Conferences often continue, year after year, without a strategic assessment of whether they are achieving the key goals for the professional association that organizes them - let alone an assessment of what those goals should be. This white paper examines the importance of a regular strategic assessment of a conference, and outlines the steps to get it done.
2. INTroduction
This White Paper is based on our Why do you hold a conference? To build your
work with a number of professional organization’s brand? To provide professional
development for members? To increase media
associations, as well as interviews
profile for your organization and its mission?
with the executives of more than 15
To uphold tradition? To engage directly with
professional conferences, ranging
members and the rest of your community? Or do
between 500 and 15,000 attendees
you rely on its proceeds to fund other activities
from a variety of fields. It will
that your organization undertakes?
be of interest to the leaders of
professional associations and other Conferences are under huge pressures.
not-for-profit organizations who Online and mobile technologies are disrupting
manage conferences. the relationship between physical proximity
and activities like learning, networking, and
collaborating. Many delegates find it increasingly
difficult to secure the funding and time necessary
to attend. Industry sponsors are questioning their
return on investment, seeking to quantify and
justify their marketing decisions. Conferences
can be complex to manage, and costs difficult to
contain.
At the same time, the surpluses generated by
conferences are a revenue stream on which
organizations may be strategically reliant.
Given these forces, it is important to take a
clear look at your conference, to ensure that its
potential is being maximized and that you are
preparing it for the future.
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3. Why do a review?
Many associations, if asked, will say they regard process, and just as necessary. The need for
their conference as a strategically important part ongoing communication is increasing, because
of their operations. Yet most do not regularly the environment, needs, and expectations of
undertake a strategic review to understand its stakeholders are constantly changing – and those
health and its contribution to the organization’s stakeholders include non-member delegates
mission. Critical issues, such as decreasing and industry partners, who are not consulted in
relevance to delegates or shaky commitment member-oriented processes.
by sponsors and exhibitors, can be easily
overlooked without a periodic check-in. If an 2. You don’t have a clear and widely
organization does not take the time to set and recognized set of conference
measure objectives and listen closely to sponsors, objectives that guide decision
exhibitors, volunteers, and delegates, it may not making.
realize there is a problem until delegates and
While it may seem obvious for objectives to be
sponsorship dollars are already in decline, which
intertwined in conference operations, this isn’t
may be difficult to reverse.
always the case. If you don’t know what you’re
Ultimately, a successful strategic assessment trying to accomplish, how will you know if you
will give you a deep and rich 360 degree picture achieve it?
of your conference to support decision making.
3. Delegate attendance and/or
Through our work, we have seen conferences
sponsorship revenue is flat or
undertake this process and uncover key insights
decreasing.
that enabled them to make strategic decisions
based on clear evidence. A strategic review will provide insight to understand
the root causes of this downward pressure and
A strategic review should be considered if any of identify strategies to address them.
the following applies:
1. It has been 3 to 5 years since you 4. The program has become stale and
have consulted broadly with your needs to be refreshed.
stakeholders specifically about the
conference. If a conference has used a similar format for a
number of years, it’s important to understand
Many associations conduct a member needs what types of changes will renew and reinvigorate
assessment from time to time. Consulting with the program.
the stakeholders of a conference is a similar
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4. Why do a review?
5. You have to make a decision about
whether to insource or outsource
your conference management.
This may be driven by organizational changes
or cost pressures, and it’s a surprisingly key
strategic decision with many ramifications for
how the conference operates. It will depend on a
variety of factors, including the strategic priorities
of the conference, which therefore should be
well-understood.
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5. How to do a review
Use the objectives as a guide
1. Determine who will make decisions during planning, management,
based on the outcome of the review. and evaluation of the conference.
They should form the basis of
your reporting to the board on
For some organizations, this step is simple: a
the success of the event. Resource
strategic review would report to the Board through
trade-offs should be made with the
the CEO or Executive Director. However, where
the governance structure is more complex, it is objectives in mind.
important to clarify how the assessment itself is to
The objectives should be fairly simple and few in
be governed. Some organizations form working
number (4-5 is usually sufficient) so that they can
groups to address strategic issues, which can
be easily remembered. They should concentrate
bring in key individuals with a diverse set of skills
on the core reasons for the conference to exist
and also generate buy-in for the outputs of the
process. at all. Objectives should be written at a strategic
level; resist the temptation to load all possible
No matter how the process is managed and stakeholder expectations into them. Often it
governed, it is important to ensure that engaging works well to have a consultation with a relatively
and briefing the decision makers is built into the broad group to understand what the objectives
approach and timeframes. should, in their opinion, contain, but then a very
small group should take those findings and draft
the final objectives.
2. Start with your objectives.
A note about including a financial objective:
organizations are often reluctant to do this, but
Objectives should be developed and validated
this represents a failure to make a decision at its
by the key stakeholders involved in organizing
appropriate level. Without explicit guidance, staff
the conference. Depending on the conference’s
are left to make complex decisions on their own,
governance structure, this may be a fairly lengthy
and complex process, or may be accomplished trading off costs and revenues against delegate
within a week via a couple of discussions and experience without knowledge of what they
then approved by the Board. should be solving for. If the organization relies on
conference net proceeds to fund other programs,
the staff running the conference should be
aware of this and manage purposefully to meet
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6. SHOULD YOU USE A THIRD PARTY OR
DO IT YOURSELF?
While a strategic review may be handled in-house, engaging a third party should be
considered where feasible. An external individual or firm can provide the following
advantages:
•
Objectivity: A third party can provide an impartial perspective to guard against
complacency and the use of potentially incorrect conventional wisdom. Because of their
objectivity, findings from a third party may also meet with a better reception inside the
organization, particularly if the issues identified are complex or politically sensitive.
Confidentiality: Stakeholders participating in interviews or focus groups will likely feel
more comfortable reporting potentially critical feedback to a third party, who can credibly
promise to keep specific comments confidential.
Expertise: For effective implementation of the strategic assessment, a third party
should be selected for their knowledge of best practices in qualitative interviewing and
survey development, skills that are likely not available in-house. They should also be
able to provide perspectives on best practices in conference management based on
their experience and work with other organizations.
Resources: An outside organization can bring in resources dedicated to the assessment,
so internal staff can focus on other priorities. However, it is still important to make internal
resources available for any assessment to provide data and insights and to evaluate the
findings.
7. How to do a review
that objective. If the organization is happy to For delegates:
break even on the conference because of the
membership benefit it provides, staff should • Why do delegates attend? Why don’t they?
understand that as well.
• Are delegates getting what they want out of
the conference? Do they see value for their
3. Understand the value proposition of
time and money?
the conference for stakeholders.
• What kinds of delegates might you be able to
Most conferences conduct delegate satisfaction attract to grow the conference?
surveys, and some have methods of consulting
• What are their alternatives, both in terms of
with industry participants. However, these
other conferences as well as other educational
approaches are often quite tactical, focusing on
and networking opportunities?
delegates’ satisfaction with the food at a particular
meal, or the logistics of booth setup.
• Are the educational and professional
development components of the conference
It’s rare for an organization to
meeting their needs?
step back and ask its stakeholders
the kinds of strategic questions - Are the topics well chosen and reflect their
that really get at loyalty and interests?
motivation.
- Is the quality of the speakers and content
Conference organizers need to go beyond the
meeting their needs?
simple percentage of satisfaction to understand
what the event means to delegates and what - Is the schedule well designed so delegates
value it really brings to industry participants. can attend sessions of interest?
Without a deep and systematic understanding of
stakeholder priorities, it’s very difficult to make • Do they come to the conference to network?
good decisions.
- What do they mean by networking? How
The questions that should be focused on will does this vary by type of delegate?
depend on the type of stakeholder.
- Does the quality and quantity of networking
opportunities meet their needs?
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8. How to do a review
• Is the conference being managed in a way It is important to note that sponsors almost always
that meets their expectations? make at least some critique of the conference,
so their evaluation may seem less than glowing.
- Are they comfortable? Is there enough However, make sure to benchmark responses
food? Is the conference centre designed
year over year to understand trends and identify
and set up appropriately?
any issues.
- Is there too much or too little
The following research techniques can be
communication before, during, and after the
employed to help answer the questions listed
conference?
above:
• Would they recommend the conference to a
colleague? Delegate and sponsor surveys:
• If they are volunteers with the conference, • Provide quantitative data for organizations
has that been a positive experience? What to use for evaluation. This should be done
motivates them to volunteer? regularly (at least after each conference) and
consistently to track trends in year-over-year
For industry sponsors and trade show data.
exhibitors:
In-depth, one-on-one qualitative interviews:
• What are their goals for their involvement with
the conference? Are they achieving them? • Offer richer and more nuanced insights than
surveys, by uncovering hidden or unrealized
• Are they coming to display their brand, or are
needs and expectations. They can be used
they interested in generating leads (or both)?
both to improve the quality of surveys (such
• How do they measure their conference return as developing new questions or wording
on investment? questions more accurately) and to improve
interpretation of the quantitative data.
- Is the conference meeting their financial
expectations? Focus groups:
• How easy was it to deal with the association • Can be conducted in situations where it is
in the negotiation and planning process? easy to bring delegates together. They can be
an efficient way of gathering many opinions.
• Is the timing aligned with the sponsors’ budget This technique should be a supplement to
cycles? one-on-one interview research since people
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9. How to do a review
may express somewhat different opinions in Here are the key questions to ask based on the
a focus group than on their own, especially in conference data:
groups that contain individuals from different
professions or with status (e.g. senior and Attendance:
junior individuals together).
• What are the trends in attendance? Which
delegate segments are increasing and which
aren’t?
4. Crunch the numbers.
- Data collected at registration should align
with the key questions you are attempting to
Having a clear picture of the conference’s answer. For example, it should be possible
performance over time is critical to effectively to track delegates by type – member, non-
managing it. Because measurement should be member, industry, trainee, etc.
driven by objectives, data is required to quantify
achievement. Sometimes it takes a strategic • How many attend regularly versus
assessment to identify gaps in the data currently infrequently?
being collected.
• Does the attendance pattern match
This quantitative analysis can point to membership patterns in your organization or
previously hidden issues, such as unintended growth in your field? If not, why not?
overinvestment in a conference. It can also
challenge assumptions; it’s counterintuitive to Finances:
think that an incremental delegate may cost you
• What are the trends in revenue and expenses,
money, but this may be true if you are not charging
by category?
enough to cover variable per-delegate costs,
especially if you have tiered registration fees or • Do you accurately capture both direct and
revenue-sharing agreements with partners. It indirect costs? For instance, perhaps you
can also expose both unrealized opportunities have a contract conference manager, which
for growth as well as long-term strategic risks, represents a direct cost, but if their supervisor
such as low attendance by younger members of is also spending 50% of their time on the
the profession. Without adequate data, you are conference, are you capturing that additional
managing blind. organizational investment in the event?
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10. How to do a review
• What patterns do you see in revenue per
delegate and cost per delegate?
5. Identify best practices.
- Do you make money or lose money on
each incremental delegate?
Are you innovating with the
• Where there are multiple organizations conference – whether through
involved, how are the revenues and costs progr a mming,facilitating
distributed? (Who bears the financial risk, i.e. networking, increasing access,
who signs the contracts?). leveraging technology, or trade
show design – to increase the value
• If you forecast financial trends for the next
few years, what are the results? What are the for stakeholders?
implications of the potential scenarios? If you only evaluate the conference you held, you
will not hear about opportunities for innovation.
Reputation and leading indicators:
An open-ended question at the end of a delegate
• What media hits do you get from the conference satisfaction survey won’t provide this
conference, and how is this changing over information. Knowledgeable volunteers from the
time? delegate communities typically help develop the
program, but it is not reasonable to expect them
• For scientific conferences: are abstracts to speak for all the delegates.
going up or down over time?
Information on best practices and ideas about
• Is the number of booths you need to sell to potential innovation can be obtained through
fill the exhibit hall increasing? That is, do you qualitative interviews with stakeholders and by
need to sell to more exhibitors to make the reaching out to conferences in other industries
same revenue? and other geographies as well as through
secondary research.
• What categories do exhibitors come from
(e.g. in a medical conference there may
be pharmaceutical companies, device
manufacturers, and lifestyle or health
promotion companies)?
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11. How to do a review
partners are seeing the benefit from the
6. Assess resourcing, management, arrangement.
and governance.
• The governance model should be aligned with
the distribution of risks and benefits (financial
Finally, review how your conference is managed
and other).
and governed internally to ensure that it is set up
to address the key challenges and opportunities
7. Communicate the results of the
that have been identified.
assessment.
Do you have the right skill sets and adequate
resources within your organization to effectively
In a well-executed assessment,
manage the conference and deliver on delegate
dozens of people have been asked
needs and expectations?
for their input.
Do you have appropriate external partners If a survey was conducted, it was likely sent to
providing additional support to your internal hundreds or thousands of individuals. Once the
resources? assessment is done, it is easy to overlook the
need to communicate the results to all those
Do you report regularly on the conference’s stakeholders, but this step must be built in.
performance against objectives (financial and Communication of the results of the assessment
other) to senior management and the board? can be integrated with existing opportunities,
such as the conference itself (e.g. in marketing
• If the conference is of strategic significance
materials), or an association AGM. However
to the organization, the board should be
it is important that the communication has
receiving annual reports on its performance,
the opportunity to reach all the conference
and senior management should be actively
stakeholders, whether they are internal or
involved in setting its direction.
external to the organization, and whether or not
If the conference is jointly sponsored by more they attend the next conference.
than one organization, is the current governance
model appropriate?
• Governance models for a multi-organization
conference can be challenging to manage,
and require regular reviews to ensure all
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12. Themes and Trends
In the past several years, a number of key themes diversity in delegate interests.
and trends have emerged strongly in our research
on professional association conferences in Regardless of the definition, face-to-face
Canada and globally. networking is particularly important now that
technology, such as webinars, can handle many
of the basic educational needs of delegates. A
Networking great networking component to the conference
does not need to happen in formal settings.
Networking is universally important to delegates Networking can be achieved through appropriate
and consistently emerges as a key reason to breaks between sessions, over meals, in an
attend a conference. But what do your delegates engaging exhibit hall, at a wine and cheese
mean by it? Some examples of what “networking” scientific session, or at a social event.
may mean:
Conferences have a plethora of
• For a premier scientific or academic opportunities for networking, and
researcher: A chance to discuss need to find ways to foster these
collaboration on worldwide studies. connections wherever possible to
leverage the fact that delegates
• For a social worker in a community services are interacting all together in one
organization: Connecting with local peers place and at one time.
who work with the same client groups to
better coordinate services.
Strengthening Conference Management
• For an accountant: Meet sources of
referrals.
The extent of a conference’s management and
• For a recent graduate: Get hired. logistics that should be in-house versus outsourced
depends on the specific situation. Regardless,
• For an industry product manager: Social the level of commitment should be aligned with
opportunities with key opinion leaders. the size and complexity of the conference, taking
into consideration whatever resources the rest of
These varying definitions have very different the organization might be able to provide (e.g.
implications for conference organizers in terms of media relations or fund development capabilities).
program offerings, scheduling, venue, and even The key is to first assess what is required, and
refreshments. If your event is multidisciplinary, subsequently determine how that work should be
that’s all the more reason to recognize the done – whether in-house or elsewhere.
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13. Themes and Trends
The key to excellent conference the staff through training and professional
development as well as sustain a team that is
management is not in the specific
appropriately sized for the scope and complexity
decision between insourcing
of the conference.
or outsourcing, but rather in
ensuring that whatever you Innovations in helping sponsors
choose best supports the sponsor and exhibitors realize their return on
and delegate experience given investment.
your organizational situation.
The pressure to demonstrate a quantified return
on marketing investment is intensifying for
If an association chooses to use a third party, it
industry sponsors and exhibitors. If you don’t
is critical that it makes the decision strategically
understand, intimately and concretely, what your
and selects a partner not dependent entirely on
event achieves for your industry partners – what
cost, but also based upon their ability to provide
motivates them to participate, what alternatives
the outcome the association is looking for, with
they have, and how strong their commitment is –
the flexibility to meet needs as they arise.
then that portion of your revenue is at risk.
It is possible to build a truly successful, long-term
Sponsors and exhibitors have diverse reasons
third party relationship that provides a conference
for participating in specific conferences. Whether
with significant benefits. While a good contract
they are attending to have their brand on display
is critically important, an initial learning process
alongside their competition or to connect directly
to interpret the contract and develop a working
with people who are important decision makers
relationship will take place over the first year or
within their industry, meeting their needs is
two.
critical for the future financial sustainability of
Insourcing can also be effective, but it requires conferences that rely on this type of revenue.
that the association commit to having strong
internal resources. The benefits of keeping
conference logistics in-house can include greater
control over the execution of the event and having
event management expertise available for other
events held by the organization. However, these
capabilities need to be developed and maintained
by a strong executive champion that can support
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14. Themes and Trends
Through our work, several key tactics have been • Audited delegate lists can be helpful
identified to help ensure their needs are being but require the ability to collect delegate
met: information accurately.
• Engage with sponsors and exhibitors • Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) on
over the course of the year, such as delegate badges provides sponsors and
through the development of a sponsor exhibitors with a more exact way to measure
advisory committee, and through informal their return on investment. RFID provides
discussions. accurate information on exactly which
types of delegates entered the exhibition
• Pay special attention to the organization hall or attended specific events. However,
of the schedule and the layout of the conferences using this method should also
conference. The exhibit hall should be in be prepared to manage any issues arising
a location that maximizes the potential for from attendance figures that do not turn out
delegates to enter, and the environment to be as expected.
should be conducive to staying, eating, and
interacting. Even in the medical conference
industry, where regulations can make it
more challenging to deal with sponsors and
exhibitors, the exhibit hall should still create
an exciting and engaging environment. Make
sure the schedule allows for adequate time
for delegates to visit the exhibits.
• Create ways for delegates to engage with
sponsors and exhibitors, such as through
passport contests, interactive satellite
symposia, poster sessions set up inside the
exhibit hall, etc.
• Provide timely and accurate data on what
type of delegates were at the conference
and at specific sessions.
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15. CONCLUSION
It is easier to let an event simply Conferences can be an irreplaceable way for
associations to provide tangible value to their
continue along, year after year,
members, engage with industry, and generate
but a board or CEO with a strategic
revenue to support other programs and services.
perspective will protect this key Over time, they tend to take on a life of their own,
asset from risk, and maximize its developing their own culture, history, and brand
value. associations.
Ensuring the ongoing health of the event starts
with a clear understanding of its performance,
its relationship with its delegates and other
stakeholders, and its potential for the future, in
the context of a changing environment.
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