Delegate Retention - Delivering Value BY TRACEY THOMAS Conference Promotion Challenges

We hear phrases such as “delivering value” and “raising the bar” often in our conference themes… these marketing phrases are meant to excite and create interest for the potential delegate – and are an important part of promoting an outstanding programme and social functions. However, it is vital that when you are marketing your conference, you keep the delegate at the forefront of your mind to ensure they gain maximum value and benefit from the conference. Whether they are a first time or seasoned delegate – if they believe they have been part of something unique and special, they will be the first to sign up for next year’s event. Below are some suggestions organisers may wish to include for delegates to ensure they achieve maximum value from attending your conference.

1. Read the conference information thoroughly, and select the sessions that will most likely improve your skills. Stay away from the sessions you could almost teach yourself, and “extend and stretch” by hearing about subjects you have not mastered.

2. Ask a professional colleague to become your conference mate, so you can share what you learn. This collaboration will bring special benefits when you talk about presentations that only one of you attended.

3. Become an active delegate, asking questions and making comments in a constructive manner.

4. Stay for the entire conference and attend all meal breaks and social functions. You never know what good information you might miss by arriving late or leaving early. There are huge networking opportunities in the breaks – you can bump into all sorts of interesting people.

5. Stay at the conference’s designated hotel. Great networking opportunities exist with fellow delegates and conference presenters – at breakfast, in the lobby etc.

6. When you attend conference social functions, the cocktail party, the gala dinner, remember that potential employers, clients, associates or business partners might observe your behaviour! You are not really “off duty”.

7. Take plenty of business cards, to help new contacts remember you.

8. Politely collect as many business cards as you can, so you can follow up with cards, emails, phone calls and appointments.

9. Buy the tapes, audio CDs or podcasts recorded during the sessions. Do this even for the seminars you attend, to reinforce your learning. Check which sessions are NOT being recorded – it may be your only chance to hear that particular speaker.

10. Meet and thank everyone who served on the conference organising committee. They deserve your compliments. In many cases years of often unpaid hard slog has gone in. And when you thank them, you will definitely stand out as one of the few who did.

Tracey Thomas is a director of Conference Innovations and can be contacted on email tracey@conference.co.nz. Visit www.conference.co.nz for further details on conference innovations.