By Kerry Saxby, Senior Account Manager at First Event
The ever-changing needs and wants of the modern consumer requires companies to respond and adapt to their needs at a fast pace. Events have become essential to many large consumer-led company’s external and internal engagement strategies, as they are an effective tool to help launch new products, deliver key messages, achieve employee engagement, drive behaviours, and increase sales.
CASE STUDY: HEALTH & BEAUTY
The health and beauty industry provides some of the best examples of how a good event can help achieve company goals. Health and beauty companies use events not only to sell new product lines to consumers, but ensure that the standards and ideals marketed by the brand externally, are maintained internally.
Using events to launch and promote products:
Health and beauty companies understand the importance of the countless fine details that help to create perfect and effective events. Every element of an event should provide an experience worthy of the brand it represents. To launch or promote a product correctly, and gain buy-in from their target demographic, these events require the event team to possess extensive knowledge of the product, as well as the story behind the product and its branding.
The location, venue, décor, demonstrations/presentations, gifts, entertainment, or any other elements should be targeted to promote the brands’ quality along with the benefits of the product in the best possible way in order to gain positive press.
It is important to understand that the world of PR is also changing and evolving, and product launches/promotional events reflect this. For example, press invites for health and beauty product launches now include a long list of relevant self-made influencers (such as bloggers and social media ‘stars’), who have become increasingly popular amongst a millennial audience – a target demographic for health and beauty companies. These influencers will arrive armed with their mobile phone cameras and immediate access to the news feed of consumers. As a result, the right event can help a company to secure effective online endorsements and advertising.
Driving employee engagement and behaviours:
In industries where every employee is considered a brand ambassador, it’s important to ensure the company’s values and standards emanate from every pore. Conferences and workshops provide great platforms for companies to deliver key messages and drive desired behaviours. Done right, these events can help to instil brand pride and knowledge – ensuring attendees become invested in the values and success of the company and its brand. This can also help to increase job satisfaction, lower attrition, and maintain the high standards of a company at every level.
Events can also be used as motivators for success. More and more companies are turning to incentive trips as rewards for hitting sales targets, or as part of internal reward and recognition schemes. Awards evenings and gala dinners can be designed to deliver the ‘WOW’ factor and give both employees and employers the chance to celebrate and reward success together with a night of fantastic food, drinks and entertainment. Memorable experiences last longer than anyone’s annual bonus and are much more socially acceptable to brag about at the water cooler, giving them aspirational value.
How to get it right:
Like any packaging or advertisement, events generate an opinion from the very first glimpse. Getting the event experience correct is as important as any other form of internal or external marketing. The right event not only evokes the right emotions but also the right results.
Our company mission statement gives away our recipe for success when creating events for our clients:
Our mission is to understand our customers’ business and help them to achieve their goals with passion, integrity, and creative thinking.
In the past, we’ve worked with a wide range of clients across different industries, and while some of them may be similar, no two are ever the same. We never assume to know a company because of the industry they work in, but rather understand and embrace the fantastic uniqueness of a company to ensure their identity is represented through their events.
Understanding and embracing the ethos, history, and audience of a company (and essentially becoming an extension of their brand), means that we can be confident in the successful delivery of an event that perfectly represents the brand identity.
Getting the destination or venue right is key. We find that keeping our finger on the pulse is essential to achieve this, and continually discovering new and exclusive destinations and venues allows us to provide the best possible range of options for our client’s needs.
The right event enhancements can be a great way to improve the attendee experience. Activities, meetings and workshops can always be enhanced through personalisation to reflect a brand, and even better, customised to individual delegates who can choose what they’d like to get involved in to create their own personal itinerary.
Despite being cliché, the age-old ‘quality over quantity’ argument is something that we stick to when providing options for events – whether that be a conference for 1000 people, or multiple smaller breakout rooms for workshops and meetings. We look for any way we can elevate the experience from excellent, to extraordinary.
Written by Kerry Saxby, Senior Account Manager at First Event
Kerry has worked in the events industry for the past 12 years and currently works at First Event as a Senior Account Manager. Having organised events for a variety of industry sectors, in a wide range of destinations, she is experienced in how events can benefit businesses and help reach their company goals.
Author: Adam Parry
Adam is the co-founder and editor of www.eventindustrynews.com Adam, a technology evangelist also organises Event Tech Live, Europe’s only show dedicated to event technology and the Event Technology Awards. Both events take place in November, London.
