Upgrade Your Event Planning and Marketing with AMS Data Insights
Don’t rely on member and attendee data collected before or during the pandemic to make event decisions. Behavior and preferences have changed for many. Members who faithfully went to events no longer can or want to. I know people in the association community who used to be road warriors but are now content to be homebodies.
Members who once scoffed at the idea of virtual events are now asking for more. But others who work from home can’t wait to get out and mingle with others in real life.
In this topsy-turvy world, historical data isn’t so reliable, but recent AMS data reflects how your members and customers are living now. Use that data when planning and marketing events.
Use Recent AMS Data to Design Association Events
Collect member/customer data that helps you better understand the different segments of your target audience and answer questions like:
- Who’s likely to attend an event?
- What topics interest them?
- What kind of event experience do they prefer?
While you can’t entirely predict the future, you can make some logical deductions. But first, you need updated data.
Use a variety of tactics and channels to encourage members to update their profile, such as polls and forms that request their interests and information about their career or business. Note any hot topics for different career stages, business sizes, positions, and other demographic attributes.
Track behavioral data that provides clues about the topics that have interested your target audience in the past year.
- Webinar, course, and other educational event registrations
- Email clicks
- Web page views
- Community discussions
Check your AMS data for audience segments that are large or active enough to support specialized tracks or workshops. For example:
- Position or professional specialty
- Career stage or aspiration
- Region, if local/state regulations are an issue
- Alumni of a specific course or certificate program
Look at the geographic distribution of members to determine where you can plan local or regional meetups or conferences.
Plan quarterly orientations and meetups for first-year members so they can expand their network and feel like part of your association community.
What can you learn about members who have never attended a conference? Are they engaged in other ways? Reach out via email or survey to find out what keeps them from attending. You may learn something that can inform your future program design. If expenses are an issue, create alternative ways for them to get education and networking.
Leverage AMS Data to Market Your Events
In the past, you might have focused event marketing on the audience segments most likely to register. But with modern technology, as long as you’ve collected the right data and tagged records appropriately, you can do more targeted marketing than ever before.
The emphasis is on “targeted.” Never ever send your entire list the same promotion. This old “spray and pray” tactic shows a lack of understanding and effort. Generic emails are boring and usually irrelevant for many.
Specificity sells. Segment your database by different engagement levels, interests, career stages, positions, business sizes, etc., so you can speak in specifics to members and customers. They expect this specificity because that’s what other brands do.
If you collect data about a member’s interests, your marketing copy can highlight the impact of sessions and activities related to those interests. On the membership application and during onboarding, ask members for their reasons for joining so your copy can connect those goals to conference benefits. These reasons change over time, so ask members every year at renewal what they want out of membership in the coming year.
Market to past attendees differently than to those that have never attended an event. Make explicit connections between event benefits and the challenges and aspirations of the audience that hasn’t attended. But, given pervasive budget cuts, you can’t take past attendees for granted. Therefore, you need to highlight improvements and sell this year’s event just as strongly to this audience.
If you track engagement, you can identify at-risk members, the ones who may not be seeing the value of membership because they’re not taking advantage of it. Add them to reengagement email campaigns and consider giving them special treatment at the event such as a membership coaching session.
Put non-members into a special marketing campaign. Some associations offer a registration package that includes a discount on membership. If you go this route, add these new members to a special onboarding campaign too, since membership might be an afterthought. However, be sure to determine if an offer like this devalues membership and how existing members who paid full price may react.
Enhance Event Programs Based on Registrant Data
Registration is an opportune time to collect data, but you don’t want to create a barrier to registration by asking for too much. Instead, follow up with registrants to ask for information that will help with event planning. The more specific you are about the reasons for your request, the more likely they’ll comply.
Ask about their conference goals and expectations, interests, and the type of people they want to meet. Make program tweaks based on what you learn. For example, if you discover that many early-career attendees want to meet older members, schedule a structured networking event with rotating discussion tables. You can also use this valuable engagement information throughout the year.
A conference or membership buddy program can match interested first-time attendees and first-year members with loyal attendees and/or active members.
Run registration reports to identify large attendee segments—positions, business size, career stage, etc.—that may want opportunities to get together. Set up lounges, lunch or breakfast tables, or express tracks for that attendee niche.
Don’t rely solely on the opinions of committee members when designing events and marketing campaigns. To understand your audience and persuade them to register, you need data about their interests, engagement, career, and business. Use that data to make informed program decisions and to craft effective marketing messages. Specificity sells, but you can’t be specific (or relevant) without AMS data.
This 3-minute video gives you a peek at MemberSuite’s Events Dashboard and the event data you’ll have available at your fingertips.