how to work with the community you have created via your exhibition, conference or roadshow. Remember, they sought you out and it is up to you to make them stay.
missioncontrol @purerocketscience
p.s. If you want to find out more about creating social media strategies that work for events, our colleague Hellen Beveridge will be teaching a series of courses over the next few months. Visit www.gallusevents.co.uk/our-events/ for more information.
Time to wake up and smell the coffee chaps…
While rummaging through my email inbox this morning I stopped and read the one from the professional insti
tute of which I am a member.
It’s compelling, and beautifully written, as it ought to be and it was asking me very nicely to attend the annual conference. And offering me a discount. What’s not to like about that?
What caught my eye though was that the early booking discount was £200 + vat. If that’s the discount I thought, how much is the conference? A mighty £445 + vat no less. Which means that if I don’t book before the early bird discount runs out I’ll have to fork at a eye-watering £645 + vat to attend a conference run by the association I pay to be a member of. Wow.
Possibly not for the right reasons, the organisation now had my full attention. Surely this must be a two day event I thought… but no, this was for a one day 09:00 to 17:30 affair (with an hour and forty minutes of break time; you’ll be relieved to hear that lunch was provided) where I could attend ten sessions (if I had the fortitude to get through it all) of which there were some of only marginal interest.
The marketing line what smaller companies can learn from the “big boys” illicited a wry chortle. Because at that price how many small businesses are actually likely to attend. The HMRC definition of a small company is if your turnover is £5.6million or less or have fewer than 50 employees. In reality many small, and very dynamic, businesses fall well below these thresholds. In the Marketing Week/Ball & Hoolahan marketing salary survey for 2012 the salary for a marketing manager is somewhere in the region of £36,000. If you extrapolate down from this you can work out that this conference organiser is potentially asking a company to pay a quarter of an employee’s monthly take home pay to attend a one day conference from which there is marginal company-wide return on investment.
You don’t need to absorb much media in the UK to work out that these are straitened economic times. There is many a managing director trying to work out whether they should pay the wage bill or the suppliers, and telling their employees that “we’re very sorry but there will be no wage increases this year”. Training budgets may survive, just, but spending on expensive conference days out (we haven’t factored in travel and accommodation/lost productivity costs in all of this have we?) isn’t a priority for many. And what about those who have embraced redundancy and become freelance marketers… if you take the cost of the conference and the loss of a day’s earnings why on earth would you even consider booking a place.
And conference organisers wonder why their attendance rates are down… Discriminating against large sectors of the audience by virtue of price isn’t going to help much is it? And membership organisations are more at risk than ever because we’re not even sure we need you any more guys.
It is in times like these that great innovation often occurs. Exhibition and live event organisers have recognised for years the need to add more and more value to their offerings, creating environments where visitors can get information or experiences that they just can’t get elsewhere. It’s time that conference organisers did the same. There is no point telling a potential attendee that they will learn new things and network with their peers, because they can do this via LinkedIn without spending a bean or having to get up at 6:15am to get to the venue, and a day full of plenary sessions with tiny comfort breaks (because the programme is crammed to make it look like it is value for money) doesn’t deliver for many people.
So dear conference organisers I challenge you to do three things differently this year:
- Start your pricing strategy from how much you think your conference is worth and how much your delegate is willing to pay rather than from how much money you need to cover your venue costs. If the answer is £99+vat then find a solution that fits.
- Stop trying to cram too much into a programme to justify the huge sum of money you are asking for. Remember how exhausting it was to sit in a lecture theatre for a couple of hours as a student and ask yourself why you think people can endure it for eight hours or more now that they are older.
- Embrace some new technology to deliver to your audiences and members in a different, more inclusive and accessible way. Get out of that traditionalist box right now.
At present most conference organisers (associations included) attract on average less than 5% of their target audiences to their events. Which means that for every delegate you get there could be another 19 waiting to engage with your organisation. Time to go get them.
hellen @missioncontrol
Why ‘must’ I ‘attend’ your event?
Your brochure is finished. The design is great (though you haven’t left a lot of white space because you’ve got to keep on giving those punters reasons to attend) and you think the copy covers all the bases.
Bet I can guess what phrase you have used to describe your conference/awards/expo?
… is the Must Attend Event for … professionals/lovers of jazz music etc. etc.
Oh how I wish I had a penny for every time that phrase is used. Why not a pound? I hear you ask. That’s because I am so confident of the number of times it has been used that I think I will still benefit financially. And indeed I am proved correct: a Google search on the phrase ‘must attend event’ yields no fewer than 6,580,000 results! Even if I narrow the search criteria down to the last twelve months it yields 403,000 results.
It’s a facetious point well made. Why do marketers describe their events in such hackneyed terms?
And is it marketing’s problem, or is it something more fundamental to do with the way we create events, particularly large scale exhibitions, multi-streamed conferences and awards ceremonies?
Probably a bit of both if the truth be told.
It’s easy(ish) to market a rock concert. You know which band is playing, you tell their fans where and when and hopefully they will buy tickets. Simple, single stage sell. But how do you get 5,000 people to a medical device exhibition or 100 delegates to attend a conference on social networking? You could tell them what’s on offer, but you’ll need to present the message differently to each of your audience sectors, and that causes problems because you might not be able to offer them all the same super attractive package. And then of course you might be the only marketer trying to cover off a number of events and your creative juices are spread too thinly.
So the easy option is to describe your product as the must attend event for ‘anyone involved in the medical device industry’ or ‘anyone who wants to use social networking to leverage their business’. Phew – got all the potential audience covered - can sign off on the copy.
Stop and look again though. Instead of trying to find phrases that fit all, remember what motivates people to come to events. There will be a core of people who attend because they come every year; the health services that buy medical devices perhaps, and they make up 40% of your audience. You can clearly identify another 40%. So why not create copy that talks to these people? Because I will miss the other 20% you reply. But what makes that other 20% come along every year… they seek you out. And it wasn’t because you kept harping on about the fact that you are the must attend event for… it’s because they were looking for something and they found it in your copy/online content etc. and subsequently your event.
Be brave. Stop trying to talk to everyone at once. Create a series of miniture marketing pieces within your main message. Create multiple calls to action (and if you are asking someone to spend £750 on a conference place please don’t use Book Now) that drive individuals to yet more compelling and targetted content. Tell a small business in Irving why embracing Facebook could transform their sales performance; explain to a manufacturer what installing a clean-room could do to their business; encourage an advertising agency in Coventry to enter an industry award.
Then, and only then, will your event be truly must attend.
hellen @purerocketscience
