We’re going to keep this post relatively short, and to the point.
Engagement matters in our corporate events and business meetings– A LOT.
Benjamin Franklin said: “Tell me, and I forget. Teach me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I learn.”
Swap involve for engage and you’ve got the perfect answer as to why audience engagement matters.
To get a positive ROI from your event, your audience must leave with something…and I don’t mean just your goodie bag. ?
So many event organizers and meeting planners expect engagement to happen by itself. It never – EVER – happens that way.
Research by the National Training Laboratory suggests that engagement, involvement, or interaction create significantly more impact on attendees than passive listening. Check out their Learning Pyramid (courtesy of Education Corner) for some eye-opening statistics on how much the impact and retention go up the more our attendees are engaged and active in the process.
I remember a conversation I had with a client some years ago. While he and I had worked together on some projects, he had just returned from a corporate event that Transperia was not involved with.
“I just had to call you,” he said over the telephone. “I just returned from a meeting.”
“How was it?” I asked.
“Unbelievable.” He replied. “It was the same old thing. Soooo boring.”
My client then went on to tell me that during one of the breaks, he had spotted one of his team members at the refreshment station. He approached him and asked how he was doing.
“Oh, you know,” his employee responded in a weary voice as he rolled his eyes. “It’s always the same old thing.”
Sensing the team member’s frustration with the event they were both attending, my client asked him, “Yeah, I understand. What can I do for you?”
The employee quickly responded with a chuckle, “Let me go home!”
Whoa.
When you consider how much you and your company spend to put on your national sales meeting, annual conference, shareholders meeting, or customer experience, you don’t want to risk that investment on anything less than great results.
If your corporate events are usually a steady stream of one presenter after another, leaning heavily on their Power Point decks and bar graphs, know that you are not alone.
We have a couple resources that can help you create more engagement at your events. Check out this post, or this one. We think you’ll find some practical tools to help you along, and get you started.
If you want to really crank up the return on your investment at your corporate meetings, consider mixing it up – and getting your attendees involved. You’ll be glad you did (and so will they)!
Okay, so now for the shameless plug:
At Transperia, we specialize in creating engaging, experiential events to maximize your event ROI. We’d love to come alongside you and create some engaging programs that can help you – and your attendees – get the MOST out of your events.
But shameless plugs aside, we really do love this stuff, and we truly care about our clients’ events and media projects. That’s why we got into this business to begin with.
Whether you need a corporate video, creative or visual design, or need help planning and executing your entire event, we can help.?
Here’s to your “engaging” success!
