This is making them the cardinal drivers of growth in business and, of course, highly influential in terms of modern connection and communication as they are the largest living generation on earth.

So, how exactly do you attract millennials to your association or organisation? The issue lies in the fact that previous generations are the ones trying to recruit new members. This, quite frankly, isn’t possible if you don’t try to get inside the mind of a millennial. It’s the age-old struggle of one generation trying to relate to the next.

By understanding why millennials aren’t joining your association you will gain insight on how to attract them. To achieve this, you need to understand what they want.

You don’t understand what they want

Millennials value their personal time. More so than their predecessors. Work/life balance is the most important thing to this generation. Putting work before family and friends is simply not an option and when it comes to personal fulfilment, they’ll even change career paths to obtain it. They are purpose-driven individuals.

What has this got to do with how they buy into any workforce or associations? Well, millennials won’t simply sign up to an organisation for its benefits. They will only buy into an association if it is mission-driven. They want to know if your association is aligned with a cause.

They will only give the time of day to an association that is actively contributing to a cause that resonates with them, so, pick a cause that empowers your members to work together to accomplish shared goals.

You aren’t telling an emotive story

This ties into our first point. Marketing for associations in the modern era needs to be emotionally driven. It needs to tell a story. It’s probably time you reassess your marketing strategy entirely. A change in messaging can work wonders for connecting with millennials.

Author, Janet Litherland puts it superbly:

“Stories have power. They delight, enchant, touch, teach, recall, inspire, motivate, challenge. They help us understand. They imprint a picture on our minds. Want to make a point or raise an issue? Tell a story.”

This is exactly the kind of content that millennials look out for. You could go so far as saying it’s what defines them. They look for the meaning in everything. So we suggest you find the meaning in what you do, what your association represents and incorporate your purpose into you marketing efforts.

You probably haven’t given them much responsibility

Once you’ve attracted some younger members, we suggest you empower them. Millennials cherish transparency and can be quite sceptical of leaders. They want to be taken seriously, so why not add someone younger than 40 years old to your board? This way, you’ll not only get the respect and attention of a younger generation, but you’ll also be able to hear directly from them. It shows them that you value their voice. Give them responsibility and allow them to be a part of crucial decision making.

You’ll find that they too want to make your association better, more accessible and more relatable so listen to them, allow them to offer feedback. This creates an environment of true collaboration and you’ll most likely find that their input will improve your association.

Millennials are a tech savvy generation and often have their finger on the pulse, offering refreshing, and incredibly current insight. The world is advancing by the minute, so why not have someone who has grown up during the information age help guide the direction of your organisation?

Are you using social media?

It’s imperative for your association to make an impression through social media, as this is where millennials spend a lot of their time. Around 88% of 18-29-year olds use social media. Further to this and according to Fortune, millennials spend roughly 27 hours a week consuming media online.

The important aspect to recognise here, is that millennials are using this time to inform themselves on the world around them. This means that you should tie our first two points together and turn them into engaging and aesthetically pleasing content for posting online.

These are some of the ways that you can aim to connect with millennials online and attract them to your association. Pair the above with a targeted digital marketing strategy and millennials will be far more likely to join your association. For more insight on marketing for associations, get in touch with us today.

Let us delve deeper, here are 4 reasons as to why you should be utilising Google Analytics, especially when it comes to marketing for associations.

1.  Website tracking

The analytics tracking features on Google Analytics are an effective and accurate way to pull data from your digital marketing efforts. One of them being the website tracking tool, which is how your association can accumulate and analyse even more specific results. Want to learn how to set up analytics for your association’s website? It is not as difficult as you may think.

Thanks to Google’s usability, you can track your association’s website, and any other relevant websites quite simply. By using website tracking, you will get excellent results, enabling your association to grow efficiently through informed business decisions based on the demographics of your website visitors.

2.  Real-time reporting

Google Analytics offers real-time reports so you can see exactly is on your site at any given time.

This is very useful when it comes to marketing for associations because it gives you the opportunity to look deeper into your association’s audience. Why would you want to do this? To gain a deeper understanding of your audience’s demographics. This way, you will know who to target in future. It gives you all this information, enabling you to build even stronger digital marketing strategies for forthcoming events.

It also allows you to view the most visited pages on your website, giving you a clear picture of what your audience is interested in – identifying what resonates with them.

When I speak of demographics, I am referring to where your audience lives in the world, what their age group is, their education level, income level, as well as their gender. This is valuable information that every association needs to know. You should be building everything around this.

Furthermore, these real-time reports show you what attracts your audience, from keywords to referrals.

3.  Placing data into categories

Analytics can be confusingly expansive. That is why placing this data into categories will make the process of translating it much simpler.  Google analytics has the solution for this.

By using the Google Analytics’ URL Builder you will be able to create UTM parameters easily. By doing this, you can gather information on behalf of your association about the overall efficiency of your marketing campaigns, while understanding where they are most effective.

With this tool, you can add parameters to any of your website links.

Additionally, it gives you options on how to track your links. From your campaign sources, such as the social platforms you are using or even based on the format you are using to host your links such as a banner or email.

4.  Mobile friendly

The best part of it all? Google Analytics is mobile friendly – perfect for the travelling professional.

80% of internet users have migrated to mobile and of course, Google has adapted to this extraordinarily well. Google Analytics for mobile allows us to measure and optimize their collected data on-the-go. This is beneficial because it means you do not have to stress about finding a desktop or even carrying a laptop with you while travelling.

There are two ways to utilize Google Analytics on a mobile device. To start, simply download the app for iOS or Android. Yes, there is an app – could it get any more convenient?

Conclusion

In summary, Google Analytics gives you a clear picture of where to focus your digital marketing efforts in order to maximise your association’s success.

It is imperative you integrate it into your futures strategies as it allows you to see how many visitors your website gets, but more importantly, how many of those visitors bounced. This is incredibly useful because it shows you how many of your visitors started your customer journey but failed to find what they were looking for.

Why is this important?

Sometimes, all it takes for a visitor to bounce is the usability, navigation or design of your website.

Google Analytics gives your association the opportunity to alter a few things such as:

• Mobile optimization
• Design
• Content length and value

In short, it arms you with the tools to earn new members and retain the members you already have. If you are looking to give your association a complete digital transformation, get in touch with me.

As a result, social media for conferences is now fundamental to their success. Furthermore, encouraging user-generated content at your conferences is even more crucial.

What is user-generated content?

User-generated content is any form of content created and posted by an unpaid user. Whether it be testimonials, tweets, pictures, videos or blog posts, it is essentially the act of users promoting a brand rather than the brand promoting itself.

Now that you understand what it is, why should you encourage user-generated content (UGC) at your conference?

• It can supplement branded content
• UGC shows that your brand is open to conversation with your audience and listens
• It is a great way to stand out amongst your competition
• UGC puts your audience front and centre
• It provides social proof
• It is more trustworthy, therefore unbiased content

Conferences are perfect for user-generated content as they are interactive and experiential.

Regarding social media for conferences, as you can see, the benefits are tremendous, with no choice but to start applying these tips for encouraging user-generated content immediately.

Plan your goals

What is it exactly that you want to achieve with this user-generated content? Is it to promote the experience from a delegate’s perspective? Is it to promote your keynote speakers? Do you want to gain repeat attendees? Whatever your goal, it needs to be pre-planned.  Once you have established this, you can then begin to accumulate this content. You should base your goals on your target audience and where they live online.

This will then determine the information you request, and the conversations attempt to get started. If you’re unsure of your target audience, it is imperative to find this out before you plan your goals.

Giveaways

A tried-and-tested technique that always produces results. The truth is that people love competitions because we all love giveaways. If you are looking to encourage user-generated content at your conference, then make it known to your audience.

The most effective way of achieving this is through competitions. This is because you indirectly determine their tone of voice and therefore generate the content around your event.

How? By setting clear instructions. If you set guidelines, attendees will feel more confident when talking about their experiences. Through setting up a competition, you will also be incentivising them to do so.

Ensure that the requirements of the competition are clear and simple to follow.

Social Media for conferences: Integrate technology

Integrating technology into your conference is an effective way to get your attendees engaging on the day.

There are many ways to do this, but the three most efficient methods are as follows:

·         An interactive photo booth

Set up a mobile photo booth at the entrance of the venue, so, once attendees have registered, they get a photograph taken of their team.

These can easily be branded then uploaded on to your event page, and as a result, you will have people tagging themselves in the images.

·         A social media wall

A social media wall is a live feed of social posts from platforms displayed on a digital screen. This is an incredible way of encouraging user-generated content because many people resonate with this form of engagement.  

Why? Because they will get to see their posts on a big screen for in front of everyone that is there.

Posts using specific hashtags or handles are filtered through to the display, which constantly rotates new content automatically, displaying the social media interaction and engagement from your conference in real time.

·         A quick questionnaire

If your delegates register electronically on a tablet upon arrival, then why not include a quick questionnaire?  It can be made up of two questions such as, “What are you most looking forward to at the conference?” and “How do you feel attending this conference will benefit your association/business?”.  

Create awareness around your conference

Having an in-depth digital marketing strategy is still very much a necessity. Aspects such as branding, promoting your event page and a frequent, well-curated social presence is essential to creating awareness around your conference.

Effective social media for conferences is what will fill your seats. User-generated content is supposed to maximise the presence you have already established. The foundation of this is built through the creation of an authentic hashtag for your event as this is what users will use when sharing their content online.

If you are looking for a digital marketing transformation, and more specifically social media for conferences, get in touch with me. With over 20 years’ experience in the MICE industry, my solutions are specifically tailored to our industry’s needs.

Flat Design

This is a minimalist design approach. It utilises clean and open space, straightforward two-dimensional illustrations and brilliant colours. The reason behind this approach is due to the need for fast-loading websites. Users do not like to be kept waiting – we have very little patience when it comes to browsing the internet. Loading time can severely affect your bottom line, or in your case, the conversion of a prospect member to an official member.

According to Akamai, 53% of visits to mobile sites are abandoned after 3 seconds. Further to this, simple design, if done well is always attractive. It reduces the clutter that more detailed, intricate designs bring. Flat design leads to your important information being at the focal point of your site.  So, this year, go for a more rudimentary approach.

Bots and Machine Learning

Conversing with bots has become standard for us now. Last year saw substantial progress in artificial intelligence and the capabilities of bots. Multiple businesses are benefiting from incorporating bots into their web design. These benefits include more convenience for their users because of instant responses that filter their issues, directing them to appropriate contacts. What this does is save time for your audience, connecting you instantly with your prospects. More organisations in the MICE industry should be incorporating machine learning into their web design. This would be for the purpose of member satisfaction and member acquisition. Satisfied prospects can directly lead to membership.

Mobile-Enabled

Mobile search has now become the highest search form across the word. In fact, Google now prioritizes mobile sites over sites that aren’t mobile-friendly in terms of the sites they index. To stay on-trend, associations need to start by designing their sites for the mobile user first. This should prioritise creating a version that will be compatible for desktop.

Not only will it help with SEO, but it will make your site user-friendly for all members, no matter the device they use.

Micro-Animations

Micro-animations are an effectual way of providing an intuitive and satisfying experience to your user. By including simple animations that help the user understand the site showing them that they are navigating your site correctly. This can be a simple change of colour when the hover over an icon or more information expanding when they hover over a word such as a drop-down menu. These animations keep the user engaged – resulting in lower bounce-rate and higher conversions. Strive to make your site as immersive as possible, enriching the experience of the user.

In 2019, we will see websites become flatter and more striking in design. In addition, websites will push for ultimate accessibility and quicker response times. Having a modern on-trend site is one thing but for the purpose of marketing for associations, this needs to be combined with an in-depth, targeted digital marketing strategy to get the right people to your site. For a full digital transformation, get in touch with me. I deliver results for stakeholders within the Meetings, Incentives, Conference and Event Industry as well as for Associations and SMBs

In a survey conducted by EventMB’s 2018 State of the Event Industry which had 2,223 respondents, a mere 24.6 per cent of planners stated that they are considering investing in influencer marketing, while 32.6 percent said they do not intend to at all, which left 42.8 per cent of them stating they have no idea.

I believe that influencer marketing is the future of the meetings industry and I will tell you why. First off, for those who are unaware of what influencer marketing is:

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is a variety of marketing where the focus is on influential people rather than on a brands target market as a whole across social media. It is the utilisation of individuals who have influence over potential customers for marketing purposes.

Genuine influence

Now, the difference between paid advertising and influencer marketing is that the latter has an invested audience whom they have accumulated organically.

Their audience is made up of individuals that respond to the content they share. Not only that, but the content shared shapes their perceptions, moulding their personal goals, ambitions and perception of true living.

How does this pertain to the meetings industry?

Through the use of influencers, associations and event planners can tap into a niche, industry-specific markets. The markets you need to speak to and engage in order to garner new members and event attendees. By utilising certain influencers, you will be targeting an audience that is already active and receptive to certain subjects.

By harnessing these already established relationships, it will stretch your social media reach further than simply posting content online and setting up a paid advertising strategy to support it. Associations need reach, and influencers have it – genuine reach. Meeting planners need to engage attendees, and influencers can do it on their behalf.

What does this mean?

With credible influencers, their audiences will more than likely lap up any information by that particular individual. So, this means better results. Even though you will pay for it, the reach is much more credible and authentic than simply setting up paid advertisements.

According to Word of MICE, 81% of consumers’ purchase decisions are directly influenced by social media posts. The meeting industry is slowly catching on in terms of realising where their audiences reside. However, they need to make up for lost time concerning the benefits of influencer marketing.

Now, let us delve a little deeper.

Influencers share their experiences and products. They generate and post creative content through a wide array of platforms such as video, blog, social media posts etc in order to raise awareness or foster interest in their activities and interests, tapping into a like-minded community.

Therefore, influencers form part of the community that they engage with and act as a reliable connection between brands and consumers. They provide a practical perspective to their network. It is a combination of marketing and PR, except more human.

How do you find influencers for the meetings industry?

This is reliant on what type of event you are going to organise and manage. Some events may require micro-influencers which are more niche for accessing more specialised markets.

If you are hosting an event that is more general and business orientated, these influencers could be on LinkedIn. In order to source such individuals, you will need to conduct extensive research. Look for individuals who share articles on best practices and trends or have active, engaging conversations online that are relevant to the industry you are targeting.

Tools for identifying influencers

Technology offers a vast range of innovative social tools that will help you to not only identify and engage with credible, industry-specific influencers but also help you build, organise and track an identification strategy. Influencers can be just as, if not more effective than a revered industry spokesperson with regards to attracting interest in your meeting. This is of course down to their authenticity, relevance and following.

Potential attendees of an event or meeting are often looking for reassurance from people they trust before committing. You will discover that there are authentic, powerful individuals out there that are passionate about elevating the profile of the meetings industry. It is just a matter of finding and building mutually beneficial relationships with them.

If you are looking for expert advice on event planning and management, get in touch with me today. We offer solutions specifically tailored to multiple sectors in the MICE Industry.

In this blog, we outline the importance of marketing for your exhibition, how crucial it is to plan that marketing activity and finally, we share an exhibition marketing plan template for you to download and use for your 2019 exhibitions.

Exhibitions have stood the test of time and even in 2019, are one of the best face-to-face marketing channels for several industries and businesses. Exhibitions offer the perfect opportunity for brands to engage with their customers, suppliers and potential partners.

Preparing for your exhibition is no walk in the park and involves a lot of moving parts! Decisions and arrangements need to be made around your exhibit design, stand management, set-up logistics, operations and much more. One key item you need to plan for is your exhibition marketing.

Marketing your exhibition:

Marketing before your exhibition starts is key. Regardless of what you have prepared for your exhibition, if there are no attendees or guests do not know about your exhibit, all your hard work and preparation will be wasted.

You want attendees to come to your stand with intention and interest, rather than stumbling across it or worse – not coming across it at all. Putting together an exhibition requires a lot of energy and resources. You’ll want to make sure that you make the most of the opportunity by getting the right guests to attend, allowing you to have those valuable conversations and showcase your brand.

These are the three important stages when marketing for your exhibition:

• Pre-exhibition marketing: Marketing efforts ahead of the exhibition to generate interest and encourage visitors
• Live exhibition marketing: Marketing efforts that take place during the exhibition to attract guests to your exhibit and encourage other last-minute guests to attend
• Post-exhibition marketing: Marketing efforts that happen after the event to leverage the full impact and brand benefits of the event

Each of these stages requires different marketing activities to support them. In today’s digital era, much of the activity will be online marketing. In order to manage and effectively action the various activities, you need to prepare a plan.

Planning your marketing for your exhibition:

We can all agree on the importance of marketing your exhibition – but how does one go about actually carrying out that marketing? What marketing should be done? Which channels should you use? What exhibition marketing timeline should you follow?

Creating a solid plan for your exhibition marketing will help you to clearly define and manage your marketing goals for the exhibit, ensuring that there are actionable steps to take for each marketing activity. Creating an exhibition marketing plan will also allow you to assign various tasks to different team members and make sure that everyone is pushing towards the same objectives for the event. The plan should detail what activities will be done, what the purpose of each activity is and what they hope to achieve, deadlines and who is responsible for each task.

2019 Exhibition Marketing Template:

We’ve looked at the importance of marketing your exhibition and have discussed why it’s important to plan that marketing activity. Now, all you need is a marketing plan template to guide you.

Overall Objectives:

To start off, you need to be clear on what your goals are for the exhibition. Do you want to have valuable conversations with new suppliers and build stronger relationships with current suppliers? Are you looking to generate new, quality leads?

It’s important for your marketing plan to begin with some measurable goals. This will make sure that the marketing activity you undertake supports reaching those goals.

Budget:

Secondly, your plan should detail a budget for marketing activity. This will ensure that your marketing activity is the most economical choice considering your resources.

Team:

Assigning responsibilities to various people on your team is a great way to ensure that things get done on time. Your marketing plan should detail which team members are working on marketing your exhibition and be clear on who is responsible for what.

Pre-exhibition marketing:

These activities need to create awareness for your exhibition. Your target audience, be it your customers, suppliers, partners or other industry stakeholders need to know about your exhibition. They need to be excited by the event and be encouraged to come and visit your brand.

Live exhibition marketing:

Once the exhibition starts, your marketing efforts do not stop. At the exhibition, there is a wealth of opportunity for you to market your brand. From creating and sharing content from the exhibit to engaging with attendees online, this key stage must be used to its full potential.

Post exhibition marketing:

Once the exhibition is over, your marketing efforts should not yet end. After the exhibition, you have the perfect time to consolidate your time and experience, sharing that with your audiences and aiming to extend the reach and impact of the event as far as possible.

Performance:

Lastly, your plan needs to detail how you will measure the success of your exhibition. Having these Key Performance Indices (KPIs) in mind while planning and carrying out your marketing will keep you focused on the end goals.

Exhibition marketing ideas:

The activities you choose for each stage of the marketing plan need to effectively reach your target audience and incite action from them. You need to think of clever exhibition marketing ideas that will catch the attention of potential guests and encourage them to attend.

Not sure which marketing activities you should put into each stage in the template? Here’s a list of some great resources that share excellent exhibition marketing ideas.

• 21 Clever Exhibition Ideas
• Marketing Tips to Promote Your Exhibition
• Top 15 Ideas to Attract More Visitors
• Exhibition Marketing Ideas for Beginners
• 20 Creative Promotion Ideas to Increase Attendance
• 18 Awesome Exhibition Marketing Ideas
• 20 Ideas to Drive More Attendees to Exhibitions
• 21 Clever Ideas to Get More People to Your Exhibition

So, there you have it. Exhibition marketing plays such an important role in the success of your event, and ultimately, your brand. We’re sure that you are aware that some of these tasks can take up a lot of your time. That’s where we are come in to assist. At FM Waechter, we have built up valuable connections within the MICE industry and the digital marketing arena. We understand the challenges that businesses big and small face. So, why not get in touch with us here. We would love the opportunity to see how we can help your brand.

Are you doing your own digital marketing for an event, conference or association? If you’re a Digital Marketing Director or CEO, chances are you are currently responsible for this or at least have been before. I understand how stressful this can be and are aware of the complexities it entails.

In the modern climate, many corporations, associations and destination bureaus are being faced with over-burdened staff and diminishing spend. Not to mention a lack of expertise or know how in the rapidly changing digital sphere.

As a result, many of them have had to reassess their event strategies, thus turning to outsourcing for their event marketing needs.

There’s a wide array of benefits when it comes to outsourcing a digital marketing company to manage your event requirements. This is because running an event is an intricate and expensive undertaking so the preparation and management of every detail count, especially when it comes to foot traffic, the overall success of your event, and maximising your budget.

How do you know when to outsource? Have you thought about the reason as to why one would? Here are our 8 reasons why you should outsource your digital marketing for an event from this moment onward.

Save time

This one is seemingly obvious but if you outsource your digital marketing needs to an agency that does it for multiple clients daily, you’ll save so much time because of their experience, the number of people that will be working on your event simultaneously and their ability to get tasks done quickly and efficiently.

Agencies are also aware of all the added value you can acquire through digital marketing and are experts at implementing strategies in order to do so – getting you more for your money, more out of the timeframe and adding to the experience with content creation ideas.

Reduce costs

This also means a decrease in expenditure. Getting more done in less time because of able bodies and experience means getting the most out of your budget. As the saying goes, time is money and you’ll find that by using a digital marketing agency, you’ll save more money than you ever anticipated.

Think about if you had to go at it alone. You’d have to hire several experts to help you action strategies effectively and efficiently. With a digital marketing agency, the package or hours you pay for will cover the huge cost of attempting it internally, never mind the tedious task of having to brief new employees on your vision. Their staff already have the depth of skills needed which means no HR headaches either.

Tap into industry experience

By outsourcing to a digital marketing company, you’ll be tapping into years’ worth of collective experiences such as using content marketing methods, video and social media marketing which is backed by professional data analytics to gain trust from your attendees. At FM Waechter, targeted, interactive and measurable promotion are used for events.

These include:

• Social Media Marketing
• Content Marketing
• E-Mail Marketing
• e-Commerce tactics
• Mobile App Marketing
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Data Analytics

An in-depth digital marketing plan is the foundation of a successful event and achieving your goals in terms of interest and numbers through the door.

Focus on your core business

When the digital marketing aspect of your event is covered, it gives you the time to focus and expand upon the things that you do best. By freeing up internal resources, you will effectively be enabling your team to be able to focus on the areas where they maximise their time.

As you’ll be well aware of, a successful event demands a detailed master plan and a timeline and budget that is followed strictly. This pertains to the practical, physical side of the event. By outsourcing your digital marketing, you and your team will be able to focus on these defining aspects.

Creativity

Digital marketers are creatives. They are capable of marketing your event or conference in an authentic, captivating, and compelling way. They will also do so objectively; sometimes one can be too close to the project. Never underestimate an outside perspective on your ideas.

Expert digital marketers will assist in making the event a success because they have a world of ideas and industry insight. Further to this, they execute these ideas and strategies with a marketing mindset and instinct toward your expectation and vision.

Learn from them

When you outsource your digital marketing, these individuals will become your partners in strategizing. They will work with your people on a daily basis. This will result in your staff learning crucial methods from them. This can only be a positive thing for building the expertise of your internal resources and may just save you money further down the line.

Conclusion

With so much on your plate and so much to be offered by outsourcing this critical element of you event, why hesitate? Speak to a specialist in digital marketing for events immediately! For advice, solutions and ideas on how to make the most of the opportunities that Digital Marketing offer your event, get in touch with us!