Far too many event organisers only communicate with their target audience when they want to sell stands/sponsorship/tickets. Adopting a strategy of sustained engagement with year-round dialogue is likely to lead to far more receptive audiences who are ready and willing to listen.

Sustained engagement is all about playing the long game.

“Those you’ve invested time and effort in building relationships with should be easier to convince and take fewer resources to convert once you are in the sales window.”

Pursuing an ongoing dialogue can also give you a better understanding of your audience. It buys you time to explore their motivations, find out what’s important to them, and what they might want from your event – which will all aid future communication as well as event planning.

Those you build relationships with can also become your best advocates. Being made to feel valued can be a strong motivator. Whether they’ve attended before or you’ve identified them as people you particularly want to attend your event, some well-crafted copy referencing their exalted status and regular communication can work wonders. Asking for feedback/opinions/suggestions can help with this.

For example, some festival organisers ask their social media followers which artists/bands they want to see perform at the next event. Similarly, conference organisers may invite suggestions for speakers. Whether you run with their ideas or not, they will still feel considered, on board, and more predisposed to attending your next event/other events appropriate to them.

“If they attend more than twice it can become a habit.”

First things first, though. Before you pursue a strategy of sustained engagement you need to know who your audiences are.

Who is your audience?

Don’t do anything until you know this! Central to a strategy of sustained engagement is knowing your audience. If this is a new event, establishing who your target audience is will form part of the event concept development process. For your event to go ahead there will need to be a market for it and sound reasons for those people to attend.

If this is an established event, then you will have some kind of database and social media following. Whilst a certain amount of churn is expected (depending on the nature of your event), opted-in visitors and social media followers are your established audiences to take forward. It’s always worth investing in profiling your audience(s).

Knowing your visitors’ key demographics, media choices, brand preferences, locations, occupations, etc. can not only help you hone your communications but can shape everything from decisions on venues, catering and ambient music to celebrity guests, sponsors being targeted, and event timings.

Depending on the nature and size of your event, you may also want to segment your audiences and communicate with each segment separately via potentially tailored messaging, style, emphasis, and frequency.

Messaging & frequency

Your event type, frequency and audience profile will generally dictate how often you should be communicating with your target audiences. Most importantly: remember to only communicate when you have something relevant that is worth saying otherwise you risk spamming, will lose credibility and see the unsubscribe rate start to increase.

As an example: for an annual exhibition you would expect the core visitor campaign to run for the preceding three or four months with the bulk of the activity happening in the last month. This leaves eight or nine months of communications to plan which are not geared around ticket sales – so, what do you say when you’re not asking your audience to “book now?”

Content Planning

As well as planning content and messaging for your visitor ticket campaigns pulling together a content calendar for the rest of the year can really help with implementing a strategy of sustained engagement. Deciding on your objectives upfront can shape your content pillars and keep you on track. In the aftermath of your event you can use a lot of the event content, so you’ll need to plan ahead for this to ensure you capture the assets you’re going to need.

Some examples of this are as follows:

Post-event round-ups – video and photos of the highlights, testimonials and thank yous to visitors, exhibitors, sponsors, media partners, suppliers, the venue and any other stakeholders. You could have several event summaries which focus on different aspects of the event such as features, the exhibitors, launches, sampling, entertainment, education and networking

Post-event research – the visitor questionnaire then follow up with a thank you and possibly sharing any learnings you’re willing to make public e.g. congratulations to a specific speaker or best band who got the visitors’ vote

Presentations – these include anything filmed/recorded (with the permission of everyone featured) and Powerpoint files (or similar). It can be helpful to advise delegates in advance if you’re going to do this, so they can concentrate on the presentation rather than taking notes

Interviews, testimonials, and soundbites – these may be with talent, experts or VIPs perhaps backstage or in limited access ‘question and answer’ sessions

Future event details – as soon as you can confirm them for repeat events share these with your subscribers/followers so they can mentally ‘check in’ to your event well before you start promoting it to them. You may also wish to promote associated events or others that are relevant to your audience. Do ensure GDPR compliance before you implement this

Sponsor/partner offers – where relevant (and GDPR compliant) promoting sponsor/partner offers such as media subscription deals or ticket offers to related events can add value to your audience relationships as well as providing you with content and another reason to communicate. It can help to build a sense of connection and involvement for your followers as they are not only “in the know” but also able to access “exclusive” offers.

Competitions – VIP experiences, overnight stays, sponsor/exhibitor products/services and tickets can all make compelling content and may provide you with the opportunity to work with additional third parties.

Conclusion

As with all campaigns, content and messaging may develop over a period but careful planning and a strategy of sustained engagement will help you keep momentum, stay relevant and retain/grow your audiences giving you a head start on your next event.

For more on audience engagement, check out this complete guide.