MeetMax 1X1 investor conference software has a new feature to maximize 1X1s at an event (please e mail corporateaccess@twst.com for details). Extracting maximum commercial impact from investor conferences is likely to intensify as a business priority. Reinforcing this trend is the increasing competition for buy side commissions. One survey this week anticipates a 17% drop year on year for 2011 in buy side commissions (http://www.integrity-research.com/cms/2011/03/14/csa-use-grows-on-buy-side/).

I stopped in to Apella, event space at the Alexandria Center for Life Science, in New York City, to meet Susan Sutler who has been a MeetMax event registration and 1×1 meeting client and who is now the conference services manager at Apella.  Susan offered me a tour, and told me some about the type of meetings and events they are hosting at Apella.  It is such an interesting space and so well-thought out that I wanted to share it.   The facility has two large configurable presentation rooms and a number of smaller breakout rooms.  The modern design is beautiful and complements the setting overlooking the East River.  One of the breakout rooms has an entire wall of whiteboards, in addition to state of the art electronics, making it perfect for scientific meetings.   If you would like to learn more about Apella, www.apella.com.

I was browsing through LinkedIn Answers today and came across a question from one of my contacts, Dan Ake,  “What is your biggest issue regarding conference sales?”  There were a number of answers posted, but one really stood out:

“My experience as a conference exhibitor is that the attendees have much more opportunity to network and make connections than do the exhibitors, and for a small fraction of the cost of being an exhibitor. If the purpose is to make new connections, being an attendee is the most cost effective approach.” (Glenn Jenkinson)

Why this particular answer?  Because it’s clear that the organizers at the conferences where Mr. Jenkinson has been exhibiting are missing an opportunity to create value for their exhibitors AND their attendees:  Pre-scheduled 1×1 meetings.

How much more valuable would the conference be, if Mr. Jenkinson arrived on-site knowing that he had 5, 10, 15 pre-scheduled meetings set up with interested attendees?  He would still have to deal with the folks who are just coming by his booth for the freebies, but at the end of the event he would have had meaningful face-to-face meetings with some number of qualified sales prospects and/or business partners.

We all know that attendees and exhibitors both find face to face interaction on the tradeshow floor to be important in the process of finding vendors, evaluating vendors and making the purchase decision.   With pre-scheduled 1×1 meetings, both attendees and exhibitors can be assured that they will have meaningful interactions as a result of attending the conference.

Want to know more about how you can incorporate 1×1 meetings into your next conference?  Send us an email: meetings@twst.com

We asked a group of successful corporate meeting planners to share with us their insights into what makes an effective website for marketing an event.   We took away 7 great tips that we’ve been sharing with you over the last couple of weeks.  Today, we come to lucky number 7!

7. PROVIDE VALUE-ADDED CONTENT

After your event concludes, keep registered attendees engaged by providing content for download. This content might be copies of slides or handouts or podcasts/webcasts of the presentations themselves.  Some content you may want to password protect, so that only registered, and paying, attendees can access.  Other content you may want to make available to anyone who finds your site.   One of our clients, Odyssey Media produces a annual 4 day networking conference/retreat for women and they follow up the event by posting photographs of the event on the website.  This online photo diary reminds the attendees of how much they enjoyed the event, and inspires new potential attendees to seek an invite to the event the following year.

I am off to Boston for the CanaccordGenuity Growth Conference – their website is a terrific example of a well structured and complete event website.  Check it out!

I had a call yesterday from an event planner in the UK asking about how flexible MeetMax is, really.  He has looked at a lot of different online registration systems, and his complaint is that they are all flexible, but only to a point. “This one lets you have just 4 pages; that one lets you have more but the page design/layout can’t be changed.”  I offered to put together a set of screen shots illustrating a few of the many variations you can do with MeetMax.  I thought you all might be interested as well — so click here to view.

If we can be of help to you with software for marketing/registration for your next event, please give us a shout – www.meetmax.com or meetings@twst.com

I recently found an article on Forbes.com that speaks to the business case for face to face meetings.  In their study of 750 business executives, Forbes reports that “executives expressed an overwhelming preference or face-to-face meetings, with more than eight out of ten saying they like in-person contact more than virtual. Asked why, those that prefer face-to-face meetings cited how they build stronger, more meaningful relationships (85%), the ability to “read” another person (77%), and greater social interaction (75%).”

Here at MeetMax, we specialize in working with corporations for which conferences are a key part of how they provide value to their clients.   At their conferences, they feature 1-on-1 meetings so that attendees can connect, in private pre-scheduled meetings, with companies with whom they may invest or otherwise do business together.  Just a sample of some of the events our clients have held this summer –

• China Conference: 451 registered. 119 Attendees have 1-on-1 meetings. There are 1062 meetings in total
• Healthcare Conference: 478 registered. 92 Attendees have 1-on-1 meetings. There are 542 meetings in total.
• Automotive/Transportation Conference: 304 registered. 228 Attendees have 1-on-1 meetings. There are 2387 meetings in total.
• Energy Conference: 775 registered. 311 Attendees have 1-on-1 meetings. There are 1212 meetings in total.

At these events, attendees had on average between 4 and 10 meetings.  These are meetings that are scheduled for them before they even show up at the conference — so they know in advance the value that they will get from attending.  And the conference sponsor/organizer can make a strong case for attending – because they can guarantee some minimum number of private meetings.   With travel budgets being slashed, conference organizers need to be able to demonstrate why attending their conference is going to provide a return on investment.  And as the Forbes article points out, for the majority of business executives, face to face business development meetings provide a strong return on investment.

So that’s the case for including 1-on-1 meetings as part of your conference.  But, imagine scheduling 2387 meetings on a spreadsheet!  It hurts my head to think about how complex and time-consuming a task that would be, if you tried to do the scheduling without good tools.

At MeetMax, we provide you with the tools that meeting planners need to successfully manage a 1-on-1 meeting program within a conference.  By integrating 1-on-1 requests with online registration, you can streamline the requests process.  Our one-click scheduling tools make it simple to build the meeting schedules for each participant.  And, built-in communications tools make it easy to email schedules to all participants in advance.  On-site tools help you keep track of what’s going on throughout the day, and make sure that people are notified of any changes in their schedule as the day progresses.

When you are planning your 2011 user group conference, or trade association annual meeting, or industry conference – think about how 1-on-1 meetings can help you increase the ROI for your attendees and your company.  If we can be of help to you, please give us a shout – meetings@twst.com.

There is nothing I dread more, when I am the customer, than when I have to get into a call queue to get a question answered or a problem solved.  Actually, what I might dread more is not being able to get into a call queue and only having access to a wiki or faq to try to solve my problem myself.  Turns out I’m not the only one who feels strongly on this point, and we heard from event planners how much their customers valued the ability to reach a real person for help in registering.

This leads me to number 6 in our list of insider tips of great event websites.

6. LET THEM KNOW THAT HELP IS AVAILABLE

We all love that technology makes it possible for us to communicate with people all over the world on-line. But, we also want to be able to reach someone knowledgeable to get our questions answered right away.   Include contact information for more information or assistance and assign someone on your team to be responsible for answering the emails and phone calls in a timely manner.   It’s not necessarily critical that someone staff the phone line around the clock, but they have to respond within a reasonable time.   What’s at stake if you miss the opportunity to answer someone’s question?   You may not get them as an attendee.    So, if you want to maximize the number of registrations you get, make sure you have a way for people to contact you with questions.

By the way, here at MeetMax we do things a little differently than other software vendors.  Each of our MeetMax team of client support specialists works closely with her or his clients to customize their registration site, troubleshoot and answer questions along the way.    If we can help you with online event registration software, please give us a shout at meetings @twst.com.

Continuing our series on what makes a great marketing website for events.  Today’s tip is to make sure that the site has complete information.  Different types of visitors will want different kinds of information.  For example, potential exhibitors will want to know the show floor layout, while potential attendees are probably not as interested in that information, but would want to know more about the keynote speakers.

We’ve summarized for you what information you must have, and what information is nice to have, for different types of visitors.

ATTENDEES

Must Have:

• Topic and Theme of the Event
• Audience Description so I know what’s in it for me
• Agenda (that is up to date)
• Speaker information including their bios (again, up to date)
• Session descriptions that actually match the content of the session.
• On-line Registration Form with ability to accept credit card payments, along with other forms like P.O.’s or checks.
• Logistics – Where to stay, Travel options, Driving directions, Where to Park and How Much it will cost, Meals
• Frequently Asked Questions – these won’t eliminate all of the phone calls you receive, but it will cut down the volume of calls you have to handle.

Nice to Have

• Dress Code
• Spouse/Guest Information – either your guest program or some ideas of sights to see and things to do while the attendee is at the conference
• Directory of Attendees (only the ones who have given you permission to publish their information)
• Links to Exhibitors and Sponsors
• Means to pre-schedule meetings with exhibitors, sponsors and speakers
• Video Snippets from the prior year’s conference – perhaps the keynote speaker, or an awards presentation

EXHIBITORS

Must Haves

•  Show Floor and/or Booth Options, with pricing
• Ability to purchase booth online
• Attendee demographics, including background, interests etc.
• Ability to register exhibitor attendees online, as part of the booth package

Nice to Haves

•  Ability to upload logo for signage, ad for program book etc.
• Ability to connect with prospective attendees with exhibitor’s content – microsite
• Ability to pre-schedule appointments with registered attendees

SPONSORS
Must Haves:

• Sponsor Package descriptions and pricing
• Ability to purchase sponsorship online
• Conference Data – past year attendance, demographics etc.
• Ability to register sponsor attendees online, as part of the sponsor package

Nice to Haves

•  Ability to upload logo for signage, ad for program book etc.
• Ability to connect with prospective attendees with exhibitor’s content – microsite
• Ability to pre-schedule appointments with registered attendees

Because it is so important to keep the content on your event website current, content management tools built into MeetMax make it easy for you to create an information-rich website and keep it up to date.

After a brief hiatus for vacation, we continue the series on insider secrets to great event websites –

4. FACILITATE NETWORKING
Much of the value attendees get at a conference comes from the conversations they have
outside of the meeting rooms. If you want a truly successful event, you need to facilitate
opportunities for your attendees to network/talk with one another. A great way to do this
is to offer the ability to set appointments with exhibitors, sponsors or speakers in advance.
Post a directory on the event website and offer the opportunity to request meetings as a
function of registering for the conference.

Want to read the whole white paper? Click here to download.

Continuing our list of insider tips to create effective event websites … here’s number 3

3. REGISTER ONLINE
Once a visitor has decided s/he wants to attend, provide a simple means to register on-line (and make it easy).
Simple forms with clear instructions for completing the registration process are key here. If you are hosting
a global or multi-national event, offer the visitor the opportunity to register in their national language.

Want to read the entire list? Download our latest white paper “Seven Characteristics of Effective Event Websites”.