Close your eyes and picture an event. What do you see? A concert? A bustling Las Vegas convention center? An auditorium filled with thousands of people listening to a speaker on stage? I’m willing to bet you didn’t immediately picture a more intimate space at a local business, restaurant or hotel.
But more and more companies are choosing to invest in many of these smaller, local events rather than in a much smaller number of large events.
Smaller, repeatable, local events are the key ingredient for scaling an event program. They generally require less budget and people resources, foster a more intimate environment that inspires human connection, and are less risky when it comes to dealing with circumstances beyond your control.
Hosting one or two annual, large events force you to put all of your eggs in one basket with thousands of attendees, dozens of sponsors, millions of dollars, and a dedicated internal task force. The sheer amount of effort that goes into pulling events like these off is immense, and it doesn’t always deliver the results you’re looking for, since large events with lots of competition for attention offer fewer opportunities for your team to get face-to-face with the right people and connect with them in a meaningful way.
Instead, an event marketing strategy that focuses on scale is more manageable and lets you work with a much leaner team and a more scalable budget. Local events accomplish just that. Think about how many people are involved in planning an annual summit, the travel required, and how far in advance the team works on action items. They’re likely thinking at least two years ahead, all the time. Now, think about the last time you partnered with your sales team to host a VIP dinner event. There was little to no team travel required, and you probably spent a month or less on the entire process of asset creation, promotion, and execution. And that’s not to mention you likely only had to loop in a few team members.
Local events are also primed for you to target promotional efforts to a finite list of prospects, partners, and customers. In addition to decreasing your unsubscribe rates from email invites, you can create content that is hyper-relevant to that audience, thus creating a more impactful event. Plus, this might even lead to a lower event drop-off rate when it comes to getting registrants to actually show up.
Quite possibly one of the best things about spending less money to host an event? Better ROI. Even if you only get one deal across the finish line as a result of the event, you’re likely coming out with a positive return. You also have more control over the experience a potential customer has at a small event because you can ensure one-on-one time.
When you bring a group of people together who have similar careers, beliefs, and views, they are bound to make strong connections. When you add a little same-city love to the mix, the connections grow even stronger.
Local events add an extra level of comfort for your attendees. They arrive knowing they already have at least one thing in common with the rest of the crowd and will be more likely to participate in group activities. These activities become even more valuable at small, local events, because whole teams aren’t attending and sticking together like they typically do at large conferences. Small events force attendees to meet new friends, grow their networks, and get even more value from the event.
As event marketers, we aim to bring people together and form communities. All too often in this digital age, communities are built around common interests and giving people the opportunity to get involved from behind their computer screen. While it’s amazing that platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Reddit can support worldwide niche communities (seriously, if you’re a diehard Comic Sans font fan, there’s a Facebook group for that), bringing the community together and harnessing the power of face-to-face human connection at the local level is more important than ever. However, supporting a mix of both digital and live events (and events that blend both), allows event marketers to create some of the best magic.
Event marketers are agile beings. More frequently than not, we encounter extenuating circumstances beyond our control that force us to think quickly and adapt. Whether it’s a natural disaster, a global health concern, or something less nerve-wracking like a sudden budget cut, we must always have a back-up plan.
One of the most beautiful aspects of hosting a local event is that they are much lower-risk. If you need to make the last-minute decision to cancel the event, the impact felt by both the hosting team and attendees is much lower than if you were hosting a giant conference. Less travel is affected, fewer vendor contracts are broken, and less budget is on the line. The same goes when you choose to forge ahead: Even if you see low attendance rates, the amount of resources and budget on the line for the event is a drop in the bucket compared to a huge tentpole conference.
Conversely, embracing a local event program allows you to scale up just as easily as scaling down as circumstances warrant. With so much less lift required from the team to plan and execute a local event, adding more cities to the list is simple when you realize how much event ROI you’re getting. And when business needs and priorities quickly shift, so can your event program.
Event marketers always have to think on their feet. And while we might have one of the most chaotic careers out there, we embrace the challenge and forge ahead while keeping an unnervingly calm exterior. And that is why event marketers are straight-up superheroes.
