Whether you are putting on a conference or small presentation for your association members and guests, make sure your speakers are interesting, relevant, and prepared. The more prepared your speakers are, the better their speech will be and the more it will benefit your attendees. Use this checklist to ensure both you and your speaker feel confident going into their presentation.
When planning an event for your organization, you typically have two goals in mind: create an event that your members will love and get as many people there as possible. No pressure, right? To achieve those goals, it is best to create a promotion plan.
1. Determine your audience. Understand who would benefit best from the event. This includes both demographics and psychographics. Do you want to include non-members? This first step will determine the direction of your promotion plan.
2. Develop a message. Your event might have a million benefits for guests but your audience will only care about some of those benefits. Narrow down the message that you want to deliver to your audience and hone in on it. This will be a more effective way to communicate with them.
3. Find your audience. If you are targeting an older group of people, it might be best to send out direct mail or email. If you are targeting millennials, head to the internet. Going to your audience, will ensure that the message gets in front of them and increases the chance that they will read it.
Determining these few factors can make all the difference in your promotional plan. Make sure to reach your audience more than once to nail in their attendance. Happy event planning!
As an association management company, our staff attends many conferences each year. These conferences can include client work or educational seminars. After attending educational conferences, we have several steps that we take in order to make the most out of our experience. If you aren’t doing the following after every event, we suggest that you start.
1. Review your notes. At educational events, we often feel the need to write down EVERYTHING. This can lead to a mess of notes scribbled on a notepad. It is important to review your notes after the conference and type them up to be more legible. This will make you more likely to refer back to them and allow them to be easily shared.
2. Talk about your experience. Speaking of sharing, make sure to let your team in on the fun. Fill them in on any key takeaways. This might spark up ideas for them and could be useful for the whole team. If you have a blog, you can also share what you learned on there. Your notes are already typed up and it would be a great way to engage with people online. Make sure to tag the event and use any hashtags they have.
3. Define any action items. After reviewing your notes, you may notice takeaways that you want to implement into your own organization. Make a list of action items that you want to follow through on. This will keep you from forgetting them and will make your time and money put into the conference worth it.
4. Follow up on connections. If you found yourself talking to the other attendees and enjoying the conversations you had, follow up with them. Add them on LinkedIn or contact them from their business card. These people could be useful to your organization and might forget about your encounter if you don’t reach out shortly after.
If you are attending conferences, you should be ensuring that you get the very most out of each one. By following these steps, you will come away from conferences with new information, networking connections, and inspiration for your organization. Happy conferencing!
Conference calls can be a great way for the Board of Directors to meet without coming to one central location. The convenience of them saves time and energy that in-person meetings might exhaust. Conference calls, however, can still often get derailed and take longer than necessary. Below are a list of ways to make your next conference call more efficient.
1. Test the program. It is important to test the software before beginning a call. Make sure all participants are provided the dial in codes and ensure everything is running properly before the call. This step of preparation will keep the calling running smoothly and will avoid the risk of wasting the time of other participants if difficulties arise.
2. Prepare an agenda. This is another step that can and should be taken before beginning the call. Write out an agenda that outlines the necessary talking points. You should also include a list of attendees that will be on the call. This eliminates the guessing game of trying to piece together who is talking. Things might not go exactly as planned but at least you can double check that everything that needed to be covered is covered.
3. Be on time. The time is set based on the participants availability. Because of this, you should be free to join the call and the start time. If you are late, you could be running into the time that other people are not available. It can also cause a disturbance at the beginning of the call. The participants may not know how long to wait for you before getting started and an interruption of you joining the call and needing to be caught up can slow things down. Be ready to go right at the start time and encourage others to do the same!
4. Find a quiet place. There is nothing worse than hearing a tv blasting, a dog barking, or a kid crying on the other end of a conference call. Find the quietest place in office or home and block out all noises for the length of the call.
5. Know when to mute and when not to mute. Speaking of quiet, do not forget the mute feature on your phone. Once you have introduced yourself, put your phone on mute to eliminate background noise. Be sure to keep up with whether you are muted or not. When asked a question, be ready to un-mute yourself and answer in a timely manner.
6. Focus. It is easy to find yourself zoning out or working on other tasks while on the call, however, the call should be your number one priority. The call is in place for a reason and should be as important as an in person meeting. Providing your full attention is respectful and will keep you better informed.
Following these simple steps should keep things on time and well-organized.
Whether your meeting is big or small, simple or over-the-top complex, the hardest part is usually just getting people to show up. This can be especially difficult for regularly scheduled meetings like monthly webinars or association updates. These 3 steps can make a big impact on member attendance and improve the meeting experience overall. Now including bonus tips from Impact AMC Senior Meeting Planners!
