When developing a plan—business plan, marketing plan, event plan—it’s important to distinguish between goals and objectives. What’s a Goal? A goal is a broad target that your business wants to achieve. In the case of a 3-day trade show that anticipates 3,000 decision-making directors of human resources (HR), the primary goal may be to generate sales. What’s an Objective? Objectives define how you know when you’ve achieved your goals. They must be ... – Read More

Whether hosting a celebration event, in-person presentation, or online webinar, the marketing communications team needs to hit the objective for “number of butts in seats.” The event invitation is your primary tool to achieve this objective. For the purpose of this blog post, let’s assume this is an email invitation promoting a complimentary live webinar. A landing page has been created, which provides more details. Format matters Decide if the email will be text-based ... – Read More

If you have trade shows looming in the fall months, you’re probably planning them now. A successful trade show—or any event for that matter—is the result of sound planning and execution. 10 tactics to deliver a successful trade show Did you participate in this trade show last year? Read the Post-show Report. How can you improve as a result of what was learned? Read the Post-Show Report from the most recent trade show your company participated. How can you ... – Read More

LinkedIn is a great forum for asking questions and getting well thought-out answers. Recently, someone asked what goes into an event debrief. Since I’m a firm believer in tracking the results of marketing initiatives, I was happy to provide a response. The value of a Post-Event Report starts with a solid Event Plan. Pre-event Read any historical evidence that was documented as a result of participating in this specific event in previous years, or similar events Do a ... – Read More

More and more events are using social media networks to connect with a larger virtual audience, and tapping the live audience to exponentially extend the event’s reach. As marketers, it’s up to us to figure out how best to leverage these tools within our own event plans. What you leverage depends on your goals; your audience; your valuable and scarce resources (people, time); and whether you’re an attendee, exhibitor, or speaker (or the event organizer). Using Cisco Live as ... – Read More