Growing Your Meeting In CyberSpace
by Philippa Gamse
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Published on this site: January 2004 - See
more articles from this month
As increasing numbers of people search for information on the Internet, it becomes
more imperative to have a compelling Website to promote and support your meetings.
Here
is my list of "The Seven Most Important Things You can do Online":
- Identify all your Online Markets
It's a common mistake to focus your attention on the obvious
target audience for your meetings site - the potential attendees.
But many other types of visitor may find your site, and
it's important to consider whether they're important to
you, how you want to engage them, and what outcomes you'd
like to achieve with them.
Visitors to your meetings Website might include:
- past / potential attendees
- suppliers / vendors / exhibitors / sponsors / insurers
- Board members / employees / volunteers
- content seekers
- media
- job seekers
- competition
"Content seekers" is the term I use for members
of the public who may not be regular customers or members
of your organization, but who find you through a keyword
search because they're interested in the content of your
meeting. If you admit the public to your events, this is
an important audience who might require different communications
from your regular participants.
If you're looking for publicity, don't forget the importance
of a press center. This should be very easy to find, and
should contain all the information that a reporter would
need to cover your event - they're usually under tight deadlines
and will really appreciate this.
I include "competition" in this list because many
people have asked me whether it's dangerous to put too much
good information on your Website "in case the competition
sees it". My (somewhat obvious) answer? "If your
competition can't see it, neither can the people you're
looking to attract!"
- Set your Goals
This sounds self-evident, but is often overlooked. You can't
evaluate your return on investment (see #7 later) if you
don't know what you want to achieve. What will be your measures
of success for this site in terms of your meeting? What
are the key outcomes that you want - registrations, exhibitors,
media attention, ongoing discussion forums, etc.
Also consider the expenses of the site against any potential
savings - for instance, if you're implementing online registration,
you want to be satisfied that your system can replace (and
hopefully improve on) your real-world processes in a cost-effective
manner.
- Make it About Them, not You
Your site should be written from your visitors' point of
view, not yours. Does your meeting description page clearly
recognize why the reader might be there - what's in it for
them to attend your event, and why they should care? What
are the problems or issues that they might have, and how
will participating in this meeting address them?
Include some testimonials from previous attendees giving
clear examples of how they've benefited from this event
in the past.
Third party endorsements are worth far more than your own
promotional text. They should be spread throughout your
site, not relegated to a separate page (because few visitors
will go to it).
- Make it Easy to do Business With You
It's all too easy to throw online roadblocks into the paths
of your visitors, perhaps without even realizing it. A couple
of my favorite examples of this are:
- Site search engines that return "no results
found", making the visitor feel foolish. Clearly
they're looking for something, so offer to have a representative
call them - or provide further help with your search
process.
- Asking for registration details prematurely, before
you've created enough trust with a new visitor. Privacy
issues and concern about spam are major barriers to
volunteering personal information.
- Every Page of your Site should Have a Strategy
Whatever the outcomes that you want from your site, you
need to ask for them. Too many Web pages end weakly, with
no clear calls to action. Don't make your visitors have
to work to decide what to do next - they won't! Every page
on your site should have a strategy - invite the visitor
to interact with you, or go to the next page, but make it
easy and obvious.
So, at the appropriate place in each page (or at several
points in the page), include a link to the appropriate form
- "register for this meeting", "ask for an
exhibitor packet" - or whatever invitation may be relevant.
- Practice Multi-Channel Integrated Marketing
Offline marketing activities, such as postcard campaigns
can be extremely useful in driving traffic to your Website.
Think of all your marketing tactics as inter-related, and
not as separate.
Don't rely on search engines to bring traffic to you - there
are many other ways to create online buzz:
- paid advertising - e-zine sponsorship / banners /
pay-per- click searches
- public relations and coverage on other sites
- placing articles by your experts and speakers on
sites and in publications read by your target audiences
- and of course, targeted e-mail marketing to your
existing mailing lists
- Measure your Success
The keys to evaluating the return on investment in your
site, to improving it, and often to further business development
ideas can be found in your Web traffic reports. These show
what visitors are looking for, how long they spend on the
site, where they go, where they leave, and what rate of
response you get to the various calls to action.
These reports can be daunting - a mass of figures, graphs
and URL's. But I'd strongly suggest that someone in your
organization should understand them. Otherwise, you're shooting
in the dark with your Web investment.
Philippa Gamse, CyberSpeaker, is a Web strategy consultant
and professional speaker. Check out her free tipsheet for
23 ideas to promote your Website: www.CyberSpeaker.com/tipsheet.html
- Philippa can be reached at (831) 465-0317.
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