Before you host an event, you need to be able to answer the following questions clearly and succinctly. Why have you decided to hold your event? What key messages do you want to communicate? How do these messages fit in with your organisation’s larger values, vision and goals? And what means are you going to use to ensure that you impart these messages effectively to your audience?

In other words, the content of your event is crucial. Without it, your event will lack coherence, relevance and meaning. Here are a few critical points to bear in mind as you consider what your event will communicate:

Be strategic

Your content isn’t going to come together by accident. Your messaging needs careful foresight and planning, and it’s well worth getting an expert on board to help you with this process. Although you might know what you want to say, translating this into an event takes expertise and experience.
An important aspect of this strategic process is content mapping, which involves consciously deciding where and when your content should be released, which communication channels you should use, how it should be presented and which audiences it should target. Your content mapping process might involve deciding to follow up an in-person presentation with a YouTube clip, written summary or podcast a few days later, for example.

Think long term

Yes, your event will take place over a short period of time, after which, it’s back to business as usual. But it’s important to remember that in today’s digital world, your event’s messaging will live on long after your event has wrapped up. The presentations, videos and podcasts that come out of your event might be circulated for months or even years to come. For this reason, it’s essential that the content you disseminate is on point, and that it accurately represents your business.
Another aspect of this approach is what we call content stacking. This refers to deliberately staggering the information you share with your audience, not only to increase its longevity but also to make it more accessible and easy to consume.

Make use of your audience

User-generated content is no newcomer to the eventing industry, but that doesn’t mean it’s lost its shine. Allow your audiences to engage with speakers in real time by broadcasting their tweets, and incorporate their vox pops into your daily highlights videos. You might also want to repurpose your attendees’ Facebook and Instagram posts for future promotional material. These authentic voices are worth their weight in marketing gold.

Use all the channels available to you

While your keynote addresses and breakaway sessions are important, it’s equally important that you use all the other channels available to you to help your attendees learn and grow. Your social media engagement should be proactive and slick, and your website and customer service portal informative and useful. Also, it’s a good idea to link your means of communicating with your messaging. If you’re hosting an IT conference, for example, make use of unusual and cutting-edge technology to get in touch with your audience.

At Worx Group, we believe that content is king, and keep our mantra of “clear and concise communication” top of mind in everything from our brainstorming, to debriefing sessions. For our views on this and other eventing trends, download our 2019 event trends e-book. Alternatively, contact us today to see how we can help you with your content and everything beyond.