Meeting planning professionals have long since known the power of generating ROI with events - a key indicator that time and money were well spent.
With in person meetings in full swing, it's important now – more than ever – to emphasize and maximize the ROI events can bring to your organizations.
Here are three ways you can leverage event initiatives to drive business, establishing both you and your team as trusted advisors for your organization’s executives.
Symbiotic Sponsorship Opportunities
Sponsors are a keyway to generate ROI through direct means (revenue). You can maximize this revenue by creating a symbiotic relationship with both you and the sponsor by offering key opportunities for sponsors to realize their own ROI, such as:
- Sponsoring a session on your main event agenda
- Provide speaking opportunities for a subject matter expert that aligns with your content strategy
- Offering ongoing or single point in time sponsorship opportunities
- Provide digital marketing options such as social media placements and/or advertisements to be placed in your event communications
In turn, you can use the sponsor for not only revenue, but content mining as well. Does your sponsor have research and/or subject matter expertise that your audience is keen to hear? Develop a partnership that’s mutually beneficial and your ROI will speak for itself.
Keep them Coming for Content
Content is king and always has been - it’s just become even more apparent operating in a virtual event space. Understanding what your audience wants to know is extremely powerful, and research shows that people will pay for any event if they believe the content valuable.
When you know what your audience is eager to hear, you can:
- Use the content as lead generation for the sales team
- Provide insight to your marketing team for targeted campaigns
- Develop follow-up opportunities for continued engagement i.e. registrations at future events
- Bundle and sell continued education opportunities
PRO TIP: If you are the meeting planner or event owner, we recommend you take ownership of content management, as this is a key indicator for success – and ultimate ROI – for any current and future events.
Create & Elevate Your Thought Leaders
The power of social media to both make or break an organization has never been more apparent. In the past, companies relied on reporters and news media to cascade their messages. Now, you can identify Thought Leaders in your organization – subject matter experts that provide unique insight to key industry initiatives – to tell your company’s story.
Events can offer high profile opportunities for Thought Leaders to share their organizations narrative as they work to elevate both their personal profile and their company’s profile. While indirect, this valuable opportunity can provide substantial ROI including the potential for:
- New customers
- Broader audience
- New partnership and/or sponsorship opportunities
- Future speaking engagements
PRO TIP: While Thought Leaders should be key Subject Matter Experts, they should also be engaging professionals who are comfortable on camera and interacting on social channels. The key to social media success is engaging often while leveraging all multi-media options available, including video.