When I started Otter Talk one year ago, I intended to bring tips, advice, and new ways of thinking to the planning community. As I’ve been writing throughout the year, I realized a deficit in my skill set. I don’t know much about marketing events. All marketing initiatives that I’ve tried have been ad hoc, without any real marketing strategy or measured approach.
Something that I have learned in the past year is how effective it can be to have a strategic marketing plan for your event. One based on research, data, traditional marketing best practices, and a lot of outside the box thinking. No matter how far out your event, I’ve learned that partnering with marketing early-on can have many positive effects to not just attendee acquisition but to some of the operational and logistical decisions of your event that may have otherwise been made in silos.
Fortunately, we have an expert here on the 360 Live Media team, Jaclyn Vann, CAE. Like me, Jaclyn comes from an association background, so she really understands the challenges faced in delivering quality events.
Jaclyn has already joined the Event Innovator Exchange (EIX) team, and this year, Jaclyn will start co-writing Otter Talk, to share her best marketing and business acumen with you.
One of my favorite things about working with Jaclyn is that every time I have an idea, she takes it and makes it better (share below if you have a colleague like this), so I know she’s going to take Otter Talk to new places and deliver even more value for our association community.
You can still expect to see plenty of association event planning tips and ideas. One post a month will be marketing-focused, and one post will be event-focused.