Customizing the Attendee Journey with Creative Content

When thinking about the attendee journey in the context of event planning, we often jump straight to the “what”. What does the attendee journey look like? What components should be considered? What makes it unique? Just as important though, is understanding how the attendee journey can be customized to leave a lasting impression on your audience. The answer to that question is often found in the way we use content throughout the full life cycle of an event to immerse and engage attendees. By weaving highly produced content throughout your event, you can elevate the attendee experience and build stronger connections between your audience and your brand that powers long-term changes in behavior for the better.

Ready to learn how to leverage content and production factor into the attendee journey? We’ve got you covered.

How to weave creative content
throughout the attendee journey

Before the Event

Define Your Goals

Your business objectives and goals are the cornerstones of your event design strategy. Having a clear understanding of those goals is critical to planning and executing an event that effectively engages your attendees. Ask the right questions to determine what you’re looking to achieve, how you want to change behavior, or what you want attendees to take away from your event to design your event accordingly.

Understand Your Audience

It’s important to know who your audience is and what makes them tick, before you start communicating with them. Take the time before planning your event to dig into the data—pre-event surveys, preferences, previous information from past events—so that your event marketing, communication and content strategy appeals to your unique audience.

Audience Segmentation

Effectively segmenting your audience can elevate event experience and deliver high ROI at the conclusion of your event. Gather data on your incoming audience, determine segmentation criteria (geography, demographics, behavior, psychology etc.), gather data to properly segment, and then customize your pre-event communication and delivery to actively engage each audience based on their preferences and interests.

Pre-Event Production

Understanding your audience gives insight into what your attendees want to see, but it also gives you the tools to determine how they should see it. Getting to know client goals, culture, and values allows you to produce dynamic campaigns and events that cater to how your audience best consumes messaging and connection.

During the Event

Elevate Message Through Professional Production

People don’t want to be talked at anymore, they want to be engaged with on a meaningful level. Thoughtful and creative production during your event can make the difference between an event that alienates your audience or strengthens their emotional connection to your brand. Whether you’re implementing a 200-foot LED screen, mobile interfaces with augmented reality, or creative signage, there are endless ways to immerse your audience to create a bespoke brand experience.

Thoughtful Incentives

Using the right products with the proper target audience creates the potential to spark a connection that strengthens your brand’s relationship with the recipient. Gifting provides tangible memories that don’t just put smiles on attendees’ faces, they also increase brand loyalty and enhance overall brand culture.

Content Strategy

The content that is created and presented during your event should be a continuation of the attendee journey. Think back to the goals you set to help develop a strong content strategy that includes micro-moments, technology tools, thoughtful conversation and presentations that will engage your audience and leave them walking away with the behavioral changes you wanted. And remember, using your content to tell a story over the course of your event is the most effective way to consistently engage your audience and stay connected.

Provide Attendees Options

Sometimes in order to provide optimal engagement, you need to break your larger attendee groups into smaller segments. This may mean you need to offer multiple options to please different attendee personas. Creating a “choose your own adventure” experience with different breakout sessions, learning styles, or options to connect can give your guests the opportunity to choose what experience is best for them and walk away from the event not just satisfied, but ready to return in the future.

Strategically Utilize Micro-Moments

Large format elements during your event like guest speakers, panel discussions and breakout sessions are key components to the experience. But weaving in small touchpoints throughout the experience to reinforce the emotional connection between you and your audience can be just as important to overall attendee experience. These “micro-moments”—custom greetings, personalized touches in guest’s rooms, thoughtful gifts—make attendees aware you’re paying attention to the details and care about connecting to them on a deeper level.

After the Event

Post-Event Follow Up

Following up with attendees post-event is an excellent way to gauge engagement, gather feedback and provide follow-up that can give you important insight into planning for the future and keeping attendees invested in your brand. Post-event surveys, media follow up (highlight reels, photo libraries, video content, etc.), and targeted gifting are great ways to follow up.

Capture Data and Adjust for the Future

Tracking and measuring your success can be one of the best ways to prepare for future events that exceed expectations. After the conclusion of your event, use the quantitative data points and qualitative feedback you’ve received from attendees to determine how well you met your goals and satisfied your audience. You can then use those insights to better plan for future or repeat events in the future.