The Successful Event in 2022 – How Event Marketers Can Succeed This Year
When the world shut down in March 2020, the events industry was one of many upended by the global pandemic.
Fortunately, it was also one of the industries that was able to renovate swiftly and, since then, expand its reach. At first, questions like “what happens next” loomed. But leaders quickly found answers in new solutions, including moving to virtual and hybrid formats to facilitate the needs of brands and their attendees. Even as we (finally) approach some semblance of normal, there are learnings from these last two years that we can use to create a successful event playbook for 2022 and beyond.
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Here are three takeaways event marketers can use to make critical decisions that will lead to a more successful event portfolio – no matter how or where you host.
Flexibility Around Events Is Paramount
If the global pandemic has taught industry leaders anything, it is always to be prepared. While we should hope for the best, we need to be ready for the worst. For leaders in the event tech space, pivoting, whether it’s venue to venue or physical to digital, takes more than just preparation. It is critical to have technology that enables teams to implement changes at a moment’s notice. This need for preparation won’t immediately shift even as we settle into post-pandemic life. Event and marketing leaders will likely be required to account for an additional layer of unpredictability for some time. Whether your event is in a convention center or streaming directly to your customers, its success will be dependent on savvy, flexible marketers supported by agile, scalable, and secure technology.
Content is King
Content will continue to take on an increasingly elevated role for events. Creating an immersive content experience that offers a “venue” akin to the hotel or conference center represents one especially important component.
Even more, attendees must be able to find the content they care most about and then interact with it, regardless of event location or size. I believe it is important that events invest in thoughtful, relevant content that is personalized for each attendee based on interests, preferences, past behaviors, and even the stage of their unique journey with your brand. My mantra: it’s more important to have 10,000 unique experiences rather than an event for 10,000 attendees.
Event Marketing Is Digital Marketing
For far too long, the event marketers have siloed event marketing tools aside from their marketing tech stack. This has impacted how we can repurpose and collect customer data, and use it elsewhere in events and other marketing channels. By enhancing relationships between event and digital marketers, we’ll see improvements and changes in how we understand and respond to users.
Naturally, this will improve data collection and enable the event marketers to analyze and better connect with the end-user or customer. Event data is critical beyond the end of a conference – it will be helpful year-round, allowing marketers to engage with customers and share relevant content/information tied to their previous event experience.
When it looks like we’re about to head to a physical venue, world events throw the event marketers a curveball.
However, by pivoting, sharing content, and connecting with attendees on a different and more personalized level, event marketers and planners can come out of this dark age with a leg up on the competition. Over the next year, marketers will face continued challenges, but we’ll be more prepared with a playbook that we’ve crafted based on our experiences since the pandemic began. We know that to be successful, we have to ensure we’re prepared to switch gears at a drop of a dime, deliver content that matters to the end-user, and deploy solutions like data collection and analyses that strengthen our relationships.
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