The Event Professionals of Tomorrow Study

THE 2016EVENT PROFESSIONALS OF TOMORROW STUDY

The Latest Event Planning Trends Organizers Must Know To Take Their Events To The Next Level

#1 Event Marketing #2 Social Media

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#3 Budgeting The Event

#5 The Event Planner Timeline

#7 Defining Event Success #9 How Event Planners Keep Up With Trends

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#4 The State Of Event Technology #6 Biggest Trends In Event Planning

#8 Event Planning Pain Points And Challenges

#10 The Dream Event Planner Tool

#11 Recommendations And Conclusion

#12 About Bizzabo

The full survey includes:

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In December 2015, Bizzabo launched a global survey to learn aboutupcoming trends within the event planning industry. The “EventProfessionals of Tomorrow” survey sought to gather informationregarding event planning best practices through direct insight from eventprofessionals.

About

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The “Event Professionals of Tomorrow” survey shed insight onto three particular facets of the event planning process:

Event Marketing, Event Technology, Event Success.

Here is a sneak peek of our full survey which can be downloaded here.

Defining EventSuccess

Budgeting TheEvent

Social MediaEvent Marketing1 2 3 4

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Our Findings✦ Email marketing is still king:

85% of survey respondentschose an email marketingcampaign to promote theirevent.

Event Marketing

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Our Findings✦ Over 45% of respondents said

that email marketing has thebiggest impact on actuallyincreasing registrations.

Event Marketing

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Insights

This statistic indicates that event organizers aren’t up to speedwith new technologies or that they are simply choosing theeasiest promotional tool to reach a wide audience. It alsoshows that email marketing actually has a high yield.

Event Marketing

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Event marketing and event success go hand in hand. Without thoughtfulattention to event marketing, your event will simply not receive thetraction needed to obtain registrations.

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What does this mean for event planners?

Event Marketing

Event marketing also provides the mechanism for eventorganizers to create a brand and reputation for their event.

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✦ 82% of respondents chose socialmedia as a component of their eventmarketing campaign.

Our Findings

Social Media

✦ Facebook and Twitter are leadingsocial media marketing tools.

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Our Findings

Social Media

✦ However, Pinterest and Snapchat are heavily underutilized.

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Insights

✦ Instagram is quickly becoming another popular socialmedia platform. With over 300 million monthly activeusers, Instagram is a great platform to market your eventbrand.

✦ The data also illuminates that event planners are startingto choose ways to maximize their event marketingpotential, through email and social media.

Social Media

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Insights

✦ 82% of respondents noted that they use “word of mouth”as a marketing channel to promote their event, yet only12% consider “word of mouth” as having the biggestimpact in increasing registrations.

✦ We believe this correlation indicates that event organizersare hesitant to abandon traditional marketing tactics eventhough they realize they aren’t effective.

Social Media

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The ways in which SnapChat and Pinterest could be utilized to promoteevents are broad. Two use cases are SnapChat’s “live stories” feature andPinterest’s advanced mobile app.

1How can event planners better utilize Social Media?

Social Media

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Customization and the ability to breakdown the different types ofprospects depending on their engagement level, interests, location and soon, allows organizers to achieve much greater results with content specificemails.

2How can event planners better utilize Social Media?

Social Media

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= Our Findings

✦ 36% of planners spend most oftheir budget on the venue, and34% spend most on catering.

Budgeting The Event

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Insights

The high prices of venues and catering takes up a lot of thebudgeting that could be designated for other important facetsof the event planning process.

Budgeting The Event

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One way an event technology platform can help organizers obtainhigh quality and high paying sponsors, through features like eventapps that can provide ads and a location for sponsor’s promotionalcontent. Planners can then designate these funds to acquiringhigher quality speakers, which according to our survey, only about10% of organizers spend most of their budget on.

How can organizers use event technologyto expand their revenue?

Budgeting The Event

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Our Findings✦ With 84% of respondents choosing

attendee satisfaction as the measure ofevent success, measuring satisfaction ismuch more difficult than measuringother definitions of event success.

Defining Event Success

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Insights

Contrary to common belief, attendee satisfaction leads theway as the determinate of event success, rather than revenueor ticket sales - by a vast difference of 28%.


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=Insights

This realization seems to clash with the statistics on eventtechnology. With 58% percent choosing to invest or set asidea budget of less than 10% for event software solutions, eventplanners are not fully aware of the benefits of eventtechnology.


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A major benefit of event technology is that is makes event successmeasurable and understandable to event organizers. Event technologyalso augments event success for attendees in terms of engagement,particularly by maximizing networking opportunities through event appsand social media integration.

How can event planners measure event success better?


Social Media Biggest Trends In Event Planning

Budgeting The Event Defining Event Success

Event Marketing The Event Planner Timeline

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The State Of Event Technology

Event Planning Pain Points And Challenges

The Dream Event Planner Tool

How Event Planners Keep Up With Trends

Recommendations And Conclusion

About Bizzabo

The survey includes:

Want to receive the full survey?

BIZZABO

Brought to you by BizzaboHelping organizers around the world plan better events with an

all-in-one event success platformThe study was made possible with the help of our great partners:

www.bizzabo.com* Based on a 500 event planner survey led by Bizzabo in December 2015