Author: blogger
How To Run A Successful Event
Events are a powerful tool for marketers to truly engage their consumers and leverage their brand. No matter what type of event you plan to run, there are a few points you need to remember to ensure your event is a success.
A successful Event Marketing Campaign is one that:
* Meets your brand objectives.
* Delivers a meaningful message directly to the target market.
* Complements your overall marketing plan.
* Provides a talking point amongst consumers.
The Strategy
Choosing the right event strategy for your product or service requires a thorough understanding of the brand objectives. You may require an experienced event agency partner if you do not have sufficient in-house resources to help you to achieve your goals. Look for a good team of experienced and creative minds who are ready to analyse every element of your product and service and its current position to design the best possible strategy. The following points should be considered:
Event Outcome
Clarity and agreement around the issue of event outcome is imperative. Key stake holders will have different views and perspectives of what they want out of an event. Defining and agreeing the desired event outcome means that the correct approach is taken. It means that the creative development of the event and the content to all work together to produce the right results. Ask yourself the following questions.
* What is the outcome you want for this event?
* What change do you want to effect?
* What tangible changes do you want? Eg Increase in sales, lead generation?
* What is the best thing/outcome that could happen as a result of this campaign?
* When the road show is over what do you want the guests to be saying about the event over coffee to their friends?
* What would be the ultimate sign of success for the event?
Target Market
Your target group are your guests. They could be prospective or existing clients or they could be staff. Again ask yourself: Who are they? Where are they? Why do you want them to attend? What do they like to do? How do we get their attention? What do they think/know/feel about your company now? What do you want them to think/know/feel about your company post the event?
Think about what events they have experienced before either with your organisation or with your competitors. What is their age group, are they an even mix of male and female? Understanding your audience is a good first step in the event planning process.
Message
A clear message is critical to the success of any event. Knowing exactly what you want to say is imperative. Its about what you want to say rather than how you want to say it at this stage? What is the main story you want to tell? What is imperative that they know when they leave? Communication of the message needs to be clear and concise. Consistency is key and your message needs to be included in each step from the invitation to web marketing campaign, to the event, the marketing collateral and the carefully planned post event strategy.
Brand Positioning
A good understanding of your brand position is crucial in building an event strategy. Is the event about a new product or service? Is it the launch of a new variable product or service? Are there set sales objectives for the product or service? Your brand position will assist in clarifying the best type of event your company needs and the most appropriate communication vehicle to engage your audience.
Creative
The creative development of the event can vary enormously. Considering the questions above certainly points you in the right direction to as to what kind of event will provide the most powerful result. It could be a national road show with international speakers or it could be a half day relationship building experience with key clients. A golf day, seminar series, exhibition, conference, experiential marketing campaign or any other various type of event should focus on leveraging your brand and provide a forum for you to connect with your target audience. Ask yourself how do we best represent the brand? How do we support above-the-line marketing strategies? How do we make it a memorable experience?
Planning
Finding your market and connecting with them in a memorable way is more than just guess work. It is staggering how many events are run with the minimum of planning. People are willing to invest significant money putting events on but they tend to overlook the need to invest in planning and smart thinking.
Planning is crucial to any event not matter how small and intimate it may be. Critical paths, risk assessments, measurable results, budget control are essential tools when planning a successful outcome. You need to plan on maximising the number of touch points with guests. Plan on results or you can guarantee you are planing on a disaster.
Implementation
With the correct planning the implementation of an event is the easy part. Ensure that every member of your event team have a run schedule of the event from start to finish so they aware of all timings. Rehearsals are imperative and why not consider professional speak training for all staff that will be presenting. An overall risk assessment is probably in the back of everyones minds but unless it is written down you are open to disaster. A good event company will also supply you with a thorough mitigation strategy to ensure you get a good result from your event no matter what.
Outcome
And weve come full circle. The results of your event should be measurable or how do you know if you have achieved good value for your investment. Events are all about building strong long term partnerships with your prospects and clients. When all of the above factors work together they create a truly powerful experience that not only moves people but motivates them to act. Remember your customers and staff holds your future in their hands. They control your revenue, your profitability and they are the central point on which your economic performance balances. Events are a powerful opportunity to leverage your brand and promote your services to this influential group.
Got some more queries? Why not check out the team at JH Events?
JH Events, Sydney Australia
Use the OPIR method to accelerate reading and learning.
Overview
Read the front and back covers. Look at the flaps inside each cover. Read the table of contents, looking for subjects and headings that are of special interest to you. Use a highlighter to mark out anything that stands out. This should take no more than 5 minutes.
Next turn the pages quickly, about 30 to 40 a minute. Get a feel for the way the book is structured. Read a paragraph here and there to get a sense of the style. This should take no more than five minutes for a 300 page book.
At this point you can decide if the book is worth reading. If nothing has caught your attention, discard the book. Throw it away, put it on a shelf, or give it away. You will never read it.
Preview
Turn the pages again one at a time. Stop and read an occasional sentence or paragraph. Read the first sentence or paragraph of each chapter if it helps to have some structure. Read any questions or summaries at the end of each chapter. Seek a better sense for what you will learn when you read more. Use a highlighter to mark out sections that you want to spend more time on. Limit this phase to ten minutes.
In-view
Return to the parts that you are interested in and skim the relevant material. Read each paragraph or page quickly. Drag your hand or finger down the page to keep your eye moving. Slow down for anything that is particularly interesting for you. Use a coloured pen or highlighter to mark useful passages. Make notes in the margins. Turn down the page corners or colour page edges for any pages that you might want to access quickly. You should find it relatively easy to cover the good parts of a 300 page book in less than half an hour.
Review
Review what you have learnt. Return to the pages you have marked. Read your notes and what you have highlighted. Make a separate aid memoir of what you have learnt. Mind maps are a useful visual way to create your learning record. Google Mind maps if you havent come across the term or want to know more.
Finally, note how you plan to use the learning and schedule any relevant actions in your ‘To Do’ list or calendar.
The whole OPIR process should be complete in less than an hour. The you use it, the faster your will become. This will save you at least an hour and probably two for every book you apply it to as well as double or triple retention.
How would you describe life? What is it? In a short little book of the Bible written by the Apostle James we find the answer. “Life is but a vapor. It’s here for a moment and then it’s gone.” Another of the Apostles described our lives in much the same way saying, “All flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls away.” In two short passages of Scripture we are given an extremely sobering and important reminder.
The inspired words of the Apostles should remind us that so many of the things that steal away our time, energy, effort, and finances won’t matter much in the end. The things that keep so many people awake at night suffering from anxiety induced insomnia are all temporary.
Our lives are vapor.
You and I are as grass. The achievements that currently seem so incredibly important to most of us in this age, just like a dying flower will wilt away into nothingness.
Regardless of how much we exercise and how carefully we monitor what we eat, the mortal and corruptible bodies we are currently wearing will eventually begin to wear out, break down, get sick, and die. There is no avoiding it. Do some research. Check out the death statistics yourself. They are startling! Surprisingly enough, one hundred out of every one hundred people die.
Think about the thousands upon thousands of diplomas proudly displayed in offices around the globe. We spend a fortune in student loans paying for that diploma and a tenth of our lifetime working for it in the hope that it might help us land a better paying job. But have you ever thought about where that diploma is going to eventually end up?
One day your diploma, along with your framed employee of the decade certificate are going to find their way into a cardboard box in someone’s garage or attic. Eventually your children or grandchildren are going to have a yard sale to free up some space for extra storage. Your plaque and diploma will find their way out onto the driveway in the ninety-nine cent box on top of a folding table.
The neighbor from across the street will wander over to pick through the loot. When she sees the diploma and employee of the decade certificate in their shiny frames she is going to be overjoyed. As she lifts them from the ninety-nine cent box your grandson will walk over to ask if she needs any help. They will haggle over the price for a minute or two before she walks away with a smile on her face carrying the two prizes she purchased for a total of fifty cents!
Immediately after making her way back across the street she will grab a screw driver to pry open the back of each frame. She will pull out the diploma, crumple it up, and toss it in the trash followed immediately by the cherished employee of the decade certificate. She will then run to her computer to print out a picture of her dog and one of her cat, put them in the frames and hang them on her bathroom wall.
“All flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls away.”
James Flanders is a musical artist, writer, audio blogger, and full-time student of Scripture. You can find some of his music on sites like CDBaby and Rhapsody. Dozens of his audios can be found on YouTube and his main site “The Path Of Grace.”
There is no doubt that 3D Secure and Verified by Visa are successful anti- fraud techniques and are definitely options that merchants should discuss with their internet payment provider. This added security step has been proven to reduce fraudulent transactions and increase consumer confidence when paying with credit cards online, but there are still many factors that need to be taken into consideration when deciding whether or not to add 3D Secure to a website.
Carl Buchalet CEO of Cashtronics payment systems explains how at Cashtronics they look at each merchant individually and decide whether or not 3D Secure is in the merchants best interest.
From our experience at Cashtronics the advantages of adding this extra security measure for merchants are clear:
Reduces the risk of fraudulent transactions.
Decreases the number of disputed transactions.
Shifts the financial liability away from the merchant.
Boosts some consumers confidence- often leading to increased sales.
Although there are clear anti-fraud benefits, they need to be carefully weighed against potential revenue losses and problems that can arise from using 3D Secure:
Additional Obstacles to purchase: Each security field that is added to an online form has been proven to dramatically lower the % of successfully completed transactions.
Poor Communication: Many customers have no idea what 3D Secure is; consequently they close the browser window, leading to lost sales.
Security Issues: Some banks require a customer to keep a card with a series of secret codes on it. This is often the same card that is used to authorize wire transfers on the bank account so cardholder then carries this card around with them, exposing them self to hard fraud.
Browser Problem: Sometimes the 3D secure request field is on the bottom of the screen and not seen by the customer- again causing high abandonment rate.
Unfriendly Protocol: The web browser connects to unfamiliar domain names and can cause extra delay and crashes.
Complicated Process: A password is often required and customers often forget it!
Added cost: Many payment providers charge an additional fee for 3D Secure.
NOT Fraud Proof: Many thieves catch cards in the postal mail, so they can usually set up 3D secure on their own fairly easily since they have new cards and enhanced information. Also even the 3D secure system has become the target of some phishing scams.
To reduce the problems that can arise with 3D secure merchants should ask potential internet payment providers the following:
1) Is adding this extra step in the best interest for the business given the field it operates in?
2) What are the additional fees for processing 3D Secure and Verified by Visa?
3) Are 3D secure transactions in house, as outsourcing adds to the cost & difficulty of the transaction and can reduce the level of security.
4) Does the payment provider have experience in processing this type of transaction?
In general, a payment provider should be able to give each merchant an idea of the volume of sales that they will loose depending on their industry, and will then calculate how much can be gained on charge backs and fraud by offering 3D Secure; then it is just a simple calculation to see which case yields a higher ROI.
In the past few years, the population of Panama has increased. One cannot be surprised by this fact because Panama is truly one of the special places in the world. It connects the two American continents and has everything one can ask for, as a vacationer or as a resident. Panama vacation condos spread throughout the country make perfect temporary homes for all those that come to this scintillating island for their vacation. And if someone wants to invest in Panama, there are some excellent resources for Panama real estate sales-rentals-information.
Why vacation in Panama? Our question is, why not? Think of anything that you would want included in your vacation and you can find it here. If you want to see the sights and sounds of a large city, Panama City is a great place for you to be. Its skyscrapers, its plazas, its cafes and its entertainment destinations make the capital of Panama one of the most sought after vacation destinations in this entire region. Its a beta world city and that says a lot about it.
Beaches cover Panama on the north and the south. So, you shouldnt have any issues finding one for your vacation. A visit to the San Blas Islands, the jungles of Darien and the islands of Kunayala can make anyone vacationer feel that their trip has been complete. The mountain towns of Volcan and Boquete are awe inspiring. Just pick up your copy of Lonely Planet and you will get information on many more places that you should visit here. Panama may be tiny in size, but it sure makes up through its areas of tourist interest.
Hotels are found all over Panama because its such a popular tourist destination. Panama vacation condos provide you alternative options in accommodation. Panama vacation condos can be found spread throughout Panama City and also in some of the other parts of the country. These condos are preferred by vacationers because they are more economical than some of the hotels and offer a home like environment. You can rent one of these vacation condos for a week or a month or even more and have a grand stay experience.
Investment in Panamanian real estate has also seen a huge boom in the recent years. The Panamanian government is actively seeking investment in real estate and it has made it much easier for people from outside to settle down in this tropical paradise. The West Beach area is a posh area and has some of the best housing options in the country. If you are looking for Panama real estate sales-rentals-information, the internet is always there for you. However, there are some real estate agencies that provide better Panama real estate sales-rentals-information. These agencies find out what you want and show you what you want to see.
Deal with real people when you need Panama vacation condos and Panama real estate sales-rentals-information. You will be shown the choice properties so that you can strike a deal then and there.