I recently attended a two-day business automation workshop, for female entrepreneurs, in Sydney.
This is a community I’ve been part of for a few months now.
The online presence of this organisation was consistent throughout their sales material and over into their online learning portal and printed worksheets. However, the in-person experience was quite a different feeling.
So, I thought I’d share some of my personal tips to ensure your audience gets to develop a deeper relationship with you and your brand at your live in-person event.
Even though there are many people at an event, there are really only two that need focus – the event host (you) and the event participant (your audience).
Live events are an invitation for your audience to develop a deeper relationship with your brand
Usually the event host has given a huge amount of thought to the content that is being delivered from the stage, but in my experience, there is not a lot of time and energy given to how the participant will experience the event, and this was the case at the workshop I attended.
Here are my top 5 tips for making your ‘in person’ events participant focused:
1. Connect: Be there to meet and greet your guests when they arrive. People want to connect with people and they want to connect with the event host. Be sure to connect with every person at the event, even just for a couple of minutes throughout the duration of the day.
2. Stage setting: this is the focal point for all the eyeballs in the room. So think about what you want all those eyeballs looking at. How does that resonate with your brand presence? Is it formal, casual, clean, subdued – think of this as interior design of a room.
3. Q+A sessions: if you are crowd sourcing questions how will you do this? Will that be via an app or by giving the audience a microphone? Either way … plan how this will happen so everyone in the room can hear every question.
4. Printed material: most event hosts are trying to avoid printed materials to cut down on the waste, but if you are printing have it all in one booklet, not multiple booklets and random pieces of paper. Be smart because your audience will love that you’ve thought about what they need to maximise their learning.
5. Content: how do they access the resources and learning that is being delivered by the speakers – tell people if it will be provided or if they need to take notes.
Of course there are many more things that go into bringing an in-person event to life, but just giving thought to these five things will greatly enhance your delegate experience and align it to your brand presence, so they keep coming back for more.
Mā te wā!
Sandra Julian
Event Director
