Make it a continuum of contact – before, during and after

When you’re planning a high-stakes corporate gathering, whether it’s a leadership summit, management conference or national sales meeting, it’s natural to focus intensely on the event itself. It’s a big project that requires a big investment in money and time.

But none of these takes place in a vacuum, and the most successful meetings are those that achieve specific goals within a continuum of contacts and conversations. From our experience, the right kinds of pre- during- and post-event communications can transform the gathering from a transient event into the centerpiece of a larger campaign.

Before the event: Prepare, inspire and build anticipation

Meeting-related communications generally begin 3-4 weeks before the event with what is generally referred to as a “pre-read” or, even better, a “pre-watch or listen”, which incorporates video or podcast-like audio. Their depth, purposes and calls to action will vary, but in general, focus on what the attendees should know and do to optimize the time they will spend in the meeting itself. 

Pre-event communications should enable attendees to do any preparation they can and should do to participate in the meeting at a high level and add value to it. The objectives of these communications could include:

• Establishing context, defining the issues that will be addressed. For example, one client, a CPG company, conveyed content about evolving consumer preferences, retail paradigms, internal dynamics and innovations within the company and in the marketplace, from products to technologies. This was produced as video to quickly deliver high-level insights without requiring time-consuming study of detailed documents.

• Polling to help establish insights about the existing state of the business, from hard data to insights. Topics can include observations, expectations, projections and suggestions. Polling can help frame the meeting content by revealing what issues are most important to attendees, what opportunities excite them, and what concerns they might have. It’s also a good way for meeting organizers to get a good pulse on what’s on the minds of meeting participants before the event begins and to collect a baseline to see what changed after the event.

• Teasing the theme to raise awareness, establish context, generate excitement and establish the messaging platform as a guidepost to the substance of the meeting. A well-crafted theme can encapsulate the main takeaway of the event in an instantly understandable and memorable way.
  
  Even more importantly, it can anchor a larger, pervasive communication campaign that keeps the ideas, initiatives and aspirations of the event top of mind throughout the year.

Strong themes are often carried forward from year to year to maintain focus and consistency. After all, corporate messaging landscapes don’t need more themes; lesser ones are quickly forgotten while strong ones unify the message across the communication continuum.

Developing a theme can be daunting; the possibilities are endless, and it can be hard to know where to start. In our work, we’ve used specific processes, guidelines and disciplines to develop themes, in very close collaboration with our clients, who generally have a good feel for what will resonate with their audience overall and, where necessary, with specific teams or audience segments.

The value of a process-driven approach is that it helps organize the creative “riffing” and keep it focused. Theme development can be a very stream of consciousness-driven exercise, and often involves alternate variations on core themes.

As a beginning step, we often consider the two highest-level categories, and then organize our explorations within them:

Content-related
A theme may embody the main takeaway that reflects the purpose of not just the event, but its business purpose. That’s usually defined by the classic “Think/Feel/Do” exercise that defines the desired outcome of the effort.

Content-related themes can take different forms:

— Motivational themes aim to pump up enthusiasm and get people committed to action in pursuit of a shared objective.

— Aspirational themes aim to build an emotional connection to an objective or initiative.

— Functional themes aim to define the state or objective of a given initiative in order to promote universal embrace of it.

Event-related
In some cases, a theme may be simply about the event itself. This is usually done to position it as exceptionally special. It may refer to the event itself and/or the location that people can look forward to, immerse themselves in, and look back on. There are countless reference websites with long lists of meeting themes. These are often generic but can still be meaningful when presented within the context of the event or circumstances around it.

Delivering functional details about the event

Finally, pre-meeting communications can provide so-called, “know before you go” information such as when and where it will be, what’s on the agenda, what travel and accommodation arrangements are or need to be made, and other nuts ‘n bolts information. That information may be packaged within the context of the theme.

During the event: Maintain constant, full-on engagement

One of the most transformative components of in-person meetings is the ability to engage with attendees virtually even when there are no sessions taking place. Not all messages need to be delivered from the stage.

Other messaging platforms include:

• Immersive Environmentals such as physical signs, posters, banners, or videos playing on monitors in the hallways. These may deliver high-level messaging that reinforces the theme or detailed messaging that attendees can see and absorb during breaks.

• Personal devices using what we call a “small screen strategy”, delivering content to attendees’ smartphones prior to a given session enabling them to prepare for it or after it to reinforce messaging or deliver documents related to it. This approach is also valuable for coordinating the event, providing up-to-the-minute communications and enhanced content features such as augmented reality.
  
  These days, we almost always use apps, either custom developed or off-the-shelf, to facilitate interaction such as polling or inviting questions and comments.

After the event: Build community and cascade the output

We often say that the most important part of any meeting is what happens the day after it ends. For sales meetings, that’s generally a matter of how well the sales team executes the strategies and plans discussed at the meeting. For leadership and management meetings, the desired outcomes may be more complex and nuanced.

But in all cases, the point of post-meeting communications is to continue nurturing the sense of community that meetings help build by keeping people connected, informed, recognized and empowered.

Those dynamics come to life through a cascade campaign that reaches across roles, geographies and business units. A typical post-meeting cascade from leaders to managers to teams and individuals might include:

Community building platforms and programs

Using collaboration tools such as SharePoint or Teams, and through a regular cadence of meetings to keep everyone engaged and provide updates, facilitates recognition of specific individuals and achievements, promotes “ambassadorships” among the ranks and helps equip the messengers who are responsible for cascading and implementing strategies and tactics within their areas of authority.

• A cascade campaign to help extend the experience and impact of the meeting for both attendees and those who were not present but who are impacted nonetheless.
  
  That might begin with a video that shows highlights of the event, focusing on the key messages. But it is also even more important to share topical videos that were shown at the event. In some cases, they might be edited to make them more relevant to different associates or to avoid disseminating information that is inappropriate for their roles.
  
  It is also common to create edited versions of the meeting presentations in progressively more individualized team meetings that may be in-person, virtual or hybrid. For example, the final cascade version of a leadership summit video detailing new strategies might be adapted for the “road warriors” who implement those strategies through contact with customers.

• Feedback, review and reporting to give participants an opportunity to comment on what they feel worked perfectly or could have worked better. Not only is the information valuable, but the participants feel greater ownership of the events and, by extension, its messaging.

The bottom line: A successful meeting is more than an event.

We think of meetings as inflection points that can kick off a step-change in how companies operate, implement initiatives and build their cultures and communities. From our experience, the most successful meetings are those that achieve specific goals within a continuum of contacts and conversations – before, during and after the event.

As a business communications agency, we focus on meetings as the action points in a holistic, year-round continuum of face-to-face and virtual touch points in a hybrid work world. We design them to powerfully drive your vision, map your strategy, foster your culture and deliver shared experiences that build teams and inspire action.

To see samples of our work, visit our website’s Meetings & Events Page.