61
Marketing
If you’re making all the decisions,
you’re doing it wrong
Kelvin Newman, founder of Rough Agenda,
which runs BrightonSEO, offers a more
practical way of decision-making
e’re a community
led event,” all the
conference
organisers scream.
I wish I could get a quid for every
conference and exhibition that claims
it is at the centre of its community – I
wouldn’t need to organise another
event. But, I’m afraid, in my
experience most organisers are only
playing lip service.
If you’re able to convince any
number of people to step away from
their desk and into the room you’ve
booked, then you’ve created a
community. But that alone doesn’t
mean you are actually listening to
them and serving their needs.
For most organisers their main form
of customer feedback is a hastily
knocked-up survey; one that often
doesn’t get read when it is mailed out
in the aftermath of the event.
I hate these surveys as they are
rarely actionable: “My speakers are
7.48 out of 10 knowledgeable. Next
time I must strive to get my speakers
to be at least 0.66 more
knowledgeable,” by way of example.
I like to see the role of our
community as far more practical and
specific to our needs than this. If my
team and I have hit an impasse or if
we decide which design for our
conference T-shirt, we share the five
colourways we are considering in a
We’re a community-
led event!
private Facebook group. These
people who have bought VIP tickets
to the events are all opinionated and
our best customers.
The best case scenario is a victor
emerges and we find the majority
decision for any question we ask the
community.
Often that’s not the case, their
opinions are as divided as me and
the team, but that isn’t necessarily a
bad thing.
Each person who chipped in with
their point of view has contributed to
the event; they feel a tiny bit of
ownership of it. We’re not another
event where we’re trying to make as
much money out of them, we actually
care what they think.
www.conference-news.co.uk
Once you get into a mindset like
this, with a willing audience who like
to express their point of view, it can
have a quite profound effect on how
you organise events.
There’s a lot about organising
conferences and exhibitions that’s
hard work. For me it’s the sheer
amount of decisions I have to make.
Often these decisions feel arbitrary
with equally weighted pros and cons.
Accepting there’s often no right
decision and leaning on our
community to help make even the
smallest decisions completely
changes the way you approach the
hardest part of organising events. If
you’re making all the decisions about
your event you’re doing it wrong.