Want to get the latest updates impacting content marketing? Were you unable to attend this year's Content Marketing World event? No problem, we've got the event covered. Here are some key takeaways that will answer some of your questions surrounding social media and marketing challenges like:
What is content marketing? How do I create value using content marketing? What are leading brands like Kraft, Charmin, Chipotle and SAP using with content marketing?
Below is a storify capturing some of the digital industry's leading experts and speakers. Which tweet do you find the most useful? Please share by adding a comment below.
This Just In... Content provided by Andrea Cook. Since 1999, her Chicago-born consultancy, The Midas Center has created award-winning marketing and media solutions to law firms, education facilities, non-profits, artists and hyper-local communities. She is a digital pioneer, media coach, editor, art director, cowork owner and consultant for hire. Services vary, Event Correspondent services preferred.
Want to hire an event correspondent to amplify your event and optimize your brand? Contact Andrea Cook today email >
Joyce McKee led a conversation with Joe Pulizzi, the founder of Content Marketing Institute and Content Marketing World. The online presentation, titled If Content Marketing is the New Black, How Can You Turn It into Green (Revenue for Your Show)had over 60 slides and was packed full of rich content to help event professionals monetize content. Here is a review of this captivating session including tips on how to capture content to increase the value for your key event.
Century of Storytelling Joe talked about non-media companies who have been story tellers for hundreds of years. The example he shared was an old printed publication written and distributed on pulp paper by John Deere. There is a reason companies have sent marketing material like this out for the past century.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. What has remained the same is the need to tell stories to the market. What has changed is the cost to produce and reach the market.
Today's barriers-to-entry to get and give stories that are relevant to the market are gone. Writers are available, and the talent is easy to find. Consumers are seeking information and stories through a variety of technology with no printing, publishing, postage fees.
Companies VS. Publishers Examples of content marketers could include any business, like Google, P&G versus a publisher like Wall Street Journal, Mashable, etc. Publishers get paid from advertising and sponsors. Marketers get paid by attracting customers.
Both companies and publishers need to provide content that attracts a readership or market. Story telling has become the new journalist or copywriter and both companies and publishers must be sharing relevant information in a compelling way.
An improved approach to story telling needs to be attractive. Too much marketing at events talk too much about key features and benefits instead of story telling. Joe advises marketers to not write about the product or service. Instead, he recommends them to tell stories that attract and inform customers.
Today's Content Marketing As companies seek to grow their audience, market and customer reach through content marketing, just how much is being spent and what type of companies are realizing the value of this service? When asked how much is being spent on content marketing, companies with fewer than 10 employees spend 34% of their budget on content marketing. 79% of content marketers write their own articles. 65% have their own blogs. 63% have their own email newsletters.
What is the biggest challenge today? Producing content that is engaging, with a rise to 41% in 2011, from 36% in 2010 from the persons surveyed from Joe's research on Content Marketing.
Tips and Takeaways to Content Marketing and Events
Get Contributors Once a company is ready to tell the right stories, how are companies getting content out there? Joe shares an example of Amanda Makswmiw, a contributor to his web site. He sees value in building relationships with strong writers who want to share guest posts for added readership. "It's a win-win."
Partner Up Search results improve from optimizing content marketing using some of Joe's strategies. Content that is shared more by credible people will get more results. There is a big benefit to building partnerships and sharing content online. Provide cross support opportunities as much as you can to your partners by exchanging links and promoting them on your own site. Joe provides badges and publishes top blogger lists to help promote his partners like Jay Baer, TopRank Blog, Brian Solis and more.
Use a Hashtag Must have a hashtag. Use one hashtag for the entire event. It creates a community that socialize around the hashtag.
Provide Event Content On-Demand Like many other leading events in social media, Content Marketing World provides an on-demand offer, or virtual ticket. This raises the question many event producers ask. If I sell content from the event online, will the value for my event be compromised? Joe says, "No, overwhelmingly, people come to the event to network."
Repurpose Content Joe also shared details on how Content Marketing repurposes content from his event into growing viewership online with a variety of articles published online with a several partners, videos, webinars, and more. He is offering an affiliate program to boost sales.
Capture AND Publish Content Joe shared about a trend happening at many of today's events. Many capture content while at events. Think about it, how many events have you been to where you see photographers and video crews and podcasts swarming the conference floor? But, the content does no one any good if it remains in someone's flash drive. Publish the content. Publish it as much as you can.
Build an Event Content Strategy Content creation has to grow 24/7 and the event producer and staff cannot stop immediately after the event ends. Event producers must think like a publisher. To leverage event content, event promoters and producers must include content capturing as part of their annual plan and overall strategy.
This Just In... Content provided by Andrea Cook. Since 1999, her Chicago-born consultancy, The Midas Center has provided award-winning marketing and media solutions to law firms, education facilities, non-profits, artists and hyper-local communities. She is a digital pioneer, media coach, editor, art director, cowork owner and consultant for hire. Services vary, Event Correspondent services preferred.
Want to hire an event correspondent to amplify your event and optimize your brand? Contact Andrea Cook today email >
In the old West, there were a lot of cattle milling about. In order to tell one animal from another, each owner had a unique brand.
More recently, Mad Men and their successors expanded the concept of brands to the consumer marketplace, to distinguish one product from another. We all recognize Volvo (safety), Nike (Just do it) and Frontier Airlines (A whole different animal).
Today, the concept of branding has been further expanded to the professional services industry. With so many lawyers and law firms milling about, a brand is a valuable way to distinguish one lawyer and one law firm from another.
What is a law firm brand? It is the firm’s reputation, its promise to the marketplace. This is who we are. This is what we do. This is who we do it for. This is what makes us different from every other lawyer or law firm that claims to do the same thing.
By chance or on purpose, each law firm has a brand. If no one knows who you are and what you do, you have a weak brand. If potential clients at least recognize your name or tagline, you have a moderate brand. If potential clients know who you are and what you do, and for whom, you have a strong brand. You’ll be on their short list.
A law firm brand is not a commodity that can be pulled off a shelf. It must be one of a kind and true to the firm’s culture. The branding process requires research (including client research), creative thought, consensus-building, and consistent internal and external communication. The brand promise is conveyed by both words (like a tagline and content) and graphics (like a logo and layout).
Successful law firm branding and re-branding was discussed by a panel of law firm professionals at the July 10 program of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association (www.legalmarketing.org/rockymountain), held at Fogo de Chao restaurant in LoDo, Denver.
Panelists included Koree Khongphand-Buckman, regional marketing director of Hogan Lovells, David McCann, senior manager for marketing and communications for Snell & Wilmer, and Heather Nanstiel, senior designer for Holland & Hart. Moderator was Phil Nugent, managing director of NCG Strategic Marketing.
Each speaker discussed the recent branding or re-branding process at his or her firm.
Hogan Lovells In May of 2010, Washington D.C.-based Hogan & Hartson merged with London-based Lovells to create Hogan Lovells, a massive global law firm with 2,500 lawyers working from more than 40 offices located in 22 countries around the world. Its promise is to be the best provider of corporate legal services to multi-national businesses.
“We faced a truly daunting challenge,” said Khongphand-Buckman. “Internally, we needed to unify all of these individuals, from different cultures and speaking different languages, under one banner that would define and differentiate the firm -- and engender loyalty. Externally, we needed to communicate this new identity to clients.
“First off, we needed a new name that recognized both parents,” said Khongphand-Buckman. “I came from the Hogan & Hartson side, and we were very pleased that ‘Hogan’ came first in the new name. We know that the first name in a law firm name often becomes the ‘street’ name among clients.
“From the Lovells parent, we inherited a very distinctive citric green color,” said Khongphand-Buckman. “Right before the merger, Lovells had spent a lot of time and work choosing that color, including extensive research into the meaning of various colors in cultures around the world.
“The intense new color was hard for a lot of our more conservative lawyers to swallow at first,” said Khongphand-Buckman. “They wanted to change it. We had to remind them that use of this color was part of the merger agreement they had signed.
“There are still quite of few of our lawyers who do not love the new color, but they appreciate it,” said Khongphand-Buckman. “We have worked hard to explain the rationale behind it. Most of them understand the way this color sets us apart from other firms. At a recent conference, our bright green booth signage earned many converts.”
Hogan Lovells Logistics Once the firm had a name, a color and a logo, these had to be quickly applied to vast quantities of print and electronic materials – without word of the merger getting out ahead of time. Old materials had to be tracked down and taken out of circulation.
“Here in Denver, for example, we had a table sponsorship for an event the same month that the merger was announced,” said Khongphand-Buckman. “We had to make sure that our new logo appeared in event materials, and at the event, without the news getting out.”
New materials in English had to work in a broad range of English-speaking countries, with a broad range of acceptable standards, spellings and usages. In addition, materials needed to be properly translated into additional languages. The firm adopted the day/month/year date standard for all of its materials in all countries, instead of the month/day/year standard more commonly used in the United States.
“We also needed to arrive at a common graphic standard for our materials,” said Khongphand-Buckman. “Here in the United States, for example, brochures use lots of white space and graphics. Elsewhere, our offices used three columns of dense, eight-point text with no art to break it up. We had to find templates that worked for everyone. Luckily, our in-house design team was up to it.
“Finally, launch of the new Hogan Lovells brand came with local commitment to an ad campaign,” said Khongphand-Buckman. “Here in Denver, we were able to run ads once a week for six months and greatly improve our name recognition. This is something we had wanted to do for a long time.”
Snell & Wilmer Snell & Wilmer is a full-service business law firm with more than 400 lawyers in nine offices. The firm had conducted brand research in 2005 and 2006, which it used to launch a recognizable “walk the walk” ad campaign across its target audiences. However, this campaign did not extend to the firm’s other print and electronic materials.
In 2010, the firm decided to refocus and strengthen its brand. “We used the existing research,” said McCann. “Many of the lawyers remembered going through this process just a few years earlier, and we did not feel that there was a need to repeat it. Plus, the results were still valid. We found a number of lawyers who truly understood, embraced and valued the process, and recruited them for our team.
“Our previous branding efforts had a very practice-specific application,” said McCann. “We wanted to transition to something that had greater flexibility and spoke more directly to our firm-wide core strengths and values.”
Using the existing research, the group looked to capture and convey the firm’s substantive history of more than 70 years, its genuine concern for and commitment to clients, and the breadth and depth of its legal services.
“The resulting “time” theme (Strengthened by time; Tested by time; Trusted over time) was intended to focus not on how many years the firm has been in business,” said McCann, “but rather on the soundness of the skills and commitment to client service that the firm developed over those years.”
Support messaging focuses on straight talk, sound counsel and practical solutions. Enhanced graphic elements support the message of strength, experience and trust.
“While engaged in the branding process,” said McCann, “marketers need to appreciate the natural tension that can exist between marketers, who want to do something new and different, and lawyers, who are much more literal and comfortable with precedent.
“Be clear up front about your goals and expectations,” said McCann. “Maintain a healthy dialogue with participants. Never forget the value of compromise. Don’t let egos or minor issues prevent you from producing a quality end-product.
“Keep your perspective,” said McCann. “Remember that we are not curing cancer. Enjoy the opportunity to add real value to your firm’s efforts. Use your expertise to guide the process. In the end, launch the brand that the lawyers can live with and then concentrate on making incremental improvements going forward.”
Holland & Hart and HRO Holland & Hart is the largest law firm in Denver, with 15 offices and more than 400 lawyers. For many years, it operated under the tagline “The Law Out West.” As the firm supplemented its regional with national and international expertise, this tagline no longer worked. The firm’s new identity is graphic – with a recognizable peak in its royal blue logo and a stylized peak as an element appearing behind other, practice-specific art.
Before joining Holland & Hart, Nanstiel was creative director for eight years with Holme Roberts & Owen, now Bryan Cave HRO. “At HRO, we had a lot of in-house experience, so we did the vast amount of research ourselves instead of hiring an outside consultant.
“Our research showed 100 years of experience and a strong client orientation as distinguishing factors for the firm,” said Nanstiel. “We wanted to focus on the client and customized solutions to the client’s problems. After reviewing more than 300 law firm taglines, to avoid repetition, we selected ‘Experience listens. Be heard.’ Many of our ads featured pairs of experienced lawyers and satisfied clients.
“Your tagline must be novel, but also appropriate,” said Nanstiel. “It must be novel enough to stand out from the crowd, but appropriate enough to be true and to match the comfort level of your firm’s internal and external audiences.
“Involve the lawyers in the committee in charge of your branding process,” said Nanstiel. “Lawyers love process. By sharing the process, you can turn them into allies and brand ambassadors. However, lawyers are also trained to argue. Be prepared to defend your suggestions and leave yourself the ‘wiggle room’ to make reasonable concessions.
“You might arrive at a brand,” said Nanstiel, “but the branding process is never done. It must be communicated to and reinforced with not only external audiences, but internal audiences as well. Lawyers and staff must be excited about the brand and eager to share it outside the office, with friends at lunch or fellow-parents at a soccer game.”
A law firm’s brand is its reputation, its promise to the marketplace. It can be weak, moderate or strong. In today’s competitive marketplace, a strong and well-thought-through brand is one way to set yourself apart from other firms and make sure your law firm ends up on the short list for new business.
Article contributed by Janet Ellen Raasch, a writer, ghostwriter and blogger who works closely with professional services providers – especially lawyers, law firms, legal consultants and legal organizations – to help them achieve name recognition and new business through publication of keyword-rich content for the web and social media sites as well as articles and books for print. She can be reached at (303) 399-5041 or jeraasch@msn.com.
"If a bear poops in the woods, and no one sees it, did he really poop?" My answer to this question is: Who cares about a bear and his poop?
Butt... the question does illustrate event coverage and its value to your role as a marketing professional.
Consider this: what if there was someone in the woods, reporting live, broadcasting updates of the main takeaways through social media channels while including links to photos of the bear's expressions, his fellow forest creatures' reactions, the details of the scenery? What if there was someone not only telling the story surrounding this "event," but gathering rich content so that the story could be shared, retold and found again on a digital shelf for later?
Suddenly, the bear and his activity gets a bit more interesting. There may be no one in the actual woods who gives a hoot about the bear's activity, however there may be people "flipping through social channels" on their devices who are intrigued and tune in to learn more.
If the bear wanted more people to know about his "presentation," a professional could come and report from the scene, capturing photos, broadcasting the top takeaways from the limited scene of the forest to the endless viewership of online users and their multiple screens.
Live Coverage and Social Sharing Using hashtags and tagging other influencers through live updates throughout the event is one way to blast the message to the masses and spread the message. This social value allows creatures from all over the world to agree that, yes, that bear certainly did poop in the woods. They will talk about it and share photos with one another, spreading the proof to their friends easily. This is social sharing and it is a valuable component to optimizing brands online.
Content and Long-Tail Search Event coverage also allows the bear to have long-tail search benefits. Let's say, six months go by and people aren't talking about that bear in the woods any more. However, there are still people who want to know more about the story. They'll go to Google and type in some keywords in the search bar. I'd hate to see what kind of keyword - or the results that may appear... The content captured from the live event will have a long term shelf life and continue to validate the bear's activities through search results.
The Big Bear Brand Please bear with me as I continue to use this somewhat silly example to explain the value of event coverage. Before there was an event correspondent who captured the details and blasted the content of this event, no one even knew the bear except for the forest creatures in the woods. After the content is captured and broadcasted, the bear is now known to the masses. There is a brand awareness of the bear and his presentation in the woods. If you want to learn more about his presentation, you can go online and get more details on how to contact him.
It should be understood that although all bears poop in the woods, the one who has an expert event reporter covering the event wins. He wins so much, it is almost as if he's the only bear pooping in the woods. In other words, if no one covers the event, it's like the event never existed. (Don't rely on the cute rabbit in the woods to cover your event for free either, Thumper has his own story to share and it is not about a bear.)
If you spend countless hours on preparing a presentation, acquiring speaking gigs, traveling and speaking as an expert on a specific subject matter, you are investing a lot of resources into event marketing.
If you are managing a budget for 2013 and you have a lot of money dedicated to sponsorships for upcoming events, you are investing a lot of resources into event marketing.
If you are scheduling and planning to host events to grow your thought leadership and you are relying on sponsors and top quality speakers and attendees to buy tickets, you are investing a lot of resources into event marketing.
Optimize your event marketing investment by hiring an expert event correspondent who can tell the right story, at the right time using the right tools so that you can have ROI for the sake of brand awareness, SEO, lead generation and more value-added benefits across multiple marketing and business development functions.
Are you capturing the event and amplifying the content, or are you like a bear in the woods who no one ever heard of?
This Just In... Content provided by Andrea Cook, founder of Event Correspondent.com.Since 1999, her Chicago-born consultancy, The Midas Center has provided award-winning marketing and media solutions to law firms, education facilities, non-profits, artists and hyper-local communities. She is a digital pioneer, media coach, editor, art director, cowork owner and consultant for hire. Services vary, Event Correspondent services preferred. See what leaders are saying about this emerging practice here >>
Sheryl Sandberg on leadership with Ken Chenault, #fMC 2012
Since launching this event coverage practice 12 months ago, I've covered over 50 events, online and in-person, amplifying the brands and buzz for clients online beyond the four corners of the meeting room.
This service is on the horizon for an emerging practice as it publishes rich expert content that optimizes brand awareness and engagement throughout multiple social media platforms. An event reporter is a mashup of today's leader in event marketing, branding and PR. Are you investing in an event to connect your brand with your target market?
Here are five of the top reasons you need to hire an expert event reporter as part of your event strategy and how to optimize your brand and engage before, during and following your event:
1. More than Live Blogging I do more than live blog. I create spreadable media through a variety of media channels and tag online brands with high media influence. Check out my Blogworld 2012 Pinterest page for example. These pictures are also on Instagram and have been tweeted out several times. The longterm growth of visibility continues well past traffic hits on one simple blog post with live blog updates.
2. 3rd Party Reporting and Publishing Similar to a reporter who can cover a story for a third party publication, I have access to other sources where I can publish key takeaways and highlights of the conference. For example, I contributed an article on Lee Odden from Blogworld 2012 to Visibility Magazine, a printed publication that has 60K magazine subscribers as well as other sites with large readership, including Social Media Explorer's site where an article I contributed titled SEARCH. SOCIAL. MOBILE. OPTIMIZED! was published. (Note: At the time of this service, none of these entities were paying clients, this service was implemented as part of my own continuing professional development practice.)
As I continue to grow in today's media space, I connect and make relationships with other media sources, publishers and influencers that have a large outreach where I can submit stories/articles/posts/ideas for additional publishing. My network of sources reach beyond my clients' own "blogger community" or the event promoters' own tribes.
Many understand the value of a third-party perspective, yet some get caught up in the need to generate content that they lose sight of the end-customer. A third-party perspective adds value to a client's content not only from a credibility point of view but also from an online link value.
3. Dedicated Content Creator Typically, in-house event marketing support, though socially and digitally advanced still is required to maintain the traditional support like registration, sponsorship sales, etc. A perfect example of this was when I covered an event for Webtrends in Chicago, Webtrends had five sales people, one marketing person and two speakers. Sure, they tweeted once in a while, but they were highly distracted with their main roles. I was able to capture the rich content and provide coverage that increased exposure over 5000% for my client. See case study >
4. Sponsorship Value It is time for events to provide sponsors with added media coverage as part of their sponsorship package. I have a webinar on this subject, if you would like to view it click here >
I can work with event promoters in the earlier stages of their sponsorship development to create value-added coverage services to increase sponsorship packages. There are a number of ways event promoters, depending on the media they have in place can increase live media event coverage value for sponsors. Examples: Old = logos on lanyards. New = Tonight's soiree is sponsored by __... Thank you ___ for the mixer... Here are some of the photos from the evening at the Cool Spot, Sponsored by __.
5. Multi-Media Materials Following the event, I can produce case studies, white papers, infographics, slideshows, etc., and "white label" them for the event promoter to repurpose. Event promoters can resell, or cross-promote this content with sponsors following the event. The content can be infotaining, meaning socially light, or expert-level, in-depth and informative, according the the audience and event promoters needs.
Events are rich with content. With the rate of change taking place in technology, it is important to benchmark the content, as well as repurpose the materials to be utilized by more than just the people at the event who most likely will not review the content they've already "eaten." While event coverage includes content prior and LIVE, during the event, the long term value can be found in repurposing the content through a variety of multi-media materials.
The benefit of reaching beyond the conference walls throughout the lifecycle of your next event is measurable, unlike many of the services social media service professionals offer today.
Want to blast the expert takeaways to over 5000% at your next event like Webtrends?
Would you like to have 100 updates with photos and quotes of your one-day event, published to over 5000 followers who then retweet the updates over 175 times, republishing and enlarging the readership to their followers like I did for Jeff Pulver at his recent #140 Conference in New York?
When you hire an expert event correspondent to cover and amplify your event, you get a service that has action items and results that you can measure, justifying the need and market outreach.
Want to see what clients have to say about event correspondent services I've been providing for the past 12 months? Check out the testimonial page here >>
If you have an event in your future and are interested in hiring an expert event reporter to cover your event who will capture the takeaways, publish the content and repurpose the fresh industry-leading material of expert thought leadership and social influencers, then contact Andrea Cook today to schedule coverage that will properly meet your needs >
Andrea Cook builds value for clients and provides them with today's marketing solutions. She has brands and buzz on the brain 24/7 and is a pioneer of the online frontier. With a rich background of creative services for law firms, intellectual property businesses, education facilities and technology companies, Andrea has a rich portfolio of award-winning professional services. Also an editor and publisher at iHEART Green Media, cowork owner at The Midas Center and consultant for hire. Services vary, Live Event Correspondent services preferred.
I'm proud as a peacock to represent Visibility Magazine while I provide media coverage at the #SXSW conference this week.
This world-class slick industry rag covering online marketing strategies is unmatched. Since 2007, the printed publication has grown a steady readership of 50,000, including mostly C-Suite level marketers, owners and founders. Anyone interested in cutting-edge best practices in the rapidly evolving world of internet marketing should get their hands on a copy of the sexy designed pages overflowing with rich content that covers the latest best practices impacting digital media. If you are in the business of internet marketing and looking to improve your online presence, then you will benefit from reading expert advice from contributors like Facebook, OneUpWeb and Compete.com. You may recall my article Live Reporting, The New Service PR Agents Aren't Offering - YET, published in Visibility's winter issue.
Visibility is a valuable resource with tips, trends and takeaways covering topics like:
Organic Optimization
Pay Per Click Management
Web Analytics
Social Media Optimization
Reputation Management
Mobile Optimization
Affiliate Marketing
Press Release Distribution
Multimedia Optimization
Blog Marketing
Email Marketing
and more.You can't afford not to gain the insight and expertise necessary to attract clients online in today's digital era. If you don't get the chance to stop by their booth while you are at #SXSW, you can subscribe here to get 20% off by using this discount code: CONF12
It seems like the same people who are talking about ROI when you propose an "out-of-the-box" approach to marketing, are the same people who rely on the safety of the "same ol same ol." When people ask about ROI of a non-conventional new media service like live event coverage, what they are really asking is: Are your cutting-edge services worth me, my team and my business stepping-up to the plate and changing what we have always done?
What is the ROI of your new service offering? I've got enough stats, charts, slide decks, testimonies, white papers, case studies and more on how we increased exposure for leading industry clients that would bore you and your team to sleep. As I compile them, I would like to encourage you to compare apples to apples.
While we are talking metrics, let's take a peek at the ROI of your current event marketing activities:
Event Sponsorship "For $10,000, you can have your logo appear ___." Really? Where is the ROI in this? I'm not stating there is no value in your business being recognized as a contributor and supporter of the industry conference. But, to just continue to invest top dollars in sponsorships that provide you with added real estate to display your logo on a few signs, a lanyard and printed event promotional items does not have a proven track of ROI.
Exhibitor Space By staking claim on the industry floor and popping up your booth, you have more of an opportunity to engage with conference audience members. Perhaps you have a process in place that will attract and generate leads with specific event campaigns. If you do, are you following up appropriately and immediately following the conference to track the results - or do your team members get a case of the post conference burn-out and return to the office silos with a focus on the next big event. With the administrative tasks ruling the overall event planning for your exhibitor space, chances are the expenses of an exhibitor space far outweigh the overall value.
Speaking Engagement Assuming you were to effectively secure a speaking engagement, your SMEs, (subject matter experts) have a prime opportunity to speak to market-specific audience members at the next industry conference. They invest the time and intellectual property into the presentation. They arrive just in time to speak and deliver trending information that prove true thought leadership. Some audience members rally to the front of the room following the speech in hopes to exchange business cards. There may be some networking opportunity but then the expert usually is rushed and hurries to catch a flight back to return to the office. Consider the investment of your speaking engagements. What is the ROI of the cost of time to prepare, travel and share? Traditional approach to optimize this investment includes a press announcement that is blasted to the media prior to the event. Follow up activities may include an added notch on the SME's LinkedIn profile. We all agree that speaking engagements and a successful speaker circuit are key event activities that give your SMEs a competitive advantage, however, are you measuring this investment and are you missing opportunities to extract real value for the current presentations and secure future speaking engagements? What's the ROI for your current approach to speaking engagements?
A/V Equipment Event promoters assume speakers will need proper equipment like overhead projectors so that presenters can effectively reach the attendees sitting in the back rows of the conference room. Have you ever considered the ROI of added A/V expenses like a projector? They can cost $1000 for each room. Assuming the individuals in the back rows haven't fallen asleep with your slideshow, slide projectors are an assumed expense because they can amplify the speakers' presentations to more people. If you are an event promoter, you incur these fees because they've become part of the event floor standard. But if you were to measure the ROI from the added equipment costs and labor fees, you may be surprised dollar for dollar the real value these expenses bring to your event.
Time, travel, costly equipment and convention labor services are assumed as the price of event marketing in a traditional sense. No one questions it because these investments are industry-standard.
Compare theses egregious costs and their ROI - if you can, to a new approach to marketing.
Just because you've always done it "this way" or it's an "industry standard" doesn't mean that it is a smart, efficient, effective approach. It also doesn't mean that it is producing ROI.
How are you proving the value and ROI for the traditional approach to your typical event marketing activities? It is time to wake up and hop off your dinosaurs people.
Leading brands are hiring professionals who can clearly differentiate, communicate and advocate the value found in the results of traditional and non-conventional activities such as Live Event Coverage.
Live Media Coverage is Non-Conventional I'm not suggesting removing all traditional approaches to event marketing. For the past decade and a half, I've delivered results for clients with award-winning event activities that were based on a sound traditional methodology. I'm merely providing a counter argument for the roadblocks that are often used to prevent progress and success in today's marketplace. "Where is the ROI in your service?" is a question I hear a lot when I share the value added benefits of event correspondent services.
Carpe Diem Not only have you invested a lot of zeros in your event marketing, but you also have a lot of resources invested in your online brand. Today is the day you integrate your event activities with your own online media space your business has developed and you add rich content that is relevant. You do want to integrate your marketing and PR with your online and event activities, right?
Value VS. Risk Sure a new service is risky. But we are all in the dawn of the internet era. As more and more businesses cut their budgets, they aren't seeking professionals "who do business as usual." Leading brands are hiring professionals who can clearly differentiate, communicate and advocate the value found in the results of traditional and non-conventional activities. Do not get lost in the stone age with the droves of traditional agencies and the team members who have become extinct.
After you hire a qualified professional who understands your goals and can provide the capabilities to broadcast your key takeaways during your next event, you will not only see the results in an uptick in your SEO analytics for example, you will clearly see the value in your overall event marketing investment.
In today's marketplace, you cannot afford to do business as usual.Your budget may not have a line item for this unconventional new service. Most likely, your competition doesn't have live event coverage as part of their event budget either. However, the first one who dedicates proper resources to cover the next event with live event correspondent services will win, and win big, and will prove it with more than just a blue ribbon on their conference name tags!
Don't be afraid to get true ROI of today's modern world.
This Just In . . .
Get updates on emerging trends that impact events, journalism, new media, brands, social media and advertising. Also includes details of some events that have been covered or are scheduled to be covered.
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