I couldn’t resist posting a photo of my puppy, Baxter, who grabbed my conference registration when I unpacked my bags … Further sessions from the conference Eventing the Future 2007 (see also previous post) revealed tips for developing memorable experiences and marketing to your target audience.

Memorable experiences

Robert Rossman, author and consultant on recreation programme design, presented on ‘creating experiences’. Rober cited research that shows that humans are happiest when they are able to exercise their individual strengths and abilities. If we want to create successful events, we need to design experiences that make humans happy. He argued that in an environment where it is increasingly difficult to complete on price, quality and delivery, we need to compete on creating memorable experiences.

Robert said we need to look at events as ‘a series of social interactions staged to engage participants in a memorable way’. Your audience will value the social interaction that your event produces and the memories that it creates. To design memorable experiences, events managers need to:

• maximize opportunities for participants to make choices – not just the choice to attend the event, but options within it
• ensure participation in activities that are intrinsically satisfying (where the reward comes from the ‘doing’)
• engage participants by allowing them to play a part in determining and directing the outcome of the event.

And there’s the challenge – doing things ‘to’ people is much easier to organise than organising for people to do things for themselves. This is the essential difference between a service (doing something on the customer’s behalf) and an experience (something the customer is asked to do for themselves). Robert warned against confusing the illusion of engagement with overstimulation; entertainment is not the same as experience.

Robert stressed that the components that make an event memorable are only one part of an overall event – other components may include entertainment, education and aesthetics. However, without affective engagement – an opportunity for participants to do something unique as a part of the event – the event will not be memorable for participants.

Robert’s take on events was fascinating, and I don’t feel this post has done him justice. If you’re after more information, here’s Robert’s bio and also a link to one of his books on Amazon.

Marketing

Presentations that have touched on marketing have all mentioned the clutter and noise that events marketers have to ‘break through’ to get their audience’s attention. Phillip Sunderland from Q Brand Agency quoted figures that the average New Zealander sees 1000 new advertising messages per week.

Phillip provided guidance on how and when to deploy particular marketing channels. He may not be happy to see his words on this blog – he cautioned that his tips were generalisations – but I think this list gives us all a point from which to start as we contemplate the many and varied options:

• radio is great for fast response, eg for specials on offer for the next 24 hours
• newspaper advertising can reach loyal readership who follow particular sections and is good for heavy content
• tv provides access to mass markets
• internet works for a targeted approach to higher socioeconomic and professional groups – although widespread availability increasingly makes it a mass market tool
• outdoor advertising works for a strong visual presentation or where you have a location opportunity
• magazines have a long lead-in time, provide access to a consistent readership demographic and suit heavy content
• email provides opportunities to interact with the audience, get immediate feedback, start a relationship and send out updates
• direct mail is appropriate if you’d like your audience to complete forms or you have an existing, reliable database
• telemarketing, although unpopular with many, can assist if you need to follow up with your audience after initial contact
• alternative media – sometimes called guerilla marketing – can ‘interrupt’ your target audience by surprising and engaging them – examples include street theatre and occupying a location with your message. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Events, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.