Northstar

Planner's Portfolio Meeting Strategies 10 NOV-DEC 2019 MEETINGS & CONVENTIONS MCMAG-ASIA.COM Industry pros share ways to encourage attendees to give their opinions during and after a conference WORDS JESSI MINNECI 1. Review your goals Before reaching out to attendees for their input, it's important to review what your own goals were for the event, said Danielle Rothweiler, owner of Verona, US-based Rothweiler Event Design. Then go over what you think worked and didn't, and why. This will give you a foundation from which to interpret feedback. 2. Ask at the right time "In general, you want to do a follow up with meeting attendees immediately after the event, and then again a month after the event is completed," said Ms Rothweiler. "Another P ost-event surveys and attendee outreach, whether conducted via email, social media or other platforms, are indispensable tools for gaining insight on what worked and what didn't. They can help guide your whole approach to event planning moving forward, and make it possible to create a useful attendee feedback template to employ for future events and surveys. We've consulted with industry pros to get some tips for gathering event feedback. option is to ask attendees to complete an evaluation and feedback survey before they even leave the event, and oer an incentive to do so." Such incentives could include gift cards, giveaways or other thank-you gifts that attendees could collect and bring home after handing in the evaluation. 3. Keep it simple For events with multiple sessions and speakers, use individual session surveys to determine if the speaker was eective and the content was meaningful, as opposed to jamming all feedback into one long-winded evaluation form. One important question tips for gathering event feedback to ask: "Did the description match the content you received? That's a big deal," said Christopher Korody, experiential event marketer at CK Writes. "You see this constantly: The description was wrong, it was too basic, it was too that. Now they are 15 minutes in, and they have to get up and try to get to another session, and it has basically blown their hour." Breaking up feedback to focus on specic, shorter forms can entice attendees to provide a more in-depth response. 4. Use new techniques Why not try steering away from traditional methods of gathering feedback in ways more convenient for meeting and event attendees? For example, shortly after attendees have left an event (or individual session), send them a text thanking them for attending and ask them to respond with 1-3 words describing their experience. Beacon technology, which uses geo-location to send signals to a smartphone or event app, can be used to push event feedback surveys onto a phone as soon as an attendee leaves the area. 5. Provide feedback for the feedback "If you're surveying people electronically, let them see an instantaneous list of how others answered the same questions," suggested the Event Management team. "This sparks a natural curiosity and will encourage them to complete the other questions as well." CREDIT: GRIVINA/GETTYIMAGES

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