Richard John recommends a dramatic change in thinking to drive event attendance. Getting more of the right kind of people to events is a perennial problem facing most organisers.
Traditional thinking will espouse the necessity of customer loyalty, and rewarding those who return to our conferences and exhibitions. Switched-on companies are also embracing platforms like Gleanin and InGo, understanding the power of testimonials and that new delegates are more easily persuaded to attend via an invitation from a friend or colleague.
That also means a strong focus from organisers towards those who may have expressed an interest but not made the final commitment; or those lapsed visitors. These are all sensible strategies.
But here’s a counter-intuitive approach, originating in World War II. The USAF wanted to reduce their plane losses. When aircraft came back after sorties, the majority of bullet holes were found in three main areas; the fuselage, the outer wings, and the tail.
The natural solution was to add robust reinforcement to those areas. This, however, is an example of ‘Survivor Bias,’ and it took the Hungarian statistician Abraham Wald to point out the key flaw.
If the planes were coming back riddled with holes in those areas, it meant that the ones that didn’t come back were being hit in different places. His solution was therefore to add extra protection to the other parts of the plane.
Organisers should be very proud of their efforts to deliver millions of delegates and visitors to their events. But – a personal anecdote – I deliver event management workshops to a few dozen corporate and association professionals, and the majority have no knowledge of, or interest in, our industry shows or meetings. Our ‘Survivor Bias’ means that for some reason our efforts to win them over are falling flat.
What does that mean for organisers? Well, the focus post-event is inevitably on questioning attendees and, occasionally no-shows. Wise; but also consider the segments of your market that aren’t coming, and perhaps aren’t even responding to your marcomms.
That’s much harder – the ‘unknown unknowns’ are – by their very nature – hard to identify and reach. Nevertheless, you and your team will have ideas of the segments and sub-segments, the individuals and the groups that you need to target – not, of course, neglecting your current fans.
The marketing tools you need all exist and are ready for deployment. What might be needed first is a slight shift in mindset. Or, in the words of the mathematician William Thurston, “You don’t see what you’re seeing until you see it but when you do see it, it lets you see many other things.”
