Engagement has been a talking point in the world of event organisation for years now. Not least because it seems — and several studies bear it out — that being involved is one of the things people most want when they decide to attend an event, alongside the chance to meet people and widen their network of personal and professional relationships. We also know that involvement helps learning and makes proposals and offers easier to take up, which makes many typical event activities more effective, and we have already seen how it is a more than valid tool for saving resources, both human and financial. That is why, over time, strategies, techniques and tools have multiplied for creating engagement, or for boosting it and keeping it alive and active, ideally not only for the duration of the event but from well before to well after, since engagement has proved to be an excellent way of keeping an audience loyal from one edition of an event to the next, or from one event to another.
So, to sum up: engagement is indispensable for anyone who runs events and wants them to succeed. And there are now plenty of tools, techniques and resources that help event organisers create, distribute and promote moments of involvement and participation for any kind of event, of any nature and size.
What else is there to say on the subject, then? For instance, that since all this “effort” goes into involving and activating people at an event, it may be worth taking one step further and adding a marketing objective to the process as well.
How?
In at least three ways.
1. Before: a journey of co-creation towards success
Even before the curtain goes up on the event, engagement tools such as surveys and polls can be very effective for getting closer to your audience, understanding its preferences and finding out which topics and activities attract the most interest. As well as saving a good deal of money and time that might otherwise be poured into activities nobody wanted, this sets off a process of co-creation that encourages participation and builds an emotional bond between attendees and the event. Listening to the voices of the audience lets you shape the event around the needs of the real people who will attend it, and so make it more appealing, more interesting, more eagerly awaited. What is more, promoting this early involvement through communication channels such as social media and newsletters can be an excellent marketing lever: by working on anticipation, it encourages potential attendees to commit sooner and sets off a further virtuous circle, that of word of mouth.
2. Promoting the event: the flywheel of word of mouth
We know it by now: word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing there is. Nothing is as convincing, as motivating or as compelling as the word of someone you know and trust. In the digital age word of mouth has been transformed and multiplied by online media, and that has only amplified its reach. Involving the people attending an event in decisions about significant elements such as the name, the logo or the theme can therefore be a relatively simple but effective way to encourage engagement and turn mere contacts into ambassadors. Obviously this only works if, having asked, you then act on the answers, accepting the risk that they may not be the ones you would have chosen: so watch how you ask the questions, and which questions you ask. But if it genuinely happens, the feeling of being involved can be an unmatched vehicle for organic promotion. The viral effect of digital word of mouth then does the rest, widening circles and reach.
3. After: the springboard to the future
Before, during and after: engagement is all the more effective the more it accompanies every phase of the event, and the same is true of marketing. That is why it becomes strategic to work on the synergies between these two elements, so as to strengthen their effect without making either the planning or the running of activities any heavier. After all, with the right tools and good planning everything becomes easier.
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