By: Tara Higgins, President, Hargrove & SVP Commercial, Encore
In part one of our look into the world of B2Me℠ marketing in event planning, we discussed the process of audience evaluation and the commonalities shared across all audience demographics. B2Me℠ recognizes that understanding the audience goes beyond demographic and industry sectorizations and seeks to design events for the individual. Our approach asserts that there are three key collective audience essentials as part of every event experience: human connection, immediacy, and authenticity.
Elevating the event planning process to center around these three guiding insights allows us to design bespoke experiences that excite live, virtual, and hybrid participants.
By specializing in the intricacies of engagement, experience, and content strategy, we deliver the three audience essentials – regardless of medium.
Human Connection with Engagement
Do your events just assemble people, or do they truly connect them? A strong engagement strategy generates feelings of power and purpose through attendance. Participants are enriched, energized, and empowered by being part of a shared human experience.
Engagement is twofold; it cultivates a sense of community and connects people directly, whether in a shared physical environment, virtual setting, or a mix of both. Selecting engagement tools that connect all participants is key, regardless of venue or location. Break out sessions, chats, and live polling can all be utilized to foster connection while providing valuable insights about the audience experience.
Immediacy through Experience
In a world that is dominated by curated digital platforms and targeted direct-to-consumer marketing, you can no longer rely on your audience to simply attend. The root of B2Me℠ event design is in hyper-personalization.
Your event needs to be an immersive and visceral experience. There must be sensory appeal that draws people in, inviting them to show up, tune in, engage, and leave feeling changed. In-person and virtual events need to be designed with the individual experiences at the forefront, while also creating pinnacle moments that transcend beyond time and space, leaving lasting impressions for all audiences.
Authenticity in Content Strategy
An effective content strategy goes beyond sharing information; it reinforces the bond between companies, brands, and consumers. It leaves a legacy influenced by culture that is quintessentially unique and speaks directly to your audience. You must communicate with the audience through messages and in ways that speaks to them directly and powerfully.
Shared challenges have given audiences new perspectives and re-prioritized values. Communication of all kinds – brand, business, internal, external, association, government – has evolved to accommodate new contexts and new outlooks. Your content strategy needs to cut through the excessive noise of the present and digital worlds to reach your audiences with messaging that is authentic and captivating.
Understanding your audience will always remain a key piece of the discovery phase as you design the engagement, experience, and content strategy that drives each event. But ultimately, you’ll be challenged to design an experience that speaks to the individual needs of each attendee. As planners, marketeers, makers, creators, producers, and hospitality professionals, it remains our purpose to look to the unexpected and conceptualize the “wow” of unforgettable, shared human experiences. Whether an in-person, virtual, or a hybrid event, this desire for a unique experience and connection remains.
The B2Me℠ shift may change how we create the flame, but the spark still ignites, creating the power to transform events into engaging experiences.
Hargrove from Encore. In Transformed Times, Events That Transform.
Hargrove has delivered thousands of live events for 75 years. Today we also plan and deliver thousands of virtual and hybrid events. In making this statement, we humbly recognize the ongoing trust placed in us by our global client base. We gratefully acknowledge the passion and professionalism of our dedicated worldwide teams. And we proudly continue to grow our skills and knowledge base – and to offer our insights and best practices to events professionals everywhere – as we work side-by-side to futurescape the events industry.
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