Future of Events 2024: What we learned from our flagship event

In April 2024, Lyyti live-streamed the "Future of Events 24" online conference with a clear objective: to build brand awareness, especially in the main markets of Finland, France, and Sweden. The event ended up being the biggest one in Lyyti’s history. This article explores everything that made it a success and all the things we could’ve done differently.

Events have long been recognised as powerful marketing tools. They provide a unique platform for direct engagement with target audiences, offering experiences that can leave lasting impressions. This is why Lyyti also invests in events, which have for years been the main lead source for the business.

There are many reasons why events are so effective in the marketing mix:

• Direct Interaction: Events enable face-to-face interactions, which can build stronger relationships compared to digital interactions.

• Brand Experience: They provide an immersive experience, allowing attendees to engage with the brand's values, products, and culture firsthand.
  
  
• Networking Opportunities: Events foster networking, connecting participants with industry experts, peers, and potential clients.
  
  
• Immediate Feedback: They offer real-time feedback, helping organisations understand their audience’s reactions and preferences.
  
  
• Content Creation: Events generate a wealth of content, from live streams and recordings to attendee-generated content on social media.
  
  
• Lead Generation: They are effective for lead generation, attracting potential customers who have shown an active interest in the brand or industry.

All these reasons were at play when the core production team was considering taking on the organisation of Future of Events 24. The event was a big investment in terms of production and time. A core team of 4 people was responsible for contacting speakers, setting up the event site, organising the video shoot in all three countries, and marketing. 

We learned a lot about this event and wanted to share our findings with our community of event organisers. This blog post provides a detailed retrospective analysis, highlighting audience feedback, financials, strengths, and areas for improvement. Our event's success underscores the significance of events in the marketing mix and their potential to build brands effectively.

Future of Events 24 goals

The idea behind Future of Events 24 was to produce an event where Lyyti could highlight its expertise and build brand awareness in markets where we were relatively young and unknown. We needed a flagship event that was big enough to market and would place Lyyti as a credible player in the market.

The secondary objective was to create marketing material with a long shelf life in the form of videos. Marketing resources are always limited, so every organisation benefits from carefully considering what kind of material brings it the most benefits. Events are, fortunately, a medium that yields a lot of material if production is planned correctly. 

Future of Events 24 was streamed simultaneously in three languages to service the audience in the main markets. All speakers were filmed before the event so that they could be present in the chat on the event day. This way, we were able to produce material for each market and get a lot of great material behind the scenes that we could use as marketing material already before the event.

Organisations can strategically use events to build and strengthen their brands. In the case of Future of Events 24, Lyyti paid special attention to the following elements to bring a unique event experience to its audience:

• Consistency in branding: All event elements— from visuals and messaging to attendee interactions— reflected the overall brand of Lyyti but also the visual identity of the event consistently.

• Engaging content: The team paid attention to engaging content that resonated with the target audience, showcasing expertise and innovation. Each market had a slightly different set of speakers to leverage topics that were interesting at the moment in each region.

• Influencer partnerships: We collaborated with industry influencers and thought leaders to amplify reach and credibility.

• Personalisation: The event experience was personalised for attendees through tailored communications and interactive elements.

• Follow-up engagement: Engagement was maintained post-event through follow-up emails, surveys, and exclusive content for attendees. Sales was also involved in reaching out to most potential leads after the event.

• Measure Impact: We used metrics such as attendance rates, engagement levels, and social media mentions to measure the event's impact and refine future strategies.

Success metrics

The primary goal of Future of Events 24 was to increase brand awareness and create valuable marketing content. We focused on establishing our presence in France and Sweden and reinforcing the market leader position in Finland. The main target audience was event organisers, event managers, and marketing professionals. 

At Lyyti, we follow the Event Success Management methodology. According to it, each event must have pre-set targets and a clear plan of action that defines goals, metrics, responsibilities, budget, and marketing and sales efforts.

For Future of Events, we set the following targets: 

Overall purpose: Build brand awareness
Participants: 5,000 participants.
New contacts: 40% of the audience needs to be new contacts. 
Experience Value Score (EVS): 75/100

The event was a success with 1472 participants. Although we didn’t hit the target, it was still one of the biggest in Lyyti’s history. For new contacts, we surpassed our goal, reaching 52%.

Brand awareness is constantly being monitored, and Lyyti’s business grew for three consecutive months after the Future of Events 24. We saw a clear increase in mentions on social media, especially on LinkedIn, and an increase in traffic on our website. Our follower count on LinkedIn grew 61% during the 30 days after the event, and Google brand search was booming in France.

At Lyyti, we measure every event with the Experience Value Score (EVS), which measures if the event was worth the participants’ time. If the participant wants, they can also leave a comment. The average EVS from the three live streams was 66 out of 100. The lowest rating (59) was given to the Finnish event and the best (79) for the French event. Sweden landed in the middle with an EVS score of 61. All in all, we were happy with the result even though we didn’t reach the goal with all the events. Audience feedback was still positive and encouraging that the event did serve its purpose.

In the next section, we dive a bit deeper into the marketing activities, team & audience feedback, and actions that we intend to take forward for Future of Event 25.

Future of Events 24 - Marketing overview

Future of Events 24 was a flagship event for Lyyti in 2024. It was also promoted much more than other events through different channels. The specific visual identity that was created for the event helped make it stand out and warrant the longer-term advertising, which spread from February until the event in mid-April. 

The marketing channels for Future of Events 24

• Website
• Marketing email (newsletters)
• Organic social media
• Lyyti’s platform
• Paid social media
• Partner networks
• Sales channels (meetings & emails)
• Promotion through speakers
• Expo advertising
  
  

Best performing channels

The pre-event CTA for marketing activities was to get people to register for the event. Lyyti’s most effective marketing channel has long been email, but for Future of Events 24, we were able to experiment a bit.

You are able to create participant types in Lyyti’s event management platform and use the unique registration link to discover where registrations are coming in. This helped the team to really understand where to allocate money and where potential participants find Lyyti.

The top 3 channels for registrations accounted for a little over 50% of all registrations, and they were:

1. Email with 30% of all registrations
2. Organic social media with 24% of registrations
3. Lyyti’s website with 15% of registrations 

All the channels used in the marketing mix were also closely monitored to measure their effectiveness. An interesting finding was that behind-the-scenes images and videos were the best-performing ad visuals. 

The top 3 channels also yielded the most committed audience. By this, we mean (percentage-wise) participants who registered for the event and also attended. The audience targeting was quite successful, as we received only one comment about the event being irrelevant to the participant.

Post-event marketing included a gated landing page where all the videos were accessible, an email workflow from marketing, organic & paid social media posts, follow-up events, and articles. As of the time of writing this post, Future of Events 24 has shown a positive return on investment.

Future of Events 24 - Audience Feedback

Audience feedback is very important for understanding what went well and which issues to fix for the next event. Audience feedback is also gathered with the Experience Value Score tool. 

As always, the response rate was high, an average of 22%, and the team received a lot of valuable feedback through the open feedback field of the EVS questionnaire. The clear message from the attendees was that the topics were relevant and interesting. However, the length of the event was considered too long, and not all speakers were loved equally.

Finland

• Positive: Meaningful topics, professional execution, diverse topics.
• Negative: Event too long, technical issues, inconsistent speaker quality.

Sweden

• Positive: Clarity of presentations, sleek production, diverse topics.
• Negative: Long wait times, overly sales-oriented sections.

France

• Positive: Interesting topics, exceptional speakers, dynamic presentations, networking opportunities.
• Negative: Some speakers were too sales-oriented, few login issues.

Each stream had between five and seven speakers, and the event was designed to take around half a day. The participants could hop on and off the stream and switch between the different streams if their language capabilities allowed. Some speeches were recorded in English to be consumed by a wider audience.

The marketing team at Lyyti had planned the communications timeline well in advance, and communication was active with everyone who had registered for the event. Prior to the event, the focus was to ensure as many of the registered people attended the event, and showcasing speakers and topics was the most communicated message. During the event, communications were happening on the streaming platform, and after the event, messaging continued actively, and it was amplified by the sales team contacting participants via email and phone.

The biggest difficulty was to communicate all the options on how to participate in the event and make the concept as clear as possible. Looking at the feedback, it was clear that this was not clear to everyone.

The attendance percentage was between 50-60%, which is in line with other events organised at Lyyti. From this point of view, the number of participants was on a good level. It was also communicated that the event would be recorded, which also lowers the number of people who attend the event as it happens.

Future of Events 24 -Production overview

The team worked hard to bring the event to life, and internal dedication to making the event a success was high. As a team, we were really happy with the outcome, even though there were a few hiccups along the way.

The event had a main tech partner for the streaming platform, and a specialised production company was responsible for editing the material. Each local team member was responsible for sourcing the speakers and ensuring their speeches were recorded on time. One person was responsible for the project management and one person created the visual identity for the event.

It was definitely a big undertaking, but the team had a smooth collaboration, the event looked very professional, and we were able to secure a lot of content for the future. Challenges were linked to technical production and execution, time resources, and speaker management. One big reason the Finnish stream got a lower EVS score was due to logging-in problems with the streaming platform. Many users were on mobile devices, and for some, accessing the stream was difficult. The problem became evident when the event started and persisted even though the team was trying to find a solution.

In our experience, technical issues and speaker quality are the feedback topics we encounter most often. Especially during webinars, it is important to ensure that your webinar platform is functioning correctly and that your speaker is engaging. You can read our webinar tips from our recent article. 

The production went well, but more time should have been allocated for finalising the video editing. The editing process is time-consuming and requires attention to detail, especially when working with material in four languages. The work was completed on schedule, but it required prioritisation and other important tasks were put on hold. In the Finnish and French productions, the filming crew and editing were handled by different partners, which caused challenges. A clear agreement on expectations and requirements led to additional costs.

Future of Events 24 - Internal review

After an event, everyone involved in the organisation is invited to an event retro. During the meeting, we review what went well and where we could improve. Participant feedback is carefully analysed, and we pick a few areas of improvement and commit to certain actions to implement for a better event experience next time.

What went well:

• Professional outcome: High-quality production and execution
• Brand awareness: Significant visibility on social media
• Teamwork: Strong internal collaboration
• Content: Reusable content for future events
• Event organisation: Smooth execution despite challenges

Areas for improvement:

• Event length and breaks: Consider shorter sessions or more breaks.
• Technical issues: Address connectivity and login problems. 
• Speakers: Ensure consistent speaker quality and engagement.
• Promotion and tracking: Improve tracking of participants and promotions.
• Planning: Start planning earlier, especially for LinkedIn invites and collaboration with sales teams.
• Mobile view: Ensure mobile compatibility.
• Audience engagement: Increase interactive elements like polls and Q&A. Plan these beforehand.
• Stakeholder communication: Even more communication with employees and partners is needed to keep everyone up-to-date.

Future considerations and ideas:

• Event format: Sessions could be spread over multiple days with a mix of live and hybrid formats.
• Timing: The 2024 event occurred during a time when there were many other high-profile events going on. We could move our event to a less crowded month, e.g., February.
• Budget management: Now that we have experience from the 2024 event, we have a greater understanding of cost. We could also consider charging a small fee for participation to provide a higher-quality event.
• Collaboration: Engage more with sales teams and have clear ownership internally and externally.

Committed actions for 2025

Based on the review of Future of Event 24, we committed to at least three actions before we start planning for the 2025 edition of Future of Events.

The most important things to modify were the event schedule, how to organise the working team internally, and reimagining the format.

• Event schedule: Move the event to a less busy month, decrease the sessions per day, and extend the event over a couple of days. 
• Team involvement: Have dedicated working teams in each country to ease the workload on marketing.
• Hybrid event: Incorporate some live elements to support networking and make the experience even more memorable.

Future of Events 2024 provided valuable lessons and insights. By leveraging these learnings, we can ensure the success of all events ahead of us, enhance brand awareness, and create impactful marketing material. Events play a crucial role in the marketing mix, offering a dynamic platform to engage with audiences and build lasting brand relationships.

Hero photo by Lyyti