Actual article date: Jun 19, 2014

As I was reading Julius’ post on his blog on how to win over attendees, I thought there were 8 important learning points for professionals in the events sphere to help them manage their stakeholders (delegates, buyers, visitors, exhibitors and sponsors).

His post was based on references to two brilliant books, Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and Robert Cialdini’s “Influence: Science and Practice”.

1. Be serious about making your stakeholders feel important

Delivering real value through good customer services like concierge or matching services is of core importance to your stakeholders (don’t only service your sponsors!). Engage all your delegates in 2-way conversations and do not only depend on 1-way communications like EDMs. The above is easy to say but a mammoth task to carry out as a dedicated customer service team may be required. Technology can help in that.

2. Understand and ANSWER stakeholders’ needs

Are you already collecting the various interests of your delegates as well as tracking their interactions on the various technology platforms that you are utilising? If you are, GOOD! One of the most difficult tasks is consolidating all these data on a single dashboard that planners can easily access. This would allow planners to know these preferences of each stakeholder (of course without intruding on their privacy) so that they can better deliver value to them. Do not only use these data for event marketing and sales purposes. Make the data work for your delegates too.

3. Let your stakeholders interact more

Listening to talks are great. However, talks are most often not the most interactive segment of events. Providing a networking platform that starts pre-event allows planners to begin exploiting the network effects amongst the stakeholders. Instead of having your delegates to start introducing themselves at your event, have them already set up relevant meetings at your event itself. This would make your event all the more valuable to attend.

4. Gather feedbacks and act on them

We cringe when we received bad feedbacks and beam with pride when we receive good ones. And then it simply stops there. There are huge potentials in knowing feedbacks and acting on them. If you’ve discovered that an exhibitor is unhappy because the people that he was to meet with didn’t show up, you could react by reminding those prospects. Or even reschedule the meeting for the next day! It is about making your stakeholders feel important (That’s point 1) and answering their needs (That’s point 2).

5. Deliver more than the Truth

Delivering more than the Truth means telling your stakeholders what is in for them at the event. Like, event demographic percentages within their target group as analysed from true data. Stakeholders however demands more than the truth. How are they going to get to their target group? What channels are available at your event to facilitate this?
Planners are increasingly pressured to not only present data, but also to tap onto those information to fulfill or go beyond stakeholder’s ROI expectations.

6. Social Proof

As explained by Julius, one of the biggest driver of ticket sales is in knowing who else will be at the event (not only speakers, but the full attendees list). That is fantastic. Why not bring it a step further by providing a platform where delegates can not only discover others who are attending, but also get a chance to start interacting with them? That will enable Point 5.

7. ‘Authority’ is not the only value proposition in an event

‘Authority’ means important speakers or prolific VIPs. This particular sentence by Julius nailed it: “Relying too much on authority without designing immersive experiences cannot be enough for an industry that too often has stressed celebrity status over substance.”

8. Do not forget about ‘Pathos’

The event is about your delegates. Exhibit tender ‘Pathos’ of empathy to the purposes of the attendees in all your communications. Instead of using words like ‘We have these amazing speakers and people at the conference’, focus on the ‘You’ to engage the audience. For instance, write this instead, ‘you can interact with our amazing speakers and people to do business at our conference with..’.

Those are the important points that I’ve learnt and I hope it was helpful for you. Do comment below if you have experiences with any of the above or am looking to improve your event in any of the above ways.

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