FIT Meetings
Introducing FIT Meetings:
FIT meetings are all about generating energy, promoting health and wellness, and making your meetings and events exciting and productive. Typically, meetings tend to be long, multi-day activities packed with heavy content requiring attendees to spend long hours inside rooms. This saps energy and attendees tune out resulting in low productivity.
Wouldn't it be great if your attendees are mentally active & physically alert? EMA can help! Along with providing tips to stay energized and attentive, EMA can help organize group fitness classes, provide healthy meal planning, and design creative room set ups.
Workout Classes:
EMA can help plan group workouts whether on-site at your event or offsite working with local gyms and trainers. Anything from Yoga and CrossFit to group runs & even mindful meditation.
Healthy Meal Planning:
Realized that you're eating more at events? Have a meal request for Keto or Whole30? Three meals and 2 breaks a day can get quite filling and PILE on the calories. EMA can help create a calorie concious menu working with on-site or local chefs for healthier meals & breaks.
Creative Room Configurations:
Tired of sitting in a stiff chair all day? Missed your morning run and are feeling sluggish? EMA can design the best room set up for your team with alternatives such as standing desks, ergonomically approved chairs, sofas, and other options.
Fitness is in our team's DNA and we would love to help your attendees leave feeling refreshed and energized both mentally and physically. Contact us today!
Why hotels cutting commissions is good for the Meetings and Events Industry
I know this isn't going to start as a popular opinion, but I am in favor of the commission cuts from Marriott, Hilton, and IHG. While it has been mostly executed rather poorly, they are doing it slow enough that we as an industry have plenty of opportunities to evolve and not just survive, but thrive! Here is why I feel that this will have a huge positive impact on our industry.
It will elevate our role within the C-Suite.
A lot of site selection services bill themselves as a "free" service. Every time I have been pitched I always ask, "how are you free? Are you commission based?" I always get a reluctant, "Welllll, yes." I have also been to countless industry events where senior and tenured Meeting and Event Professionals complain about EA's or other admins competing for their job. While that is a much larger discussion, this is a part of it. These "free" agencies target those admins and enable them to seemingly perform miracles by executing a site selection and planning a meeting while they are still doing their real full time job. Think about if these "free" services went away. The executive asks his admin to find a hotel for 20 people for a meeting. The admin replies with, "Great, I need $5k." or "Great, I'm not going to be able to do blank, blank, and blank, because I need to research, contact, and review the RFP responses." How do you think that executive will react? Most likely a "What!? But, that you used to do that all the time for free." After a few times of spending some money or losing their admins time, the site selection process now starts having real value in that Executives eyes. Since it is now hitting their bottom line, their thinking shift from "oh this is just an ancillary task, anyone can add to their plate" to "maybe we should hire someone for this" be it that admin moving into a full time planning role or opening headcount to hire a full time planner.
Ethical Implications.
When we as third parties negotiate on our clients behalf, our judgement can be clouded if our revenue is tied to the rate they pay. We may end up paying more attention to the clients with a block at a Ritz Carlton instead of at a Fairfield Inn. If we don't make a dime off what rate they pay, then doesn't the client and the program truly win?
I would love to see our industry STOP the complaining and the whining and realize this isn't going to go away any time soon. Now is the time to pivot in our industry and future proof ourselves. Now is the time to have conversations about revisiting our business models and saying so long to the ways of yesteryear.
Why Exhibit Sales Managers SHOULD Care About ROI
I had a rather enlightening conversation while setting up at a show late last year. I was discussing the idea behind our agency with the event Sales Manager. He told me that whenever he signs a new client, he has a discussion with them about what they are doing to track results at the show. I was intrigued by his foresight, but, wanting to know more, I asked why. His answer was one of the most profound I’ve heard in a while and gave me a moment of clarity. Here’s what he said, approximately:
“You wouldn’t believe how many people have no answer or do not use metrics when I ask ‘How are you tracking your results from the show?’ That’s insanity to me. If I sell them a 10’x10 or a 10’x20 exhibit space and they aren’t tracking their leads and seeing what kind of pipeline the event generated, how could I ever expect them to want to be at another of my events? Great F&B is nice and all, but data, opportunities, and pipeline is what the CMO’s and Marketers are paying attention to now. So, if I have a new exhibitor who doesn’t have a plan, I can almost guarantee, they aren’t going to re-sign for my next event.”
It was like the clouds parted, the sun started shining and the angels sang. I have been to thousands of trade shows and not once has a sales person talked to me about what my plan of attack was for accomplishing my goals at their show. Was this man a visionary? Or, was he just using common sense and protecting his bottom line? Either way, I put together 3 questions for Trade Show/Sponsorship Account Execs.
1. Why is the company Exhibiting? AKA What’s their goal?
We all know trade shows are expensive to execute. From the over-priced internet access to not being able to move things around by yourself. So, an objective, be it Awareness or Leads, has to be in place to justify the spend. Ask your customers what their primary objectives are.
2. What are they doing to measure that success?
a. Awareness: How are they capturing impressions? Have they created a display that pushes the show rule limits? Are they all dressing up like crazy clowns with signs that say free hugs? On top of all that, remind them what the show #hashtag is so that they can not only promote themselves, but you, as a show producer, can help them accomplish their goals on social too.
b. ROI: Is it number of badge scans because they are still building their database? Is it meetings? Is it demo’s? 1:1 meetings? You get the idea. Here is the other thing, If they are trying to drive pipeline, and it is their first time at that show, please don’t try to re-sign us at the show. We have no idea whether the show was worth our time and money. Ask what the average sales cycle is and offer to follow up at an appropriate later time.
3. What does their post-show plan look like? Do they even have one?
If their plan is to let the sales guys show up, collect cards and then do the legwork, they are going to be in for a rude awakening. Also, how quickly are you getting your client the attendee list, if you are offering one. Discuss timing and how quickly they will be following up. There is a LOT of noise post show; so, being the first person to reach out is tremendous when it comes to standing out.
Happy Hunting!
- David T. Stevens
The ROI of Event Marketing
When I started my career in Event Marketing, the word Marketing was conveniently omitted from the job title. I was an Event Manager. The only Marketing involved was letting the Marketing team know how many people had showed up to the event. Those were simpler times. As the old saying goes, ignorance was bliss.
Fast forward to 2016, 12 years later, and the old saying has been changed completely. Ignorance is no longer bliss, it is just ignorance.
We can no longer just throw money at events and hope for the best. As budgets are scrutinized more deeply, and companies depend on all aspects of Marketing to be an income generator, rather than a cost center, we are now responsible to prove our actions and decisions.
But how do we prove the unknown? Where it was once acceptable to show a full theater as a KPI achieved, we now know that a good portion of those guests may not have been potential customers. Where it was once demanded that we stay within budget for an event, we now know that budgets should be more fluid based on the desired outcome of the experience.
So how do we move from “Ignorance is Bliss”, to “Data-Driven Event Marketing”? It is easier than you think. I’ve put together a list of 7 data sets that I have found to be the most important and impactful for proving the event was worthwhile, and worth repeating, or more importantly, not worth repeating.
1. Email/ Digital Invitations
Design 101 says that the packaging is the most important part of the delivery. From your subject line, to your messaging, all aspects of your invitation must be taken into account before hitting the send button. Is it an email you would open? If the answer is no, don’t send it. Make sure you test, test, test, and preferably with an unbiased, outside source.
If you can enlist your marketing team to back up the event with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter posts, as well as website updates, blogs, and newsletters, so that your guests are more familiar with the content, location, time, guest speakers, entertainment, etc., you’ll have a much more successful open rate.
2. Open Rate
It is very important to know your audience. Knowing exactly who you want to attend your event will ensure a better open rate for your invitation based on relevance and interest. The greater open rates will begin to prove the worthiness of the event itself. A greater open rate equals a greater attendance of the appropriate people.
3. Attendance
So, the event is starting in 15 minutes and only half the chairs are full. Where is everyone? Rather than set yourself up for day of panic attacks, make sure you do the following. Send out weekly reminders to your “Yes” list. And always send out a “Day Of” reminder to maximize butts in seats. If you’ve followed steps 1 and 2, the “Yes” attendees should be the right people, so let’s make sure they actually show up!
4. Socialization
Were your attendees breaking down the four walls of your event and sharing the information they learned to a larger audience? Did you create low friction opportunities for them to share your information? Was the event #hashtag properly utilized pre-event and displayed prominently during the event? Were your speakers’ LinkedIn profiles and Twitter handles displayed on slides, printed materials, and on the website? Are you planning on having a dedicated person or team available on site to communicate with your audience members who are engaging your brand/ speakers/ other guests on social?
The post event social metrics are a valuable addition to your overall event ROI reporting. If your social footprint was low, look to enhance your social efforts for the next event with the suggestions above.
5. Spend vs. Return
This is probably the most important ROI aspect, and also the hardest to capture. For my events, I work toward a 5X return. That is to say, for every dollar I spend on an event, I want to make five dollars back. Tracking this information depends on a vital partnership with your sales team, as well as someone who works within your CRM platform. To use Salesforce as an example, your CRM platform manager must create a campaign within Salesforce with the name of the event you’re tracking. This way, when your sales team enters prospect/ customer data into Salesforce, they can mark which event that person’s sales cycle began. This allows that sales cycle to be tracked, and thusly their spend can be attributed back to the event that was marked in the CRM platform.
Having your CRM manager send you monthly reports showing the customer lifecycle spend helps you prove, over a number of months, the actual ROI of your event, and gives you definitive proof of whether an event is worth repeating.
6. Overall Annual Event Comparison
It’s also important to look at your entire event calendar holistically and see your winners and losers. This is especially helpful when planning for future events. When plotted on a chart, perhaps an event that only made 2X ROI isn’t so bad if another event had a 6X return. Rather than cutting the 2X return event, maybe this is an opportunity to adjust, rethink, or experiment with a different approach.
It is also a great way to show leadership why you are making certain decisions. It is much easier to agree and accept a decision based on objective data, vs. subjective date.
7. Post Event Surveys
Although surveys have a typically low open rates, when people do choose to open and take your surveys, the data captured can be vital feedback. I always recommend both an external and an internal survey. Feedback and criticism are extremely valuable tools for improvement. And we always want to be improving.
In short, we can no longer operate in vacuum. As Event Marketers, we have to be able to definitively prove the value of our events, and argue in favor of our budget asks with clear, objective data that leaves our leadership without questions.
-Tom Spano @TomSpano
Director, Event Marketing
SteelHouse, Inc.
Event Marketing: Strategy, Content, or Channel?
In the chaos that is marketing today, I read with interest Samuel Scott’s recent blog “How Google Analytics ruined marketing”, and from there his previous blog “Everything the tech world says about marketing is wrong.” Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly in today’s marketing world dominated by Digital Marketing buzz, there was no mention of Event Marketing in either of those posts. I found this very ironic given that most tech companies spend upwards of 20% of their marketing budgets on event marketing!
Coming back to the topic of this blog, I was nevertheless intrigued by Scott’s argument that most marketers today do not understand the basics of marketing and confuse strategy vs. content vs. marketing channels. That led me to ponder where event marketing fits in? Is event marketing a strategy, content, or channel? Or something else?
On the face of it, one could simply state that event marketing is just another channel to deliver a message to a target audience. Similar in concept to how email is a channel to deliver a targeted message to a set of recipients. However, the more I thought about it, the more interesting it got… and here are my thoughts. I would love to hear yours.
In general, Event Marketing is a unique, and one of the most complex, marketing tactics. It is the only marketing tactic that brings customers and prospects in direct face-to-face contact with brands and brand ambassadors (employees, sellers, marketers, retailers, etc.) in the pre-sales process. In the process, events:
Provide a channel for content delivery: Deliver content to the audiences as a marketing channel and create awareness (e.g. through exhibits / booths, presentation sessions, publicity through sponsorships, etc.)
Provide a source for content generation: Generate content through discussions, audience engagement and feedback (e.g. focus groups, special interest group discussions, expert sessions, etc.)
Create a high-touch environment for audience engagement: By bringing together brand ambassadors, experts, visionaries, executives, engineers and others in a focused setting, events uniquely create opportunities for strong audience engagement that could lead to new ideas and opportunities yet to be discovered.
Consequently, events can contribute the following benefits to marketing, and to the business:
Leads – strong interest in a product or service offering with inclination to consume in the short-term. These are direct indicators of sales potential for the brand requiring immediate follow up from sales and marketing
Publicity / Buzz – as measured by sentiment expressed, or feedback given by the audience. This may or may not indicate an interest in making a purchase, but it can generate valuable awareness and publicity
New ideas – for a product, service, message, or engagement. These cannot be directly translated into revenue-related metrics in the short-term, but, could provide guidance for the company’s direction, its products and services, and best channels for engagement
So, when considered holistically, event marketing is more than a simple channel for marketing. It can be much more. To make it much more, event marketers (and marketing strategists) should plan well for the different benefits events can bring by working with different stakeholders. Here are some examples (some obvious and some not-so-obvious):
Sales and Marketing: Impact on generating new leads, influence existing pipeline, and cross-sell / up-sell to existing customers
Content: Creating / generating content is not easy, and can also be very expensive. Rather than create content only by hiring expert writers, find ways to capture content that gets generated at events. Plan ahead to capture videos of presentation sessions and ad-hoc interviews. You will be amazed how much content you can generate with very little additional cost
Idea Generation / Validation: Doing focus groups and market-based testing of new concepts and products can be very expensive. You can save a lot of money and time by simply engaging with your event audiences and having them test drive your products, services, messages, etc. while at the event
References: Happy customers attending your events can be a great source for developing valuable references. Hosting customer-appreciation forums and recognizing successful customer deployments can all build goodwill and generate valuable references
You can elevate your event marketing efforts by thoughtful planning, proper execution by collaborating with your different stakeholders, establishing measurable outcomes, and meticulous tracking and reporting of outcomes.
David's EMA Story
I would like to start with thanking you for taking the time to read this. I am now one of the luckiest people on the planet to have found my professional true love. Events. Meetings, Conferences, Trade Shows, Incentives, Road Shows, SKO's, etc. I love doing them ALL!
Back in 2002, I walked away from a six figure salary in Telecom to work at a radio station full time for ~$12k a year. I was BROKE, but I woke up every morning with a smile on my face, even though there were days I didn't have food in the cabinets. This was it! I had found my professional passion.
Fast forward 14 years; There has always been a glaring struggle that seems to either be forgotten or is a constant struggle to define. Ready, it's only 3 letters: R O I.
Getting my start in radio really brought me a new appreciation for Event Marketing. If you think about it, those kids standing out there in some beat up pop-up tent are Event Marketing. Radio does a couple parts of the Event Marketing process really well. Pre Event and During Event. However, the follow-up leaves much to be desired. Even the event marketing during the activation is ok, but it's usually only on one channel and can produce inconsistent results.
After the radio stations, I bumped things up a notch and got into Experiential Marketing. Experiential, is still event based marketing, but with a the idea of a higher impact from the campaign. These events usually focus on being where the people were and creating a draw. Most of the time, very little pre event promotion, CRAZY engagement on-site, and mediocre follow up post event.
From there I turned my attention to moving in-house within corporate. Most of the aforementioned time was spent working with and for agencies. I wanted to really truly understand what the heck was going on with these clients. The constant last minute changes, the 180 degree pivots. You all know what I'm talking about it. So I set out and did it. Well, what an eye opening experience! Here I was thinking surely, they must have this all figured out. The strategy. The pre, during, and post Event Marketing and follow up. A thoroughly vetted way to define ROI and measure results. It became apparent that companies were starting to fall into rather distinct stages of their event growth.
Stage 1: They have started doing events because someone convinced them it was a good idea. Which, it is. However, they pinned this VERY cash and resource heavy duty to someone as a secondary task and have little to no tracking. Since this person can't focus on these events exclusively, deadlines are missed, strategy is rarely even brought up, and follow up is left to the sales person on site.
Stage 2: These are the companies who have a couple event people, but the company is growing like crazy. They are staring down the barrel of a crazy busy season and are panicked trying to figure out how they will survive without their friends and loved ones forgetting they exist.
Since I had been both, in house at agencies and courted by them, I knew there was nothing out there to really help these people. Then there was a coffee meeting w Vinay that changed everything.
Vinay wanted to talk to me about how I used his company Goombal at a previous company and was able to manage twice as many events as other planners. We talked, we debated, and came out on the other side with a service offering, and a pricing structure that we don't think anyone has ever seen before.
Flat rate pricing per event. Think of it like walking into In-N-Out. No commissions, markups, or management fees. Just our time.
Experienced people. Let's face it, when you know what you're doing, you can get more done in less time. So, since we have partnered technology with phenomenal people we can get more done in a day.
So, are we here to revolutionize the event agency world, no. But can we keep you, the planner from missing your family? Yes. We've been there, we've survived and we think we can help you at a price you could potentially just bury on your P-Card.
Vinay's EMA Story
Before I became an entrepreneur, I had read and heard that one idea often leads to another – either by design or by circumstance. Surely, in this case, it was circumstance followed by design that led to the creation of EMA.
David was working as an Event Marketing Manager at Duetto Research (a small software company in San Francisco), and a mutual friend Tom Spano introduced him to me. David decided to give Goombal a try to run his marketing events. Soon, he figured out that he could run his events very efficiently and scale his efforts by utilizing external contractors by managing all the work in Goombal. In essence, David discovered a way to work around the headcount shortage problem.
Fast forward a few years later, David was looking for a new opportunity. I was trying to figure out what I could do with the frequent feedback I was getting from small companies and departments of larger companies that did not have the right event marketing staff but needed to run events. They were trying to find a reliable way of getting marketing events executed successfully and achieve desired ROI without having to (or being able to) hire an experienced person or team.
David and I met a few times, tossed around several ideas, and, before too long, the idea for EMA started to take shape. Around the same time, Mark Seymour (an independent Event Marketing Consultant who specializes in Sales Kickoffs, User Conferences, and Incentive Meetings) and I reconnected and started to talk about the idea behind EMA. Mark was also intrigued by the idea and the opportunity, and started to help craft the foundation for our offering.
So, here we are now, with a collective 40+ years of experience in event marketing and CRM, feeling excited by bringing a unique offering to market. What excites me is the fact that we have a very compelling, and affordable, offering that is designed to solve a problem completely for our clients in the best possible way! And deliver ROI with integration to CRM that is hard to obtain, measure, and manage.
It is not simply about hiring a good event marketer, or purchasing a good software. This is about bringing the best of both worlds to the benefit of both our clients and our team of event professionals. It simply cannot get more exciting!
I look forward to hearing your feedback and ideas as we mature our offerings and serve your needs. Give us a call, give us a try. You will be impressed!