Leslie Robertson, CEO, Open Audience, says kick start meetings are the most important event you will run in 2023.
I enjoyed my two days at the Conference News Global Event Tech Summit, having conversations with people who wanted to get a clearer understanding of what event tech is out there. However, the focus of my speaker session on Tuesday afternoon wasn’t tech, it was ‘Audience Engagement’.
Audience Engagement is my ‘mastermind’ subject – part communications, part technological support, part behavioural science – and I have found that no matter what technology event organisers are interested in, improving audience engagement will be the heart of their interest.
A theme from one of the panel sessions was the ‘one size fits all’ or ‘one stop shop’ messaging from some tech engagement suppliers, with event planners voicing a desire for more realistic presentations of capabilities.
At Open Audience, we are tech agnostic, we use our own great tech if needed, tech from another supplier or clients’ preferred tech options. Ultimately it must be the right tech for the event. In our experience a well-constructed stacked proposition; perhaps combining multiple apps and platforms, is more likely to deliver an optimum solution. It’s all about delivering the outcomes clients are looking for and ultimately an enhanced delegate experience.
Kick start meetings
Like us, you may be planning traditional 2023 January/February kick start meetings. Whether they are live, virtual or hybrid, you are probably facing challenges like a vacillating pandemic, shrinking economies and budgets, barriers to travel, issues around resourcing.
However, kick start meetings are the most important event any company will run in 2023. It’s a chance to focus your audience on the year ahead. You have an opportunity to share your vision and goals, outline targets, highlight strategic developments, introduce products or services. You can communicate values, support professional development, and inspire a unified commitment to deliver.
Let me pose this question: “What happens to your business if you don’t have this event? How do you get your organisation to face in one direction, focusing effort on the right things, so you can achieve everything that’s being promised?”
Understanding your audience
The key to creating impact, connecting and generating engagement on a reduced budget is understanding your audience. Do you really know them as individuals? How do they see the current situation, how would they prefer to experience your event, what are their priorities, are they concerned about delivering your vision for the business? What are their expectations and what questions do they have?
With this information, you can build an event that’s relevant to your audience, with an appropriate delivery solution, targeting their issues, delivering valuable content, and offering engagement touch points that allow you to sense check the journey from first contact through to end of event delivery.
Blended solutions
As we emerge from the pandemic, we are all still navigating a complex world, and the ability to direct and manage multi-media, multi-channel, blended event solutions will be the future of our industry.
Approaching a brief from a neutral position, starting with a blank sheet of paper, being willing to create the right solution for the client’s objectives will be vital.
Yes, I’m talking about stacked technology solutions, perhaps with multiple suppliers and plenty of collaboration. This will mean we can deliver exciting, meaningful and engaging events with laser focused agendas.
By being creative with design and technology we can all create impactful and value adding events that ensures an audience will feel acknowledged, understood, supported and celebrated.
