Millions of conferences are held every year but how can you make yours stand out? What can you do to make it engaging? Below are 5 tips that will make your event a success.
- Find your niche, find something that no one else is doing. Make it different
If you search for startup conferences, you will get 372,000,000 results, but every effective conference has an edge, something that sets them apart from the rest. Polar Bear Pitching is a really cool concept that takes on startups in a refreshing way. It is an event held in Oulu, Finland where startups go for a dip into a hole cut into the frozen Baltic sea and pitch to investors.
- It is all in the marketing, get social, live-tweet your event, if the president of the United States is on twitter you should get on there too.
Without marketing people won’t come through the doors and, the marketing industry is changing, and evolving people love seeing the content. They want to know just enough to get them interested but leave some questions open about what is to come. Drip feed them pictures and videos of the upcoming event to create excitement.
- Connect to your target audience, through good speakers and conference moderators.
So, you’ve got people to your conference but know that they’re here, it is time to make sure they stay and come back next year. Make sure that your moderators hone in on the strengths of speakers, so all the attendees can learn, connect and engage effectively. Industry leaders are the key to an effective conference as they have obviously done something right, so it is a chance for startups to follow and the industry to grow.
- The future is online, but nothing will replace face to face networking.
Especially at a conference focusing on the future of technology, it is an asset to showcase what technology can do. It can make conferences more interactive for the attendees, for example, create a live forum where people can post questions before or during the session. Technology like slido is making this possible, so people can hold more engaging Q&As.
- Make it personal, make the audience feel like they are being invited into a private conversation
Fireside chats are growing in popularity, it is a more informal interview technique where a moderator and guest have a conversation. This conversation brings in the audience and makes them feel like they’re in your living room. It is also a good technique to make the speaker feel more relaxed and get the best information out of them. Set the scene with sofas and get on the same level as the audience, just like in a living room.
