Financial marketing

It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing!

10th July 2015

Making events accountable and memorable

Creating stunning events that create a marketing return is no easy task. Many shy away from it either because it is deemed too costly, too much ‘aggro’ or too risky.

But great events need not be any of the above. The team at Financial Marketing has been researching, planning and undertaking events for clients for many years. This has encompassed everything from international conferences to intimate client dinners.

The key to great events is good research and careful planning. Ideally you require a 6-month lead time from the first ‘Save The Date’ communication to the Big Day itself. That ensures you have the time to knit every component together perfectly. Most importantly it gives your target audience the opportunity to have the date free in their diary.

At their heart great events need to be single-mindedly created for their target audience. That means that everyone in the project team has to put aside his or her preferences and look objectively at the brief. This flows easily from a solid brief and clearly articulated outcomes.

A good example of this is a recent event we created for a client at the Williams F1 Conference Centre in Oxfordshire.

The client wanted a memorable day to engage with key clients. The venue had to have a ‘wow’ factor, have a theme that engaged the target audience and provide the ability for people to connect and interact. Geographically it had to be accessible for people coming from both North and South.

The Williams F1 Conference Centre provided all of these elements, with a theme that even non-F1 fans would find interesting and engaging. With access to F1 car simulators with a fun lap time competition amongst delegates and the opportunity for a private tour of Frank Williams F1 car collection, the venue provide so much more than a ‘vanilla’ conference hotel.

Central to the success of the day was the client’s vision for engaging the right speakers for the job. The day needed a balance between business and technical, and fun and inspiring – all connected by the core strand of imparting knowledge and wisdom in building high performing teams and taking businesses forward.

Financial Marketing helped create that mix by engaging Le Mans legend Derek Bell to come and talk about team building, together with leading economist Gerard Lyons accepting an invitation to outline to guests about what could lie ahead for the UK post-Election economy. With additional speakers drawn from industry, this created the right balance whilst still allowing the all-important time for everyone to engage and connect.

Putting events such as these together is all about meticulous planning and making contingencies for anything that could possibly happen on the day. You only have one chance at a live event and the devil is in the detail.

Events are an important part of the marketing mix. If you can add that ‘swing’ they can create a whole new dimension for doing business.