Roadmap: The Value of Creating a 3-Year Event Strategy
By: Margaret Core and Megan Campbell
Creating a three-year event strategy can help your organization adopt a more strategic approach to every aspect of its meetings. Find out how the Biotechnology Industry Organization did it for its 20,000-person international convention.
Imagine you are preparing for a road trip that will be taken in three different stages: point A to B; then 12 months later, points B to C; and finally 12 months after that, traveling from C to D. The journey is easier if you have a map and if there are multiple passengers, including one person who knows the way to serve as leader for the others in the car.
As association event professionals, this “three-year trip” involves guiding our events to reach established attendee, exhibitor, and programming goals and to support our organization's mission. In the Biotechnology Industry Organization's (BIO) case, we do have multiple passengers. We are an association–agency relationship driving the overall positioning, branding, and attendee recruitment for a 20,000-person event with more than 2,100 exhibitors. Our passengers are our key stakeholders (the association board of directors) and our respective staff teams.
So what about that map? Three years ago when we first started working together as a team, we knew we needed to create a sales and marketing plan with all the strategies and tactics outlined for our next event. First, we took the time to invest in creating a five-page, three-year event strategy.
No matter what your attendance—200, 2,000, or 20,000—taking the time to document your three-year event strategy is time well spent. The process and debate in developing this document leads to richer and smarter annual plans. Additionally, the process is a great morale booster as staff and team members collaborate, discuss, and confirm your event assets and opportunities.
Do not be intimidated by the thought of creating a three-year strategy, and there is no need to run out and buy a “create-a-marketing-strategy-in-a-day” type of book. Your strategy document does not have to read like an MBA business thesis. It should take the USA Today approach with charts and graphics so that the messages are clear, concise, and accessible to everyone.
BIO’s Three-Year Event Plan Outline
Following is the outline we developed for our three-year BIO International Convention event strategy document in 2006, for our events in 2007 through 2009.
Event Background and History
Competitive Analysis—Other Industry Events
Current Event Positioning vs. Desired Event Positioning
Steps to alter current event positioning
Steps for event branding (overall messages and theme-specific)
Desired Growth Forecasts
Attendance
Exhibition
Educational programming
New programming
New programming partners
Three-Year Strategy
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Strategic Steps to Reach Three-Year Strategy
A specific example from our three-year plan was our strategy in year one: position our event as a true global event. Why? Although we host our event only in North America, 35 percent of our attendance comes from outside the United States, we host 300 international public officials, and we have 30 country pavilions on the exhibition floor.
Here are some of the tactics we employed to support the strategy in the first year:
We changed our event name to focus on the “international”—BIO International Convention.
We dropped the word “annual” to focus on “international.”
We moved away from using city location photos as the graphic part of the campaign.
We added a tagline to the logo, “The global event for biotechnology.”
We created a Google map highlighting international attendance by country for inclusion in event literature and on the website.
The top four tactics in year one have since become integral to our branding efforts. Developing tactics like these within a three-year event strategy helps to focus your team, your leadership, and yourself. This mapping exercise points your vehicle in the right direction and prepares you for the trip. Yes, there are stops, turns, hills, and valleys along the way, but the map lays out the plan and serves as a great reference throughout the journey.
Posts
