5 ways rock star planners create great experiences
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5 WAYS ROCK STAR PLANNERS CREATE GREAT EXPERIENCES AN INTRODUCTION TO - A PUBLICATION OF CLARITY EXPERIENCES - A GUIDE TO ACHIEVING ROCK STAR STATUS AT YOUR NEXT EVENT
Transcript of 5 ways rock star planners create great experiences
5 WAYS ROCK STAR PLANNERS CREATE
GREAT EXPERIENCES
AN INTRODUCTION TO
- A PUBLICATION OF CLARITY EXPERIENCES -
A GUIDE TO ACHIEVING ROCK STAR STATUS AT YOUR NEXT EVENT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3Intro
4Experience Inspiration
7#1. Experiential Goal Setting
9#2. Singular Theme
11#3. Engage Your Team
14#4. Integrate Team Building
16#5. Elevate Your Game
19Conclusion
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
How a great experience can affect your brand?
An interesting thing happened the other night. It was about 8:30pm, and my daughter was having problems with her old model MacBook Pro Laptop. After a short family dis-cussion, my wife said “Why don’t you go to the store and buy a new computer?” Within 5 seconds, I said, “Sure,” and within 1 minute, I had my keys in-hand and was on my way out the door.
Let me first mention, I consider myself a savvy husband, and when my wife asks me to do something, I do it. However, this is a feature on ‘Experiential Marketing’. My quick re-sponse and overwhelming enthusiasm was prompted by an open invitation to spend mon-ey at the Apple Store. For me, as an experiential marketer, that’s like being 6 years old and having my mom come into my room and tell me it’s Christmas. Why?Because Apple is one of the world leaders in giving a customer an experience so innova-tive it parts its loyal customers of their money for their products easier than water falling off a duck’s back. If you’ve ever been to an Apple Store, you know what I am talking about.It’s not by chance. Apple spends millions on customer experience research and due to the contributions of its founder, the late Steve Jobs, Apple has meticulously perfected the mapping of the human brain to release endorphins to move us to ‘spend money’.
I plan to write an entire post on an Apple event and how they deliver design and experi-ential marketing to their events and, most importantly, how their events resonate with attendees.
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In my laptop story above, the power of Apple’s customer buying experience is that it captures the buyer’s attention and holds it throughout the entire purchase experience. According to psychologist Matthew Killingsworth, “The average mind is wandering forty-seven percent of the time. It wanders about a third of the time while a person is reading, talking with other people, or taking care of chil-dren. It wanders 10 percent of the time, even, during sex. And that wandering is not good for well-be-ing. A mind belongs in one place, and thus a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.”
Take a moment and think about Killingsworth’s theory, as it relates to your experiences while attend-ing church, your four-year-old’s dance recital, your child’s open house at school. Your attention is heightened while watching the overtime of a basketball game, attending a job interview, or observ-ing tragic events, such as the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. With each of these events, we can vividly remember sharp details of our surroundings. This is why, as it relates to the attacks on September 11, we can remember exactly where we were, who we were with at the time, and what the weather was like on that fateful morning.
So, how do we create an experience for our attendees that are memorable? It’s easier than you think, but it takes the right approach.
What type of experience do you want to provide to your attendees?Establish your experiential goals by focusing on the who, when, and why. Be specific in understanding the ultimate goal of what you would want your attendees to feel before, during, and after the event. Remember, the attendee experience is not limited to observing a keynote speech. We refer this to as “living on a prayer” in the experiential marketing business. ‘Putting all of your eggs in one basket’, to use another idiom, is lazy and risky.
Let me clarify; keynote speakers are talented and bring a wealth of knowledge and positively impact our experiences. They play an important role in our event. But it’s not their event; it’s yours. It’s your career that’s on the line. Take control and focus on making the event impactful from beginning to end. This is where you earn your Rock Star ranking. How creative can you be in moving people to feel something they weren’t expecting to feel before they walk into your venue? Examples of experi-ential goals could include feelings of happiness, anticipation, achievement, motivation, melancholy, reflection etc... How you measure the achievement of your goals is up to you.
What’s your singular theme? Hint: Don’t overthink it; subtle and simple is best.Find that clever focus on a singular theme or idea. Steer clear from ideas that are cliché, as the experience will manifest as lazy and uninspiring. Remember small surprises drive big experiences. People want to be around others who are clever. The attraction to ‘clever’ is it challenges participants to engage and be part of the engagement. The great thing about ‘clever’ is it can be delivered to all sensory faculties (sight, sound, touch, smell and taste). You can affect the feelings and motivations of your attendees with positive experiences. Challenge your team to think outside the box.
As an example, in a sales meeting to pitch audio visual services, we were asked to come up with an idea to help the event planner create a memorable experience for a continuing education seminar.We pitched the idea of giving each of the 1,000 lawyers ice cold face towels, branded with the logo of the event company, in the afternoon hours when energy and focus fades. What made that stunt memorable was there was a refreshing surprise of crushed lemon and cucumber in the towels. An instant fragrant pick-me-up the event planner uses to keep customers coming back year after year. A gentle and subtle luxury, worthy of the best spa treatment in an environment of learning.
The best way to enhance the experience for your attendees is to leverage AV.The most important aspect of ensuring a great experience for your attendees is to really ‘nail’ event production. In a previous post, “Top 5 ways to avoid a CLM as an Event Planner in managing Event Production”, I outlined 5 steps to protect you from disaster. After writing this post, I exchanged ideas and stories from planners, who wished they had read that piece when they started in the business. Many planners avoid audio visual, as it is elusive, unruly, and foreign. And nobody blames you. We all have our issues with AV companies, with invoices and contracts, and changes... Don’t get me started.
The point here is, don’t be intimidated. Be confident and demanding. Demand they plan far enoughin advance, set aside enough time to double check, even triple check the gear. Make sure they aren’t too ambitious with complicated production designs, but deliver on what was agreed. And most of all, put your reputation first in your relationship. Being a Rock Star Event Planner is about your ability to set the bar high and expect those around you to perform to your standards, not theirs.
If done correctly, the team building event will boost post event reviews and launch you to Rock Star Stardom!Team building is a must. It’s easier than you think and creates a great experience for attendees at your event. Team building can be as simple or complex as you wish. An example of a production level team building event we, at Clarity, recently implemented was a murder mystery. Clarity produced, from concept, an event that involved 8 sets of 25 participant teams. We utilized 1/2 of the hotel to create an elaborate themed session, which included paid performers to act out the different roles of the mystery characters.
Our experience tells us that in post event surveys and reviews, the most memorable experiences lie within these sessions. If you’re looking for high marks to achieve Rock Star status, a team building event is a must.
Be the most valuable person in the room.What separates the good event planners from great event planners is knowing the business aspects of the event industry. I have a lot of respect for planners and the right and left brain skills they pos-sess. For those reading this book, managing activities from budgets and scheduling to design and decorum, day to day, is no easy feat.
Make no mistake. If you want to really rip it, you need to understand the business. If there is any-thing you pull out of this e-book and implement in your career, this is it. Understanding the inner dealings between the vendors, the hotel, the venue, in-house AV, catering, even your own company. Don’t rely on someone telling you what you “need to know”, relating to who is doing what and who is paying whom. Believe me, in the ‘Big Boy’ world of major brands and hotel venues, lots of peopleand companies are getting paid. The secrets are in the contracts; and contained within those secrets are the answers to finding the dollars you need to implement the event you want.
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For Example:In-house companies pay a commission of over 40% to the hotel. Translated, if you spend $1 for AV, only 60 Cents gets put to work to implement your event’s vision.
Question:What if your event spend was $200,000? If you avoid using the in-house company, you will likely have an additional $80,000 at your disposal to put to work to increase the overall experience of your at-tendees. In Exhibit 1 below, you can see the effects of using an outside audio visual production com-pany. Your budget’s bottom line increases, freeing up additional spend to reallocate in other areas to increase attendee experience.
Exhibit 1
SHOW ME THE MONEY
Finding extra money in your event’s budget can be difficult. Schedule 15 min on my Google Calendar below and I’ll show you where we
ConclusionThe psychology of a great experience is a powerful tool we can all use to advancement of our careers. No industry is better suited to leverage the psychology of the senses than meetings and events if exe-cuted correctly. I’ve outlined several suggestions to provide such an experience.
I hear from planners all the time that ask me “how can I get my customer to take a risk to increase their budget to provide a better event or meeting?” My answer always comes back to what’s your goal with the event? Whats your vision? How will your goal translate to better ROI for your customer. Invariably, we always come back to how can we make the budget work in our favor to achieve what the planner wants and not have it cost an additional penny to their customer.
Creating great events to achieve Rock Star status isn’t easy and it requires bold thinking. But, if your willing to take these steps albeit incremental and partner with the right vendors that are committed to your success you will see your career elevate to levels you never thought possible.
Author Brief: John Fischbeck
John is a digital marketer and online experiential expert. With a background in psychology and degrees in marketing and economics, John’s work consists primarily in the areas of experiential mar-keting and growth hacking.
John and his team head up Marketing for Clarity.
“I’ve spent years studying the psychologies of events. My focus remains creating better live events that are memorable, entertaining and ed-ucational. We love to work with Clarity because , like us, they focus on delivering great experienc-es. I believe, Clarity’s experiential model is the future for Audio Visual Services and Event Pro-duction firms.” - John
