Attendees are the lifeblood of meetings and events! As a meetings professional, you know strong participation means more business gets accomplished: sessions are well attended, stakeholders are satisfied, hotel room blocks are filled and best of all, the overall success of your event is maximized!
3. Our Webinar Road Map
Attendee and planner
perceptions
Actionable template for
attendance promotion
toolkit
5 must do’s to
support and fuel
your attendance
promotion activities
8. Planners make a strong statement to the need for advice and
consultation, matching attendee preferences to destination
assets, and ease in accessing marketing materials.
Combined Important and Very Important Ratings
45%
57%
61%
69% 72% 74%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Being present and
promoting the
destination at the
prior year's event
Identify the match
between attendee
preferences and
destination assets
Marketing tools and
support
Welcome Program Advice and
consultation on
maximizing the
contracted room
block
Marketing collateral
and editorial copy
Source: Convene ePanel, April 2017
Sponsored by Destination International’s empowerMINT
9. Approach of Destinations International’s
Attendance Promotion Task Force
Step 1
• Determined
most
essential
components
Step 2
• Gained
planner
feedback on
what
support they
valued from
CVBs
Step 3
• Sought
examples of
execution
10. 5 Must Do’s to Support Your
Attendance Promotion Practices
11. It All Starts With a Conversation:
Planner Consultation & Profiling of
Attendees Behaviors/Interests
• Consult
• Educate
• Profile
• Identify
• Review
1.
13. Getting Out in Front: CVB
Representation at Prior Year’s Meeting
How do you get the most from the CVBs representation?
– Attend
– Align
– Access and inform
2.
16. Build It and They Will Come:
Marketing Tools and Support
• Destination Links
• Custom Sites
• Email and Social Media
3.
17. How your CVB can help you create a plan by
considering:
• Generic or custom: what does the particular group warrant in terms of
time and financial commitment from the CVB?
• Relevancy: what information is most relevant/compelling to communicate
to the particular group of attendees?
• Timing: What are the key milestones of the event and the frequency of
communication needed?
• Effectiveness of channels: where are the particular attendees plugged in?
What will be the most effective places to communicate?
20. Make It Easy to Grab & Go:
Key Marketing Collateral & Editorial
How can we reduce friction and give you
easy access to the destination material
you need?
– Images
– Maps
– Videos
– Transportation
– Dining/Entertainment
– Local Insider
4.
24. Don’t Let Them Stray:
Support Attendance Promotion's
Call to Action
How can CVBs help planners maximize their contracted room block?
– Understand the delta
– Educate the attendee
– Redefine the cut-off date
– Beware of local factors
– Protect a proper bell curve
– Be armed for pirates and poachers
5.
27. CMP CREDIT
Participation has earned you 0.5
credit hours for:
CMP-IS Domain G :
Meeting and Event Design
Your CMP certificate along
with a webinar recording
will be delivered in 5
business days. Please
remember to check your
spam!
FYI Loren-might want to give this a quick-interesting!
http://www.tsnn.com/news/cvbs-partner-event-planners-draw-more-attendees-and-exhibitors-destinations
Terri to Introduce/Welcome/Thank Loren and sponsors (epro to speak at end)
Panelist:
 Loren Gold
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Executive Vice President –
Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau
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Loren Gold has been with the Greater Raleigh CVB since 2005, as the executive vice president since 20017, where he is responsible for leading the development of strategic sales, services and marketing programs.
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Boasting over twenty years of senior sales management experience, with both Wyndham & Marriott Hotels and Resorts.
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Gold currently serves on the board of directors for Destinations International, and was the chair of our CSMC Attendance Promotion Task Force in 2017.
TR: Review where we are going during this webinar we will explore:
Attendees are important to planners, destinations and authentic experiences are important to attendees and the CVB holds the key to unlocking destination insights and appeal to fuel your attendance promotion practices.
SESSION DESCRIPTION-as advertised-what people signed up for!
Attendees are the lifeblood of meetings and events! As a meetings professional, you know strong participation means more business gets accomplished: sessions are well attended, stakeholders are satisfied, hotel room blocks are filled and best of all, the overall success of your event is maximized!
In our latest research, planners rated attendee satisfaction and attendee registration as the top two meeting success factors. So if promoting your meeting as a “not to be missed” event is a priority, we want to provide you with a strategic approach to tap into all the destination has to offer in terms of attendee experience options and meeting support services. If you are unfamiliar with a destination, or even if have had a prior meeting in a destination, our mission is the same, to support your ability to enhance impact and differentiate your meeting, ultimately driving the desire and decision to attend.
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Over the last year, Destinations International has led a task force of CVB Sales and Service professionals, along with planner advisors, to identify the most essential attendance promotion practices. Join us for our webinar to unleash the maximum potential to communicate destination appeal by applying their findings.
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The latest research on the influencers of attendee perceptions
An actionable template for your attendance promotion toolkit
5 must do’s to help support and fuel your attendance promotion activities
Terri to ask Loren, So Loren, I mentioned that you were the chair of the CVBs industry task force on AP practices…Why would DI’s CSMC form an AP Task force for the CVB industry? What was the motivation.
Loren, these are just general notes, please add your own.
Inconsistency of offerings and approach have always plagued our industry. Planners cite from destination to destination there is always a difference in offerings and it leaves planners not know what to expect from destination to destination. This is due to size of CVB, budget, staff and the fact that their isn’t a entity to mandate specific practices in the CVB industry.
We are also aware (which we will show you in a few minutes from our planner surveys) that many planners do not fully understand the support available for AP from their destination sales, marketing and service experts…and we see this as a HUGE OPPORTUNITY for better partnership and collaboration in serving our planners.
So as Loren just mentioned…let’s take a look at some planner insights from recent survey’s
Terri to cover the stats from recent DA survey, with Miles Partnership and DI and Convene. Slides 6-9
ATTENDEES are important to planners and we know from the DTA study that 71% of attendees indicate the destination appeal is a deciding factor and 20-30% say the destination determines their decision to attend.
CVBS hold the key to unlocking destination appeal and assets to set your meeting apart
It stands to reason, as more CVBs solidify their attendance promotion offerings, we will move the needle as an industry in being recognized not only as leisure destination marketers, but as essential partners for contributing to the event’s success for any planners attempting to drive attendance for their meeting or event. Our goal is to raise attendance promotion services as a key differentiator between having a meeting with or without CVB involvement.
DI Study with Miles, The Future of the Meetings Industry.
However, while 75% of planners surveyed pointed to the awareness of availability of our digital marketing materials, only 38.5% point to the awareness of over-all attendance building tools provided by CVBs.
And lastly, in our most recent Convene epanel survey, planners rate the importance of these CVB AP tools.
Terri, so Loren, before we jump into the 5 components the task force identified as essential to planners, can you tell us how this task force approach the work.
Ask Loren to talk about the process flow of the task force.
The mission and objective of this task force was to clarify the pathway to maximize attendance promotion effectiveness.
What are the most fundamental attendance promotion tools/processes needed to support the planner?
How do we profile the attendee?
What connections should be made?
Who’s doing what well in the industry?
What auto piloted behaviors are not serving us well, and where are there missed opportunities?
Terri to review the 5 pillars/components identified as essential for sound attendance promotion practices
And the GREAT NEWS…The CVB has already done all the leg work and has the expertise to guide you to the right offerings and practices and resources to save you both precious time and money! NO MATTER HOW BIG OR SMALL YOUR MEETING, don’t reinvent the wheel.
We hope this can serve as a baseline for planners and CVB sales, services and marketing professionals to work together to create engaging personalized destination promotion that will entice attendees.
OK, let’s begin at the beginning. Yet, this is a step that is often skipped. Terri to ask Loren why it is important for planners to shape their attendance promotion practices right from the start with a consultative session with their CVB sales person during the consideration phase. BEFORE THE RFP
Conversation/consultation ensures you won’t take a generic approach to identifying what will appeal to your attendees, but that you will carefully consider and apply the most compelling options based on your attendee profile and destination assets. THIS conversation can be lead with the Behavior Profile template or another checklist to gain attendee insight and match to destination offerings.
In order for planners to be motivated to proactively market not only their meeting, but in conjunction their meeting location, it is important for CVB sales, services and marketing professionals to educate planners on the ways in which their meeting is influenced by the destination and then put this powerful force into action.
"Some planners may not even know the right questions to ask CVBs about attendance promotion services. It's important that the sales person start this conversation, involve marketing where needed, and not leave it to much later in the process when services takes over."Â
The consultative process of qualifying meeting objectives and attendee behaviors begins in the sales role/supported buy destionation marketing resources and continues in the services role.
The CVB sales professional must first educate the planner on how the destination impacts the decision to attend. (Resource: Decision to Attend Executive Summary)
The CVB professional and planner join together to accurately determine the attendee profile.(Resource: Behavior Profile Template)
From the attendee profile, the CVB sales and marketing professionals identify and recommend the top destination assets, and suggest connection to leverage the destination's intellectual capital.
The CVB professional conducts a review with the planner of their attendance promotion toolkit and the opportunities to personalize based on the assessment findings.
NOTE:
For smaller groups, even a short conversation, which produces an informal understanding of the attendees, can help the CVB sales professional to point the planner in the right direction of destination offerings. For larger groups, the Behavioral Profile Template or another formalized evaluation can be used for a more formalized assessment.
Regardless, this consultative session should inform the building of the attendance promotion tactics employed in order to present unique and compelling destination factors that will directly appeal to the attendee profile, rather than a generic listing of destination offerings without thought to specific attendee appeal.
Terri to reference the DTA study and the availability of the behavioral template as a working document. ask to Loren about what we have learned from the DTA study and why this confirms the importance of beginning with a conversation.
We have more concreate knowledge about attendance behavior from a combined 16,000 prospective/current attendees who participated in Phase One in 2014, and now Phase Two of the Decision to Attend Study released in 2017.
In both surveys, destination was the number two driver for attendance, and participants indicate destination appeal and the chance to experience new places as important. Those attending meetings are also extending meeting dates into vacations, bringing others along with them, and getting out exploring the destination while on meeting business. In light of these findings, planners are certainly well advised to not underestimate destination appeal and should know how to market destination offerings to specifically appeal to their brand of attendees.
71% say destination factors into the decision, and 20-30% declaring it’s the deciding factor!
For our industry to make gains on attendance promotion delivery, it is imperative to understand the factors influencing meeting attendees today. This is especially important, if planners are competing with various other meetings and events for attendees, and even if they are not, they are still contending for any attendee’s time, effort and money. All potential attendees will take pause to consider if it is “worth it” to be away from the office, their families and their personal priorities to attend a meeting. There is great benefit in knowing what it takes to satisfy today’s meeting attendee. Ultimately, it is about suppliers and planners working knowledgeably together to develop strategies that align with meet attendee’s preferences and behaviors.
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Loren, Planner Insight during our task force review and an example of creativity from Nashville CVB
It should be noted that when the CVB rep attends the prior year’s event, the should come back to the destination with intelligence gather that will further build the personalization of AP
Terri to ask Loren to talk about how CVBs can help planners build the foundation of their destination information resources to fuel their email and social marketing campaigns.
CVBs can provide…
Destination Links
Provide meeting resource links to destination website
Custom Sites
Create custom landing page or microsite
Email & Social Media
Support email marketing, data mining and social media campaigns
These marketing tools allow the CVB to aid the planner and their marketing team with both generic and customized resources to support the digital advertisement of their event. For large and small meetings, these tools help the planner to tell a story of the upcoming meeting experience and directly connect with their potential attendees to captivate their attention through various channels to help solidify attendance. Use of these tools aids the planning of a campaign life cycle engaging attendees.
Loren to talk about the consultative role CVBs play in advising planners on customizing their campaigns.
EXAMPLE…
VISIT DENVER institutes a marketing call, once a group is turned over to convention services, with the planner, their marketing team and the CVB marketing team. Through a “go to meeting” they review a power point explaining all of the programs and tools available. As previously noted, many times the planner is not the person responsible for marketing, social media, etc. and this connects the marketing teams of the organizations.
Here’s an example, of group specific email create by Visit Pittsburgh
Terri to comment to Loren that from the DA study we know this is an area where CVBs shine and one of the task force recommendations was that the primary goal is to REMOVE FRICTION…make it easier.
With Key Marketing Collateral & Editorial, CVBs provide planners of both small and large meetings with key destination information that will be easy for them to access and repurpose. The primary purpose is to remove any friction the planner may experience marketing the destination.
We want to make images available with the proper usage rights and provide compelling video and b-roll footage. Additionally, high-level destination information that planners will want to convey to attendees should be cataloged in a way that makes it easy to get an overview of the destination’s offerings and creates a sort of “grab and go” shopping experience for the planner.
Grab and go marketplace of a CVB..
Visit Denver also provides articles, urls, newsletter, blurbs and photos (in addition to social media) for groups
Here is an example of Cleveland’s repository of marketing materials for planners to quickly access
Terri, OK Loren, this could be a whole webinar on it’s own, but I know the task force felt it was important for planners and CVBS to support the AP call to action and do everything possible to make sure the event attendees book inside the contracted room block.
How can they work together to increase this likelihood?
Understand the Delta
Educate the planner and hotels on the degree to which the event attendees book outside the contracted room block.
Educate the Attendee
Arm the planner with commonly used language to educate their attendees about the importance of booking inside the room block.
Redefine the Cut-Off Date
Help planners remove any friction for last minute attendees’ decision to attend.
Be Aware of Local Factors
Keep informed of local factors impacting occupancy.
Protect a Proper Bell Curve
Stay on top of all factors which will impact shorter or longer night stays.
Be Armed for Pirates & Poachers
Equip the planner with both proactive and reactive resources to combat pirates.
The many things we call ourselves: destination marketer, consultant, expert, all culminate in providing meeting professionals with solid attendance promotion support to achieve their top success metrics of attendee satisfaction and registration/attendance. Understanding that destination appeal and offerings are a major determinant of the attendee’s decision to attend any of the many meetings and events that compete for their time away from home and office, our ability to entice them with a unique and authentic destination experiences can solidly differentiate our value in the eyes of meeting professionals.
We hope you will be inspired to review this handbook in detail with your sales, services and marketing teams as you strive to continuously evaluate and improve your attendance promotion practices and offerings. Each of the critical areas outline provide an opportunity equate your offerings to the standard deliverables identified and hopefully, room to be inspired by the creativity of your peers.
It is also our hope that as more and more CVBs apply consistency to their attendance promotion offerings and visibility in promoting them to their planning partners, we will gain a strong hold in this area as a competitive differentiator.
We at Destinations International look forward to continuing to support your efforts through our ongoing education, advocacy and research and networking opportunities.
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