It is important to know how to connect with your event audiences (in-person and virtual), to make the best use of their time. There are many ways for you to do this, including offering them an interactive agenda and providing opportunities for attendees to network with one another.
Give your attendees a reason to attend
It’s important to give your attendees a reason to attend. If the event is free, what’s the incentive?
- Give them something special. Offer them an incentive for attending, like a discount or giveaway.
- Offer an opportunity to win something special or exclusive if they sign up for your newsletter list at the event site. You can also encourage attendance by offering exclusive access to content that will only be available at the event (e.g., early access to a report that won’t be published until after).
You can also create an event page on your website and promote it with social media. Promote the event on social media, email newsletters or blogs to build interest in attending. If your attendees are local businesses, invite them to bring their employees along to learn more about your products or services.
Consider engaging speakers or entertainers
Engaging speakers or entertainers can be a great way to engage your audience on an emotional level and create value for the event. They are also a great way to break up the monotony of speeches and presentations, while still providing value to attendees.
Speakers and entertainers can help you do things like:
- Drive home a key message through storytelling
- Create social moments that allow attendees to connect with one another
- Teach valuable skills, strategies, or tips in an interactive setting
Here are some tips for how you can find speakers and entertainers: Researching podcasts, newsletters and local publications where you might find people who are interested in speaking at your event. You may want someone who specializes in customer service or coaching skills from their experience as a CEO (Chief Executive Officer). This could yield results when searching online such as LinkedIn’s “People Search” function which allows users to search by title/industry/profession type (such as “CEO”) so they can easily discover potential candidates based on criteria given by organizers like yourself!
Asking your network for recommendations. You probably have a lot of contacts at this point in your career, and many of them are likely to be interested in speaking at an event like yours. Ask them if they know anyone who would be a good fit for your audience based on the topics you’re covering.
Offer an interactive agenda
You are the host of your event. You know that you have a lot to offer, but it’s important to give attendees some chances to connect with each other as well.
- Offer snacks and drinks at breaks during the day, or even before and after so attendees can meet before or after the main content
- Schedule time for networking activities like ice breakers or lunchtime rounds (one person talks about themselves for 30 seconds)
- Schedule mini-lectures from different experts where participants can learn something new in small segments throughout the day
Use it as a chance to connect with the community
- Use the event as a way to connect with the community. Events are a great opportunity for you and your organization to get involved with other members of your community, both before and after the event. You can use them to network, find new volunteers, and even recruit new members for your cause.
- Use it as a chance to build relationships by building trust in your community through consistency and regular communication before an event takes place. This will help make people feel comfortable attending future events from you or any other member of your team who might be leading another one down the road!
- Get people involved in your cause through inviting them on social media pages such as Instagram or Facebook where they can learn more about what you do at events like this one here today!
Let people know what is on the agenda
When you are planning an event, make sure that you let your attendees know what is on the agenda. This can be accomplished through a variety of methods:
- Use a hashtag for the event to promote posts and content related to it.
- Have a website for the event with a blog that has posts about speakers and topics attendees should expect at the conference.
- Have a Twitter account for the conference so people can join in conversations while they’re happening.
- Create a Facebook page specifically for your event so people have somewhere to go if they want more information than what is being shared by other social media channels used by organizers and speakers during their participation in this particular industry gathering
By connecting with your event attendees, you can build loyalty and trust, which will lead to increased ticket sales for future events. Certain is the leading enterprise event management and intelligence platform that helps data-driven marketers integrate rich buying signals and attendee insights to improve sales and marketing outcomes.
Certain’s end-to-end event management software will enable you to seamlessly incorporate the most important features for your events. Contact us for a free consultation with one of our event experts. It’s all about making your event a valuable experience for everyone. If you can do that, you’ll be on your way to building an engaged and enthusiastic audience who will keep coming back for more!