The Story

Each event is a brand – do you have the right story figured out?

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Every event that you plan is like a separate product – each event requires its own brand and identity. Its sad to see how people keep on launching events without giving thought to the event’s brand story. Today, I am briefly going to talk about ways of building brand stories for your events, whether they are small soccer club gigs or huge global conferences. The essence is always the same – does the brand of the event make people want to brag about and be a part of it?

There are different approaches to building the brand story, but I like the simplest approach the best. Its more genuine and honest and takes up less time.

Step 1: Understand what sets the event apart

The first step to building your brand story is to understand who your ideal attendees are. What are there thoughts, fears, requirements, ideas? What gaps exist in other events that you will be filling? Once you understand your targeted attendees, you will be able to identify things that you want to highlight about your event that fills their needs. This can be anything, from better payment terms to cool merchandize. Write down the things that set your event apart. Let’s call them the brand attributes.

Step 2: Build a story based on your brand attributes

Now that you have the brand attributes written down, it’s easy to build a story around it. A story is a description of how the event idea came about, in layman’s terms. The story doesn’t have to be a fabricated knit-up but it should be positioned in a way that is easy to remember and repeat. A story could be: “we were furnishing our baby’s room and couldn’t find good economical furniture for small baby rooms in this town. First we looked around then, we decided to take things in our own hands and custom build them. They turned out so great and everyone loved them. We now have a small furniture outlet in our own garage for other parents like us where we arrange bi-monthly meetups for parents to share ideas and come up with designs. Our little get-togethers are open for all expecting or existing parents and even furniture designers.” This is a story people will not only remember, but spread to every parent that they know.

Step 3: Tell the story to your audience

If you have been following my posts, you probably already have a community (audience or list) that you are actively building a relationship with. When you are ready to share your story with your community, just tell them the exact story that you have spun in the previous step and let them absorb it. Never push anyone to your events, let them get lured themselves.

Step 4: Make references to your story and encourage others to spread it

Make it easy for people to share your story with their friends. A great way to do this is to have materials ready, that they can send to their networks. Also, keep referring to different aspects of the story or different analogies of the story off an on, as a subtle reminder to the community. For example: “you know how we have this great little garage all set up…”, or “we are avid believers or DIY home products..”, or “our babies in a cute and inquisitive stage these days..”, or “its interesting to see how great ideas can be generated in fun brainstorming sessions..” etc. These references will revive the entire story in the listeners mind and will make sure he or she doesn’t forget it.

Just like product brands require special attention, your events deserve the same level of thought into designing them. Good luck.

Launching events – building a relationship of trust

Posted by admin

As event managers, we have gone through the extensive cycles of launching shows and parties a great number of times in the past. I have to admit I had a lot of inhibitions about it initially, as we turned towards online platforms for marketing. I knew there were areas which would benefit greatly, like automatic RSVPs and ticketing etc – but I had no idea how we would be able to pull the crowd in without spending too much time planning meticulously.

Interestingly enough, online marketing is closer to real-life situations and emotions than offline promotions. I will elaborate on different aspects of this observation in the next few posts.

It’s all about the relationships:

To launch events you have to build relationships with your market or audience first. Just like in real-life every interaction that you have with others is determined by your ability to build relationships – short or long term. Whether you are talking to a passenger sitting next to you in a train or dealing with close relatives, the power of these interactions depend on how well you can build and maintain relationships. This comes naturally to some people and is relatively difficult for introverts. Generally, if you are in the event management or planning field, then you are already a step closer to having these rapport building skills in you. Quite like real life, you have to build trust and credibility with the audiences online as well. These interactions have to be like real-life conversations – show genuine interest in them, find out their pain points, see how you can help them, make their input an important part of shaping the events.

You can’t simply, as an example, put tickets online and expect people to buy them. You have to slowly and gradually build strong relationships based on trust and credibility first. The stronger your relationships, the more it will benefit your events. So schedule special time aside for investing in building meaningful relationships with the people who matter the most: your audience, your customers, your clients, your attendees.

An example of a great relationship:

Just to stress my point, I am going to give you an example of how Tech Crunch leveraged their loyal followings in launching their events. They started a conference called Tech Crunch 20 in which they covered the top 20 tech startups live. Instead of just launching the event as is, they got the audiences involved way before the event. They kept adding information, sharing ideas, asking for direct input and kept everyone on the loop. The excitement led to more and more signing up to buy tickets. Within a year the community drove the event to an even larger scale and changed the name to Tech Crunch 40. This year they will be covering 50 top startups.

The reason I’m sharing this case with you is that these things don’t happen by fluke. Relationships, respect, authority and credibility play a significant role in the success of your events. The Tech Crunch conference would not have been successful if they hadn’t interacted directly with the people before, during and after the event launch. After the success of one, they can now relaunch by going through the entire prelaunch and launch phases every year.

More on relationships & trust from the blogging world around us;

5 Dysfunctions of a Customer Relationship
- When dealing with a “prospect” who has yet to become a “customer”, the biggest foundational barrier to progress is often “trust”. This common thread of trust is what got me thinking about this in the first place. …

High Value Relationships - Trust Points
- Trust Points are the customer interactions where the quality and outcome have greater implications than other points of contact. For example: the processing of someone’s bill is a trust point, whereas the handling of their luggage is a …

Leverage Your Relationships
- Another example of leveraging your relationships in on the internet. People will always want to buy off someone who they trust. If you have a relationship with someone who has a list of people who they email a newsletter to each week …

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