Event Management Tip – The Benefit of PreSurveys

At the end of most conferences, attendees will get a survey to complete. Companies want to know what attendees thought of the meeting venue, the speakers, the subject matter… you name it! And that’s great! Companies can learn a lot from these surveys about what they did well and where there is room for improvement. But think about how much greater your success will be if you ask them all these questions in ADVANCE!

There’s no reason in today’s connected world that you can’t reach out to and get opinions from your customers or users in advance. Between e-mail and web-based surveys, getting crucial information about what people want from your conference is not only easy, but inexpensive. Why invest thousands upon thousands of dollars for a big annual meeting and make a stab in the dark about what attendees in 2012 want to get out of it. Ask them ahead of time!

You can gain an enormous amount of insight from these surveys, which should be sent out a minimum of 6-8 months in advance. You can find out what your audience wants to learn about but also about meeting logistics itself: Where would you like future meetings to be? Is registration cost too high? Is this an appropriate hotel room rate? Are summer meetings more convenient?

You can ask them about preferred speakers and content, as well session formats and non-traditional activities. It’s also an opportunity for you to gain some demographical information about attendees: who exactly comes to your meeting.?

As event managers this is also your chance to make your attendees feel more involved and invested in your meeting by playing a role in the decision making. People want to be active participants and being included and looked to as assets will make them want to attend even more. By being proactive and asking first what they want can enhance the overall event design and audience engagement.