Every event marketer knows that audience engagement is key to a successful event or exhibition. An engaged audience is a captive one, walking away from your event a potential lead, with the seeds of your brand and product offering clearly implanted in their mind. There’s plenty of talk about engagement on the event marketing circuit - however, unless there’s an actionable plan behind it and measurable results to follow, engagement is nothing more than a trendy buzzword.
In order to physically increase engagement with your target audience (be that anything from B2B customers to the general public) at your next event, a planned strategic approach is the strongest way to deliver results. And this plan starts long before the actual event takes place. It is vital that the event staff representing you on the road are well versed in all stages of this process - with full transparency and understanding of your offering, audience and message.
Your offering
Taking a critical eye to your business offering is essential at this stage in the process. If you aren’t blown away by the product that you offer, you can guarantee your target customers won’t be either. Use focus groups to examine your business as a case study, asking them to conclude what they think your business does, what you’re trying to sell and what positive and negative attributes come with your product.
It is key that you understand how your customers perceive your business and product offering at its core. The aim of testing it through a focus group is to allow you to make prior alterations to the way your business is presented. These alterations should be made until you are fully confident that your business goals align as closely as possible with what the end customer perceives.
Your audience
Many events fall short when the audience attending have been incorrectly profiled - meaning that the targeted message misses its mark, leaving attendees feeling like passers by rather than the very reason you’re there exhibiting. The more you understand your audience, including everything from their wants and needs to their lifestyle, the more effectively you can target them. In simple terms, you want your audience to feel special - meaning you’ve anticipated their needs in a way which is very much personalised to them. You want your customers to feel like you’re serving up the perfect solution to their problems.
Again, focus groups are an invaluable tool when it comes to gauging your audience. By conducting interviews or encouraging topical group discussions, assessors can record how much your target audience already knows about your area of business - helping you to build upon this through additional information and value when creating your message in the next stage. Creating customer personas or profiles is a useful way of categorising the types of people who will be at your event and what they will be interested in, and ultimately establishing whether they are likely to convert into a paying customer. Depending on the goals of your campaign, it may be that you’re wasting your time with certain types of audience and therefore need to change your product or your target.
Your message
When developing your core message, there are two key areas of focus. Firstly, you must identify the goal of the event - what do you want your customers to walk away with? And secondly, you need to make sure that the message is not lost in translation. Test your event on a small segment and interview the attendees afterwards to check that they’ve “got the message”.
Common mistakes include offering overly complex or mixed messages at events, leaving your audience walking away confused. Focus on a concise and core message to deliver. Additionally, you’ll need to establish the practicalities of your future event, like how the message will physically be delivered? Ideally, this will be through numerous channels, strengthening its meaning and firmly implanting it into the minds of your attendees. Delivery channels could include the physical branding of your event venue, social media usage, talks or lectures during your event and product demonstrations.
Through stringently planning and preparing all three aspects (offering, audience and message) in plenty of time, you can be sure that engagement levels will be through the roof at your next event - providing a boost to your lead generation and effectively delivering your brands message to the right people.
At The Events Structure, our structures provide an impressive venue in which to engage with your customers and deliver your message. Our trailers, trucks and structures are fully customisable, meaning you can create a space which truly represents your brand. Our team can manage the logistics of your event from start to finish - or, if you prefer, you can do it all yourself. This flexible approach means that we can work to any campaign or event requirements.
For more information on our temporary event structures including self-drive units, roadshow trailers, mobile showrooms and customised containers get in touch with The Events Structure team today on 0161 821 1010.