Design for Problem Solving
Even if 2020’s all-virtual events were outliers, they are still a useful source of qualitative information about what audiences an association can attract and what kind of engagement works for them. And as associations plan to get back to in-person meetings—perhaps this year, and likely with virtual elements added—they should pay attention to what they’ve learned, says Phelps Hope, senior vice president for meetings and expositions at Kellen, an association management company.
One key takeaway is that attendees want a more participatory experience. “There’s a little bit of pressure on planning now because people want real-time engagement, so the key goal is to maintain engagement,” Hope says. At the same time, “the international audience has more of a voice now. And rather than just sitting in sessions, everybody in the Zoom meeting is a panelist now. That changes how we design meetings.”
Phelps says associations would do well to focus less on the attendance figures for the last virtual meeting and instead try to understand what problems attendees have been trying to solve during the pandemic.
“Are attendees looking for buyer-seller relationships? Professors who can speak to the mainstream? Junior persons looking for mentors? What are the attendees needing and wanting by attending the conference? That’s what’s going to drive event design,” he says. “If you have a lot of people looking for mentors and get their careers going, then how many people were on the tradeshow floor is not a number that means anything. Understand what your attendees desire as an outcome from participating in the meeting, then design it, build it, and report on it.”
Hope recommends paying particular attention to the influx of international attendees that took advantage of the easier access to a virtual conference they likely wouldn’t have attended in person. Because in-person meetings probably won’t be back to full strength until 2022, he says, associations have an opportunity to study what engaged those new attendees and look for ways to convert them into members or regular customers. Becoming more flexible on educational opportunities can help you develop more knowledge about what works.
“This is an opportunity for associations to expand their international membership because you get easier access to them,” he says. “You can pull these new attendees into a very low-cost environment of virtual events. It can be a webinar series, it could be a two-hour lunch-and-learn kind of session. There can be a membership-development undertone for all of them. We no longer have to do just an annual meeting when we’re in the virtual environment.”
