The competition for your event is no longer other events alone. You are competing with packed agenda's, deadlines and even social media. How do you make sure your target audience is willing to clear their busy schedule in order to visit your event? Spoiler: it starts with a conversation.
What do you really know about your target audience?
In order to create FOMO for your event, you should first and foremost be aware of your target audience. However simple this may sound, it is crucial to be aware of what is going on in their (professional) lives. If you don't know: ask! Ask your clients or customers, and consult other departments in the organisation (like Marketing and Sales).
What drives your target audience? What are their ambitions and biggest challenges at the moment? Collect this information and draw up a complete picture to create a good starting point for your event.
The relationship to your target audience
Next step is to understand your relationship with your future attendees. Is there frequent interaction? And how do they perceive your organisation? As a thought leader, a new kid on the block, or a key player in the market? Are they used to the fact that you organise events? And if so: how did they value your previous events? This information helps you explain to them why they should not miss out.
The trick is to align your relationship strategy to the program of your event. For example: if your target audience is the big investors of a company – and the event objective is to strengthen this relationship by networking, your event should leave plenty of room for conversation. In this case, a round table or exclusive dinner might suit best. If your target audience is potential future clients, maybe a (product) presentation followed by a Q&A might suit best.
The event should contribute to their needs (and therefore to yours)
Before sending out the invitations, you translate the ambitions, challenges and other insights that came from the audience analysis into a proposition for the event. In other words: what can you promise them? How will the event solve their challenge or contribute to their needs? This promise is the reason why they will sign up for your event. The more specific you can explain what your target audience will 'take home' after the event, the bigger the chance they will register.
Effective event communication
There is a lot to gain from effective event communication: before, during and after the event. Read all about it in this blog.
The event as a dialogue
The evaluation of one event, is the starting point of the next in a constant loop. Each event is a dialogue: keep the conversation going! This is the only way to remain informed about the needs of your audience — and keep your events relevant and interesting.
Remember there are a lot of moments to start and continue the dialogue: the registration form, update mails, social media posts (and their comments), polls & questions during the event, networking moments at the venue and an event survey afterwards. The more you make use of these moments, the closer you get to your relations.
More about this topic:
- How to lower the no-show of your events (Live and online!)
- How to get more registrations for your event?
- More about event registration
