Enterprises have been conducting conferences, meetings, and events for decades with the purpose of driving revenue, improving customer relationships, boosting training efforts, and reaching new audiences and communities. The industry itself (and those executives tasked with developing, planning, executing, and managing corporate meetings) has undergone major shifts in recent years, as companies feel the pressure to build initiatives and approaches [including strategic meetings management (SMM) programs] that can address spend management, social engagement, marketing, and mobility avenues.

With this in mind, we’ll present a notion about this evolving market: 2015 will be a critical year for those tasked with managing corporate meetings and events. Why is this? Why would such a market, one that is consistently traversing the lines of business evolution, face one crucial year now in comparison with the industry advancements of the past?

The answer is two-fold:

1. It is harder and harder to fully engage potential attendees / targets with the glut of social distractions around them, and;

2. The contemporary events management program also faces a growing challenge in the balancing act of procurement and marketing processes and needs.

In regards to the glut of social media distractions, it’s very clear that the convergence of social media and the professional business world is now finally experiencing the negative effects of this arena: too much, too little time. Those execs that are targeted by social engagement approaches are now presented with a veritable tornado of messaging from a variety of media sources…exacerbating the difficulty in the attendee engagement processes of the modern events management program.

As noted here last year, engagement management is a crucial, all-encompassing concept that represents the evolution of meetings management. Social media platforms remain a viable tool in boosting the attendee experience, however, because of the relative options and sources currently dancing within the business marketplace, the events management exec of 2015 will find it increasingly more difficult to utilize this avenue as a means of engaging attendees and prospects.

While fully realizing that engagement remains the top priority for contemporary meetings management, the active events management program also faces a unique challenge behind the scenes: drive efficiency across a cycle of processes. And, therein lies the rub: these processes span both the marketing and procurement stratospheres. Spend and supplier management mix with marketing, engagement, and event development, presenting a challenge that requires the utmost balance between these two very different divisions.

Therefore, the contemporary events management program must understand just how important it is to poise their top goal (drive engagement) with a robust and collaborative approach behind the scenes. Social engagement and event development are critical keys to this tactic, but enterprises must think more strategically by creating an end-to-end mindset for their meetings management initiatives. Strategic sourcing and supply management (i.e., venue-sourcing, travel, etc.) are just as important as the marketing ends of events management, and the companies that develop programs that can address both sides (supply management and marketing) are the ones that will shine in 2015. As for the amalgamation of social distractions as an obstacle for social engagement, there’s a few recommendations that stand above the others:

• Differentiate offerings and the allure of an event
• Engage in social analytics to understand how to best target specific groups
• And, most importantly: speak directly and loudly to those that most align to an event. What does this event offer that no other does? What can attendees gain by taking time out of their busy schedules? Considering that social media platforms involve millions of users, this is no easy task…but it can be done.

2015 will go down in business history as the year that event management truly reached its apex as a complex function: socially sound and effective, yet still managed with processes that drive efficiency and corporate value.

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Engagement Management and the Evolution of Events Management

Meetings and Events Management: Technology Update, Q4 2013

2014: The Year Ahead in Meetings and Events Management

Tagged in: Christopher Dwyer, Complex Categories, People, Predictions, Process, Sourcing, Spend Analysis, Strategy, T&E, Technology