Event Strategy Has Forever Changed. Is Your Team Keeping Up?
Though catastrophic in nature, the pandemic has presented never-before-seen opportunities in the event industry. What was once viewed as a potentially industry-shattering shift has actually taken the event industry to new heights. Teams worldwide adapted at unthinkable speeds and created new engagement opportunities that have permanently changed event strategy.
The future has officially arrived, and if your event team is looking to stay ahead of the trends, you’re in the right place. Impact Point Group has compiled this guide to help teams adapt to the changing event strategy environment. Click the links below to learn about a specific section, download the whole guide, or get in touch with us today to have your specifics answered.
Table of contents
One major thing event teams learned from the pandemic is the need for event strategy. Yes, event teams quickly learned how to plan digital events in terms of the details — budget, location, length. But if the details of that event were not tied into a holistic event strategy, it became obsolete.
The difference between event planning and event strategy is key to understand as events continue to develop.
Event planners are focused on the details that make the event actually function. Without event planners, no event would ever come together. They focus on things like:
Whereas event planners look at the minute details of the event, event strategists can see how those details fit into the big picture of holistic marketing initiatives. Event strategists understand how to holistically drive revenue growth and work in concert with the business's marketing strategy. They focus on things like:
The growth of the event strategist has been crucial since March 2020 as they learned how digital events still play a prominent role in overall revenue- and demand-generation strategies.
To learn more about event planning vs. event strategy, read our full blog post here.
Despite the marked differences in event planning and strategy, the two professions have to work alongside each other in order to achieve their desired outcomes. Event planners want an event to unfold without any hiccups and deliver incredible value to attendees while event strategists want to see how that event ultimately generates demand and revenue.
Yet without the other side, neither are completely possible. Event planners need a strategy-driven mind to ensure that the details of the event will be beneficial to the organization in the long run, and strategists need an execution-focused planner to plan an event that they can use to holistically generate revenue in the first place.
By incorporating a strategic mind into the event planning process, event teams can reap many rewards, including:
When this happens, events have a better chance of generating new leads, improving product adoption, and increasing customer satisfaction among your current clientele.
To learn more about how strategy and planning co-exist, read our full blog here.
High-touch events are focused on engagement and providing multiple points of interaction for your attendees. When your audience is engaged and understands you are making the effort to provide value, they are more likely to become a customer.
Consider these three engagement tactics to include in your high-touch event strategy.
Learn more about other things successful high-strategy events include in our full blog post.
Among the most beneficial outcomes of the forced switch to digital events last March is the wealth of digital data that become readily available to event teams worldwide. Not only did it become apparent that event participants are more willing to provide their information digitally, but it also became much easier to use digital data to improve your event.
Event teams learned which digital KPIs are important for their event and began tracking those statistics to complete a variety of objectives. Popular data points include:
However, collecting this data is just the first step. If you don’t know how to utilize the numbers in front of you to improve your event strategy, it’s all for naught. Here are two ways that event strategists learned how to use digital data successfully:
Read the full blog post here to learn more about the correlation between digital data and event strategy.
Though specific digital elements were included in event strategy pre-pandemic, COVID-19 accelerated the growth of those digital elements as event teams were forced to adopt them in order to survive.
And despite the initial frenzy, we have graduated to a mindset of growth — these digital elements proved so successful in generating demand that they have staying power in the future. Even as in-person events make their long-awaited return in late 2021 and into 2022, digital is here to stay.
Here are three digital elements to include in your integrated event strategy once in-person formats resume.
If you want to dive deeper into the digital elements to include in your integrated event strategy, read our full blog post today.
Just as the industry has adapted since March 2020, the professions within the industry have as well, and event strategists are no different. To be successful in modern event strategy, event marketers must flex their marketing brawn.
As we mentioned above, the transformation to digital-only events forced strategists to see how different digital elements have become part of the larger marketing picture. No longer can strategists formulate events that stand alone — instead, those main corporate events are now a piece of the digital marketing puzzle, albeit a large piece.
When event strategists add event marketing to their skillset, two things happen:
Event strategy and event marketing can no longer be siloed. To learn more about the combination of the two, read our full blog post.
While revenue generation was possible in some fashion with digital events, it certainly did not compare to in-person revenue. Event teams have long awaited the return of in-person events, as they present one of the largest revenue-generating opportunities for many organizations.
However, monetization won’t look exactly the same as it did before the pandemic. In the past year, event teams creatively and strategically monetized based on what worked for them. These tactics included:
These strategic monetization tactics are likely to continue for events that follow the integrated approach. Combined with the biggest revenue-generating tactics that events used pre-pandemic — high ticket prices, sponsorship engagement, etc. — organizations may be able to monetize their integrated events more than ever. To learn more about the evolution of monetization, read our blog here.
The event industry has changed more in the past year than it did in the preceding 20 years, and there’s a tremendous amount of good news that has come from that development. Events will never be the same, and to be frank, they will continue to improve as teams learn to incorporate digital and in-person elements seamlessly.
We know that some digital elements work better than others, and some in-person elements cannot be replaced. This is especially true when it comes to engagement tactics. Here’s what we see as the future happy medium for ways to keep audiences engaged.
If you want to learn more about our thoughts on the evolution of event engagement strategy, read the full blog here.
Like countless organizations worldwide, our team at Impact Point Group adapted at rapid speeds in 2020. This evolution has positioned us as industry experts who are ready to help transform your event strategy.
We take pride in combining the art and science of events to deliver truly remarkable results. Learn more about our insights in our latest iteration of the Digital Event Forecast, or contact us to get started.