This month we'll explore the topic of Promoting Events through Digital Communications . Join us for this webinar as we get an overview of Promoting Events through Digital Communications and learn why it's important for your organization.

1. Promoting Events through
Digital Communications
Getting to the Behavioral Mindset of Experience and Engagement

2. Current Pulse
Where Are We Now

3. Digital Communications for Events
• Conference Website
• Social Media & Communities
• Banner Ads & Online Advertising
• Ecommerce, Coupons & Receipts
• Video Media
• Email
• Mobile App
• Onsite Signage & Interaction Points
• Webinars
• Livestreaming/Virtual
• Surveys & Polls
• Text
• Voice Mail Messaging

4. Today’s Challenges
• Thinking in terms of logistics & not experience
• Rethinking the event to be a longer time length
• Discrepancies in skill gaps & digital understanding
• Not taking the time to map out:
• Participant Personas
• Participant Journey
• How You’ll Measure

5. User Experience
User Experience Design (UXD or UED or XD) is the process of
enhancing user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility, and
pleasure provided in the interaction between the user and the
product.[1] User experience design encompasses traditional human–
computer interaction (HCI) design, and extends it by addressing all
aspects of a product or service as perceived by users.[

6. Modern Participant Expectations

7. Historical Approach in Event Communications
• FOMO on Registration
• More at Once
• Don’t Ask Too Much
• Waaaaayyyyy in Advance
• See Ya Wouldn’t Wanna Be Ya

8. Modern Approach
• Simplify communications
• More communications, more frequently but with simpler messages
and calls-to-action (as in ONE call-to-action)
• Much shorter time frames

9. Digital Marketers Dream: Events
• Content
• Demographics, psychographics
• Transactions
• Isolated population to study
• Multichannel opportunities
• Actionable
• Measurable
• Multi-touchpoint

10. Digital Marketers’ Nightmare Events
• Working in an inflexible framework
• Zero to little budget included for the event
• Trying to do new in ordinary time is VERY hard
• Breaking out of crisis event mentality
• Trying to do it all in-house in DIY mentality

11. Best Practices Areas
Where Organizations Are Working

12. The Engagement Valley

13. Why the Valley?
• No time
• No plan
• No call-to-action
• No continuity
• No emotional reinforcement

14. Valley Effects

15. Offset the Valley Dip

16. Minimize the Valley
• Start earlier
• Continuous touchpoints
• “Mini” events to build demand
• More creative, more content
• More mocial
• Increased touchpoints/visibility for groups that wish to reach your target
audience
• More points to analyze & adjust

17. User Experience Flow

18. Pre-Event Ideas
• Event groups on topics
• Industry roundtables
• Contests
• Images on badges
• Tweetchats & Meetups
• Speaker-based discussions and blogs
• Past presentation libraries and commentary
• Janus Approach & Discussion

19. During the Event
• Physical space for meetups, working groups
• Special VIP parties, cocktails, rewards
• Icebreakers based on social media contests/inquiries/discussions
• “Tweetbody” for keynotes
• Scribes per industry, topic, etc
• Meet the speakers, authors, keynotes
• Matchmaking & appointments

20. Post-Event
• Webinars
• Tweetchats
• Blogs
• Photo Galleries
• Video Testimonials
• Monthly topic discussions and calls
• Guest bloggers
• “Meet the Attendee”: First Timer’s View, etc.

21. Event Email
• Move from paper to email-based daily
news during event
• Increase in banner ad placement &
sponsor inclusion with tracking
mechanisms
• Completely tied into social media outlets
• Content!

22. Contextual Emails

23. Social & Events
• Not an after-thought! Central to event design
• Move from generic community to program-focused or topic-focused
• Adding communities around events year-over-year
• People that care will be recognized and rewarded
• UX-Design Rules!

24. Blogs
• Faster & easier updates
• Year-round communication
• Bigger & better

25. Overview of Measurement
New Thinking to Drive Engagement

26. Engagement
• Current Definition:
• Mystical idea to connote how involved someone is in a relationship with your
product or organization
• Current Measurements:
• Involve counts of attention-based or “like” activity
• Infancy Stage of Application

27. Typical Engagement Metrics
• # Comments
• Times Attended
• # Posts to discussions/blogs
• # Referrals
• # Click throughs
• # Opens
• # Submitted help tickets
• # Forwards
• # Likes
• # Shares
• # Direct links
• # Visits
• # Calls
• # Views
• # Retweets

28. Today’s Engagement Scores
• Comprehensive, often weighted
score, that is used to determine
which individuals are most
active in your organization or
product or event
• Transactions
($, frequency, duration,
periodicity) = engagement score

29. Graphing Engagement

30. Graph You Want

31. Modern Engagement
• Behavioral-based
• How you act, quality of actions
• Level of impact
• Level of energy, enthusiasm
• Level of advocacy/belief

32. Modern Behavioral Engagement Scores
• Greater weight based on:
• Monetary criteria
• Clout/ level of influence
• Number of connections/followers/years of service
• Source of engagement
• Decide what is the right engagement score mix for your
organization

33. Engagement Scores We Want
• Comprehensive, often weighted
score, that is used to determine
which individuals are most
invested/attentive
to your brand/product/offerings
• Transactions
($, frequency, duration,
periodicity) +
behavioral metrics =
engagement score

34. Ultimate Goal of Digital + Events

35. Digital Communications+Events in 2016
• Wild frontier of measurement
• Not used within context of greater campaigns
• Not seen as strategic
• Hidden, untapped power!
• Biggest area for ROI and member buzz