Expo! Expo! IAEE’s Annual Meeting & Exhibition 2024 takes a deep dive into the inner workings of exhibitions and events with six unique learning tracks from thought leaders such as Florence Torres, CEM, Conference Manager for Informa. She will present the session, Increasing Quality of Audience Feedback for Future Content Development.
Florence will address high- and low-tech tools for eliciting feedback from conference audiences. She will explore:
- Setting goals for feedback expectations. What do you really want/need to know to help make changes?
- Exploring different options/tools that can be used to gain audience insight, including the pros and cons for each.
- How to make it fun to help train audiences to be more comfortable using these tools.
- Identifying the low-hanging fruit for changes to future programming, formats and other experiences at the event.
Participants are encouraged to submit questions and stories for this interactive session because learning from each other is priceless!
You’ll share input on how to assess audience feedback goals in an intentional way. Can you walk us through a specific example of how you’ve helped an organizer reassess their audience feedback goals? What was their initial approach, and how did your method lead to more actionable insights?
I don’t want to give away too many teachable examples that we’ll cover during the session. For one show though, a number of years ago, we were initially tracking everything about the session, and the speakers. We were using paper evaluations, the mobile app, and including questions on the post-event survey. Overkill for sure. What you have to understand (and admit to yourself) about that approach, are the negative ripple effects. You’ve fatigued your audience with the number of touchpoints, you’ve disrespected their time by asking them for essentially the same information on three different platforms, and you’ve asked for feedback on too many areas. You must always start with identifying your goals; what do you need to know in order to decide on future actions? We’ll get into this more during the session.
You also detail how to increase the audience’s comfort level with up-and-coming tools for eliciting feedback. Could you share a particularly successful strategy you’ve implemented to help audiences overcome their hesitancy with new feedback tools?
Introducing the tool pre-event will help to get folks not only engaged but comfortable with it. We’ve tried them all, but you know your audience best. Implementations include the following: use the feedback collection tool on social media for crowdsourcing; embed it in audience emails, including your pre-show “Know Before You Go” email; and at Registration/Check-In.
The ultimate goal is to increase the amount and quality of audience feedback. What has been the most significant change you’ve implemented that led to a substantial increase in both the quantity and quality of audience feedback? How did you balance these two factors, and what metrics did you use to measure success?
Ha, now you really want to steal my audience from me! A short answer here is QR codes are your friends; embrace them. Another core tenet is to take the KISS approach – keep it simple, silly! It’s fantastic to increase your engagement and increases the overall value of that feedback. Regarding quality though – it’s really what you make of it. Quality in (strategic goal setting) = Quality out (usable data). I’ll save the measuring success discussion for the session; don’t miss it!
Action item for those who plan to join my session at Expo! Expo!. Get engaged now and share what you’d like to hear more about during the session so I can tailor the content, using one of the tools I’ll talk about. It will take two minutes and there are three ways to access the question:
- Go to slido.com and enter code HearMore.
- Use this LINK or
- Scan this QR code:
What fuels your passion for this subject, and why is this information so relevant in today’s business environment?
As a ‘consumer’ I appreciate good content. I also appreciate programmers who are intentional and bring passion to planning the content they offer. Those that pay attention to what the audience needs as well as what the audience wants. One of the best ways to do that is to simply ASK. If you strategically ask your audience for their input, you’ll get it. Then your content will be valuable and your revenue will reflect it.
Florence sums up how to maximize the takeaways from her session in the brief video below:
