Event Success E-Book

Alon Alroy

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 260

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Make events the most powerful marketing tool you have In Event Success: Maximizing the Business Impact of Physical, Virtual, and Hybrid Experiences, Alon Alroy, Eran Ben-Shushan, and Boaz Katz of Bizzabo draw on the knowledge they've gained powering events for companies like Amazon, Salesforce, and Uber to deliver an end-to-end playbook for readers wanting to maximize their organization's return on events. Event Success will help you unlock the full potential of your events and make them your most important marketing channel. You'll learn how to create elevated experiences in any format that drive strategic business goals, including: * How to measure event success with surveys, data, analytics, and key KPIs * How to integrate events into a strategic, end-to-end marketing plan * How to collect, analyze, and funnel event data to other teams to drive business growth * What events are successful, what the data says about them, and real-life examples from SAP, the Financial Times, IBM, and other leading brands that capture the imagination of their audiences through events Event Success is ideal for marketers, event professionals, and anyone responsible for creating buzz, driving new sales, and building thought leadership with in-person, hybrid, or virtual events. It's also an invaluable resource for maximizing your organization's "RoE"--or Return on Event--with measurable increases in sales.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

PART I: Why Events?

CHAPTER 1: How We Got Here

Overcoming a History of Inertia

An Industry Ripe for Disruption

A Temporary Pause and a Permanent Change

A New Day Has Dawned

Notes

CHAPTER 2: Event Success in the Post-COVID-19 Era

Challenges and Opportunities Associated with Virtual Events

An Early Case Study

A Chorus of Aha Moments

Digital by Default

CHAPTER 3: After the Storm

The Event Impact Gap™

PART II: Data

CHAPTER 4: The Age of Disruption

The Attendee Experience

CHAPTER 5: The Event Data Maturity Curve

Identifying the Four Steps of Event Data Maturity

Using Data to Make Events Outcome-Oriented

CHAPTER 6: Reaching the Right Audience at the Right Time

Informing Event Strategy

Targeting Key Accounts

Improving Attendee Engagement and Communication

CHAPTER 7: SAPPHIRE NOW: A Case Study in Event Data Utilization

From Grocery Stores to Meal Delivery Services

Closing the Event Impact Gap™ with Data

CHAPTER 8: With New Data Power Comes New Responsibility

Protecting User Data

Testing Organizer Resolve

PART III: Audience Engagement

CHAPTER 9: Engagement in a Hybrid Era

Improving Virtual Engagement in a Hybrid World

CHAPTER 10: Choosing the Right Format for the Right Outcome

Virtual Events

In-Person Events

Hybrid Events

CHAPTER 11: Content

Virtual Attendee Personas

Breaking Through the Noise with Personalization

Adding Production Value

Bringing Audiences into the Conversation

Using the Medium to Complement the Message

Extending the Value of Content Through On-Demand Services

CHAPTER 12: Community

Building Community Through Virtual Events

Taking a Seat at the Marketing Table

Offering Can't-Miss Shared Experiences

CHAPTER 13: Experience Design

Designing Experiences That Attendees Actually Want

Personalizing the Experience

Designing Experiences Based on Outcomes

Focusing on User Experience

Sharing the Experience

Harnessing the Wow Factor

Humanizing Virtual and Hybrid Events Through Technology

PART IV: People and Process

CHAPTER 14: The Rise of the Event Experience Manager

Making the Transition

The Event Experience Leaders of the Future

Building Diverse and Inclusive Teams

Elevating the Role of Event Professionals

CHAPTER 15: New Skills for a New Title

Data and Technology

Applying Tech Industry Design Principles

Sales and Marketing

Human Resources

Public Relations

Digital Content Production

Note

CHAPTER 16: Soft Skills

A Brief History of Soft Skills

How the Pandemic Cemented the Value of Soft Skills

Key Soft Skills for Event Experience Managers

CHAPTER 17: The New Path for Event Professionals

The Value of a Broader Skill Set

Where Experience Counts

CHAPTER 18: The Event Team of the Future

The Virtual Events Team

The In-Person Event Team

The Hybrid Events Team

PART V: Technology

CHAPTER 19: The Changing Event Technology Landscape

Expansion and Consolidation

Why Event Technology Matters

CHAPTER 20: Choosing the Right Technology Partner

Questions to Ask When Determining Event Technology Needs

Save More Seats at the Negotiation Table

Consider Depth, Breadth, and Experience

Know Where You Land in the Data Ownership Debate

Additional Considerations for Enterprise Companies

What to Consider When Evaluating a Potential Event Technology Platform

CHAPTER 21: What an Event Platform Can (and Can't) Do for You

CHAPTER 22: Taking on the Future of Experiences

The Immediate Future of Events

This Is Our Moment

References

Acknowledgments

About Bizzabo

About the Authors

Alon Alroy

Eran Ben-Shushan

Boaz Katz

Index

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

References

Acknowledgments

About Bizzabo

About the Authors

Index

End User License Agreement

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Alon Alroy — Eran Ben-Shushan — Boaz Katz

Event Success

Maximizing the Business Impact of In-Person, Virtual, and Hybrid Experiences

Copyright © 2022 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Alroy, Alon, author. | Ben-Shushan, Eran, author. | Katz, Boaz, author.

Title: Event success : maximizing the business impact of in-person, virtual, and hybrid experiences / Alon Alroy, Eran Ben-Shushan, and Boaz Katz.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021059918 (print) | LCCN 2021059919 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119817154 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119817208 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119817161 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Special events. | Marketing.

Classification: LCC GT3405 .A57 2022 (print) | LCC GT3405 (ebook) | DDC 394.2—dc23/eng/20220105

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059918

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059919

Cover Design: Bizzabo

Cover Image: © Bizzabo

To our dearest families, to Bizzaboers around the world, and to the event experience leaders who bring us all together

PART IWhy Events?

CHAPTER 1How We Got Here

Live events shape history.

Pick any moment in time—the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, the Roman Forum, the biblical era—and you'll find a congregation of people and the sharing of ideas to be the definitive force of progress and innovation of the age.

Gathering to debate and share ideas is such a natural human tendency that it was rare to find people who questioned the value of this practice. Some might prefer certain events over others, some might attend out of necessity rather than interest, but the value of attending events—of being at the center of those ideas and debates and decisions—was rarely called into question. At least until very recently.

Back in 2019, we published a collection of quotes from conversations with event leaders. These quotes were pulled from our IN-PERSON podcast series, where we feature the world's most daring events and the people who make them happen. The book ranged from topics like experiences to community to team leadership, but one of the first topics we covered was the most inspiring: “Why events?”1 The answers, as you might expect, ran the gamut but shared a common theme. Here are a few of the quoted answers:

Chardia Christophe-Garcia, then a marketing director at Forbes: “More and more we're seeing that the event landscape isn't going anywhere. People want experiences. They want to have that one-to-one connection and networking.”

Lindsay Niemic McKenna, then vice president of revenue marketing at Yext: “People understand that human connection is really important, especially as we're becoming a more digitized world.”

Hugh Forrest, chief programming officer at SXSW: As much as we've changed and improved technology to be able to connect with people, nothing yet replaces real-time, face-to-face interactions in terms of creating new opportunities.”

Colleen Bisconti, vice president of global conferences and events at IBM: “We're seeing that the events are still the primary driver of marketing results. Events touch almost every single opportunity that progresses and ultimately closes. So it's a great place to be, and it's a great way to lean in and to provide business results. And that's why I love it so much.”

An event, at its core, is about community building: gathering people around a shared idea, vision, goal, market vertical, or story. In the modern context, and specifically in relation to corporate events, it's an opportunity to share the brand's story, to turn a slogan or a product or an idea into a tangible experience. It's an opportunity for businesses, nonprofits, and for-profit event organizers to show the world who they are and what they stand for during an intense (but limited) time frame. It's the one big chance many get each year to deliver an important message to a captive audience. It's an opportunity to celebrate and showcase a brand's achievements.

Events are also a key opportunity to grow business. In marketing terms, events offer value at virtually every stage of the sales funnel, from awareness to conversion and everything in between. They are a venue for finding new business, upselling old business, or simply strengthening relationships with customers and partners in hopes of improving future business. If you want to drive sales, history has proven that events are a great way to do so.

Finally, events are key to strengthening internal relationships. Just as they can facilitate commerce, they can also facilitate camaraderie. Business is based on relationships, and throughout history humanity has relied on shared experiences to establish or strengthen those bonds. Events are where those “hallway moments” happen—when relationships built on financial incentives, convenience, or coincidence evolve into something more concrete.

In short, events just kind of work, and always have. As long as they evolve.

Overcoming a History of Inertia

Events are such natural value creators that the industry behind live events has long faced a strong resistance to change. After all, events often accomplished the desired outcome for those who were organizing them, at least to the extent that they could measure that success, so who would take a costly gamble on change?

Furthermore, many organizations operate around a single annual flagship event, which would be the last place they wanted to experiment. You know the feeling of being on your toes, putting out metaphorical (or perhaps in some cases, literal) fires as they arise. In this high-stress environment, the safe option is often preferred, even at the cost of innovation. We can't blame anyone who's trying to facilitate an experience for 100, 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000 people for being risk averse, for falling back on tried-and-true methods and processes, for taking the route that gives them one less thing to worry about in the midst of their big event.

The other reason for such strong inertia in the events industry was that experimentation was also risky on an individual level. If your higher-ups think last year's event went well, why risk drastic changes that could threaten your career? Event organizing can be a thankless job. Having your event run smoothly is a baseline expectation. Sure, there are minor problems that can be improved on from year to year, but most changes go unnoticed—unless they cause a problem. Why risk your career to advocate for change when nobody is calling for it?

Obviously, this is a broad characterization. There are plenty of exceptions, many of which we will highlight in these very pages. Countless event heroes out there shook things up, pushed the needle, and took chances, and we wholeheartedly celebrate their boldness.

But while most industries were adopting an evolve-or-die mentality in the early 2000s and into the 2010s as a result of rapid technological innovation, the events industry found itself naturally inclined to take the opposite route. Rather than feeling pressured to evolve, as so many industries did during that time, event organizers were often under pressure to repeat last year's success—which was based on the year prior, which was based on the year before that, and so on.

According to industry thought leader Marco Giberti, “The formula works well, and it's successful, and it's growing, and it's sustainable in many ways.” He told us recently over Zoom, “Most organizers—corporate, for profit, or associations—were using a playbook that was solid and successful, growing nicely, and the overall reaction was, ‘Why should I change if this is working?’ There's no urgency for deep innovation, there's no urgency for transformation, because it's going pretty well.”

That old playbook, however, has since been rendered obsolete. For the first time, event organizers are now finding themselves in completely uncharted territory and are now being challenged to reinvent an industry long resistant to change.

An Industry Ripe for Disruption

On the surface it appeared that the events industry had been growing steadily; budgets were increasing, attendee numbers were growing, and event organizers were being given license to curate incredible experiences for their audiences.

Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Salesforce, Amazon—nearly every major technology company produced a major flagship event for tens of thousands of attendees. Meanwhile, staging a flagship conference became a mark of success for thousands of emerging technology companies. And all this is to say nothing about how nonprofits, associations, media companies, and financial institutions leverage events to drive their own business goals.

A 2018 report published by the Events Industry Council reported that, accounting for indirect and induced impacts, events supported a global economic impact of $2.5 trillion of business sales, 26 million jobs, and $1.5 trillion of GDP. According to a 2021 report from Allide Marketing, the events industry was valued at $1,135.4 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach $1,552.9 billion by 2028, registering a compound annual growth rate of 11.2 percent from 2021 to 2028.2

Below the surface, however, Marco Giberti says events were simultaneously experiencing a gradual decline—so gradual that it largely went unnoticed. In recent years, the Net Promoter Score (NPS)—a metric used to measure customer loyalty—was flat at best. It was not a dramatic trend by any means, but it suggested something worth considering: both exhibitors and attendees weren't excited about the events they were going to. In other words, the experience of events was missing the mark.

What prevented many decision makers from seeing this decline involved the reliance on business models and benchmarks. The real estate model, for example, more often than not dictated the financial structure of some events. These events were often approached as a simple math equation: X square feet of exhibition space, divided by Y exhibitors, times $Z per square foot in the receivable column; marketing budgets, speaker fees, venue rental, catering costs, and other expenses in the payable column. So long as the revenue generated exceeded expenses, the event was in the black and was considered a success. If certain exhibitors or attendees had a negative experience, it didn't really matter as long as space (and registrations) sold out the following year.

In cases where profitability from exhibitors, sponsors, and registration sales was not the desired outcome (as for many corporate events), event organizers lacked a common set of benchmarks for evaluating how an event contributed to key business outcomes.

Proving event success, or return on events (ROE) as we call it, has long been an incomplete science with event organizers measuring the performance of events on a simple basis—if at all—without a clear understanding of the impact an event has on business outcomes. There was always a sense that things were working as intended, even if “how” or “why” couldn't be precisely measured or explained. The lack of quality metrics to measure vital benchmarks like attendee experience, exhibitor and attendee return on investment, the overall quality of the experience, and so on, created a blind spot for the industry, and in that blind spot complacence was growing.

Unlike most industries at the turn of the millennium, live events had no external forces pressuring them to evolve, no new source of disruption, no real risk of being left behind in the digital era. The only risk was innovating too much too quickly, and inadvertently putting a wrench in an otherwise well-oiled machine.

A Temporary Pause and a Permanent Change

In March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic began sweeping across the globe, we watched our internal dashboards as major sponsors started pulling out of events and organizers began postponing and eventually canceling their flagship conferences.

In the ensuing months we heard stories from partners, colleagues, customers, and friends about the internal turmoil that was playing out in event teams around the world. The economic uncertainty of the moment, coupled with the restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the virus, resulted in event budgets getting slashed, team members getting laid off, and widespread uncertainty about the future of events.

Up until that moment, the live events industry felt untouchable. Suddenly, it felt like a hurricane was barreling toward us, and there was nothing we could do but board up the windows and hope for the best.

It was an incredibly painful time for us personally, for our growing events technology platform, and for the industry at large. We, like many others in the industry, had to cut our team by 25 percent, knowing that in the coming months we would either be in a position to hire them back or not have a company at all.

After decades of inertia, the industry was forced to adopt the innovation it had long resisted and seek to reinvent itself. Experimentation and innovation were suddenly no longer a matter of choice, but of survival. As we emerge on the other end of the pandemic, one thing is for sure: the events industry will never be the same. In the coming years, the very definition of the word events will change dramatically, as will the way we measure ROE and event success in the post-COVID-19 era.

A New Day Has Dawned

Since those dark early days of the pandemic, we've watched as an industry pushed to the brink quickly adopted the necessary tools, skills, and capabilities required to completely reinvent itself in an impossibly short time frame. What could have ultimately spelled the end of events as we knew it instead proved to be the push the industry had long needed to reach its full potential in the Digital Age.

We are only at the starting point of a whole new events industry, and the playbook is still being written, but already we see three key themes that will improve success in the future of events: management, engagement, and growth.

Management

We steadfastly believe that the future of events is about experience-first design—that is, overcoming the decline in NPS scores by creating events that take into consideration the entire suite of stakeholder experiences—from when they first visit a website to the way that they connect with other stakeholders to navigation of the event itself. In order to make this vision a reality, event managers—or event experience managers, as we refer to them—will need to continue to revisit the ways that they manage their strategies and their processes for working with their teams to arrive at these strategies. In order to overcome the challenges of this new chapter in event history, the event team itself will have to undergo a significant transformation.

Moving forward, event professionals will need to demonstrate a variety of new skills, ranging from hard technical skills to softer skills like empathy and collaboration, while working across multidisciplinary teams. The makeup of the team itself will also need to evolve in order to overcome new challenges, adding new types of expertise that weren't as necessary previously, while reforming some roles that have become obsolete.

Part of this transition will be revisiting and redefining how event teams interact with other teams within their organization.

Engagement

Engagement is a key attribute of a successful event, but the way in which organizers reach audiences and design experiences for them is undergoing a dramatic transformation. Gone are the days of a captive audience that dedicates multiple days to in-person event attendance by default.

Moving forward, organizers are going to have to get creative in order to pique the interest of an audience that is always one click away from the exit. Event teams are now being challenged by the need to engage audiences that are less likely to attend as many events in person and less likely to dedicate as much time to their events. Key to achieving strong ROE is cracking the code on event engagement in these new formats.

Growth

We live in a world where everything can be measured, especially if it takes place in a virtual setting. With new virtual platforms, events are becoming powerful data generators, and the utilization of this data is key to event success. Furthermore, event success and ROI have long been tied to quantitative metrics like attendee and registration numbers, or square footage of exhibition space, rather than qualitative metrics, like engagement, lead generation, and brand affinity. In most other industries, such metrics are seen as vital benchmarks and tools for optimization, for understanding the audiences' needs and habits, and for improving the quality of the product.

As we emerge from the pandemic into an age of virtual and hybrid events, data will begin to play a much bigger role in measuring, optimizing, and ultimately scaling event success. To some, these changes might sound intimidating, but we encourage everyone in the industry to see this evolution for what it is: an opportunity for events to become more purposeful, more impactful, more demonstrably valuable, and more efficient in achieving their stated aims. Though the disruption of the pandemic was a shock to event professionals, we will (and are already beginning to) look back at that moment as a key enabler of innovation in an industry that was in desperate need of change.

Notes

1

   The actual title of the chapter was “Why In-Person,” a decision intended to reflect our IN-PERSON content brand and our steadfast belief in the power of in-person experiences. Admittedly, the prospect of virtual events becoming so popular and necessary was very far away at the time.

2

https://dev-meetingsmeanbusiness.pantheonsite.io/sites/default/files/OE-EIC%20Global%20Meetings%20Significance%20(FINAL)%202018-11-09-2018.pdf

.

CHAPTER 2Event Success in the Post-COVID-19 Era

The pandemic has changed our very definition of events, and with it comes a new definition of event success. Prior to COVID-19, virtual events were few and far between. They also often failed to offer much of what inspired people to attend events in person. Such events (webinars, webcasts, online conferences, and digital trade shows) were often effective in achieving specific outcomes, but they were hardly considered a viable alternative to the in-person experience.

As the pandemic progressed, however, the industry as a whole made some incredible strides in improving the virtual event experience—progress that will continue well after in-person events resume. Throughout the remainder of 2020 and the first half of 2021, we saw incredible levels of resilience, adaptability, technological adoption, and rapid innovation. While the sudden transition to virtual events posed a lot of challenges, it also offered a range of new opportunities.

Challenges and Opportunities Associated with Virtual Events

According to a study we conducted in 2020, 68 percent of event marketers believe it is more difficult to facilitate networking opportunities when hosting virtual events, 67.7 percent struggled to maintain engagement, and 52.5 percent were challenged by the logistics of virtual events.

Up until this point, our entire industry was built around face-to-face human interaction, whether on stage, on the exhibition floor, or after hours. Organizers faced the immediate challenge of replicating those interactions, and many are still struggling to overcome this. Keeping virtual audiences engaged, especially during a pandemic that forced many to work from home, was especially daunting. Event organizers have long enjoyed the benefits of a captive audience, but suddenly found themselves competing with everything from incoming emails and phone calls to a dog barking or baby crying in the background. Furthermore, event teams are experts at facilitating in-person experiences, from booking venues to managing logistics, but producing a virtual experience often requires different skills and different tools. Despite these challenges, however, both virtual and hybrid events (which contain elements of both in-person and virtual experiences) offer a range of benefits.

According to our research, 60 percent of event professionals pivoted an in-person event to a virtual format as a direct result of the pandemic in 2020. That year, 80 percent of event organizers said they were able to reach a wider audience with virtual events, more than half increased the number of webinars they produced, and 71.5 percent say virtual engagement tools will play a major role in their event strategies moving forward. In fact, 65.5 percent said their budgets will increase, and 93 percent plan to invest in virtual events in the future.

Virtual events are relatively less expensive to produce than their in-person counterparts, and the shift to a virtual format will dramatically increase their reach. They are also powerful data generators, providing valuable insights on attendee engagement patterns, potentially offering clues to buying behaviors.

An Early Case Study

We at Bizzabo got a first-hand look at both the opportunities and the challenges associated with virtual events at a relatively early stage in the pandemic, and our experience was not unlike others in the events space.

Prior to the pandemic we had hosted a few events of our own—including our IN-PERSON Collective flagship event that took place in New York in December 2019—but the majority of our understanding of events was informed by conversations with our customers and partners in the industry.

As we pivoted toward becoming a virtual events platform in early 2020, we decided to put our new virtual event platform to the test by hosting our own virtual event, which we called (Almost) IN-PERSON.

We sent out invitations to members of the industry in hopes of attracting 500 attendees. Within 24 hours, we had 1,500 registrants. After 72 hours, we reached 5,000. In the end, we had more than 6,000 participants across 70 countries, including representatives from companies like Twitter, Salesforce, and Amazon—the types of brands whose business we had been chasing for years (unsuccessfully, up to that point).

We also received responses from current and prospective investors and most of our biggest clients. We had to figure out a lot for the first time in a very condensed time frame, such as whether virtual events also needed an app (they do) and whether the event should be broadcast live or should rely on prerecorded videos (we did both and learned that attendees definitely appreciate knowing whether or not a session is actually happening live). We experienced a wide array of technical glitches in the days and weeks leading up to the event, as we scrambled to cobble together a viable virtual events platform, but when the moment came, everything went off without a hitch.

It was an incredibly powerful moment for us as individuals, as a company, but above all, as an industry. In the previous few weeks we had all experienced layoffs, budget cuts, uncertainty about the future—nobody in the industry was immune. We had no choice