Building Attendance Without Expanding Your Budget

Recently I had the honor of speaking at the Alexandria Convention and Visitor’s Association quarterly meeting. The topic for the panel was how to increase attendance without breaking the bank. Following are highlights from my portion of the presentation. I hope that readers can benefit from these ideas, or that they lead you to other low-cost ways to increase attendance in these turbulent times. Feel free to call or email for more information on any of the items.


Pertinent Meeting Content

• Offer pre- and/or post-show courses that attendees may need for credentialing – create a on-stop-shop for industry education
• Ensure that any current issues (i.e. economy and its effect on your industry, new regulations or legislation affecting your members, etc.) are addressed during the meeting – highly market these sessions and how attendees will benefit from attending
• Do pre-conference surveys of attendees/potential attendees to solicit feedback on what they hope to accomplish – make sure that top items are addressed and promote how the conference will meet the attendees’ needs and goals
• Provide potential attendees with information on how attending can help them increase their bottom line, etc. to more than make-up for the cost of attending
  
  

Smart Marketing

• Offer discounts for multiple attendees from the same company
• Enter attendees who register by a certain date into a drawing for incentives – i.e. free room during conference, complimentary registration for following year, VIP transfer between hotel and airport, upgrade to a suite, commercial item (iPod, GPS system, etc.)
• Use all types of contact – mail, email, phone calls, etc. – be sure to have a large number of touches will all prospects
• Focus heavily on those that have participated in the past or inquired about the upcoming conference
• Create a “The Value of Meetings” sheet that provides hard data (much available now in the media) about the value of meetings – make sure to provide with all promotional materials
• Create and provide a “Convincing Your Supervisor” sheet with facts that employees can use to show the value of their attendance – make sure to provide with all promotional materials
  
  

Partner with Stakeholders

• Promote the destination where the meeting is – make potential attendees want to visit it, and therefore attend your conference
• Promote that potential attendees can tack on a pre- or post-conference vacation – they can get both in one place and save
• Promote any local events occurring around the time of the meeting
• Work with the hotel to offer enticements – i.e. gift certificates to on site restaurants for conference attendees staying at hotel
• Cross-promote meeting with other industry related organizations
• Encourage exhibitors/potential exhibitors to hold company business meetings during your conference – assist them in making this a reality
• Have Board and/or Programs Committee members make calls/send emails to colleagues to encourage them to participate – go even further and create a system to award top performers with discounts, free registration, complimentary rooms, etc.

Laura Shelton, CMP, is President of Fusion Meetings and Events, a full-service meeting and association management company located in Alexandria, VA. With over 12 years of experience, she has found that success in meeting and association management comes from fusing the science (logistics, financial, content, operational) aspects with the art (creativity, meeting personal needs, personal communication, visually pleasing) aspects to create the whole product. She can be reached at laura@fusionmeetings.com.