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Welcome to another newsletter by yours truly. Is it just me, or is this holiday season starting to fly by? Seriously! I can’t believe Thanksgiving is this week then it’s the final dash to get everything ready for 2024 by Christmas. If you’re anything like me, you probably looked up and realized how close we are to the end of the year and you’re putting everything into hyper drive.

Well- let’s get into it!

Last week we dove into how we got started with the DEMAND Conference for this year. I shared how difficult it was to choose speakers and topics as there were so many amazing submissions. I also shared how amazing our partners were and how we got to work with so many great partners (new and old).

This week, I wanted to dive into the importance of planning. Of course, many of us try to plan as best as we can, but sometimes those plans get away from us. It’s easy to say everything will work to your timeline, but the difficulty comes when added obstacles start popping up (like taking on new programs, launching initiatives in short time frames- you name it).

Here’s my key to staying on top of deadlines for events:

1. Make a plan- while this sounds simple, it’s so much more complex. Make sure you’re including your time off, potential disruptions (like holidays, last minute work trips, doctors appointments, and everything in between). Then from there, backwards plan. Backwards planning is when you look at what the end goal is and what that date is, and plan in reverse to what needs to be accomplish. From there, you should have a pretty good idea of when you need to get started to get all the tech checks, last minute submissions and editing done so you can still be ahead of the game.

2. Be flexible- yes, this is sort of contradictory to the first point, but let’s face it. When you’re running a virtual event that’s pre-recorded, you will have many speakers who have life things happening and you have to work around their schedule. (hence why you need to backwards plan).
   
   *my caveat to this- if you’ve been flexible with speakers and trying to support their timeline, there comes a point where you say “Im sorry but we can’t have you apart of the conference this year”. It’s not because you don’t want them speaking, but you cannot delay the final reviews or editing much longer. Being honest with the speakers about your final timeline is super helpful in creating transparency and them understanding your needs*

3. Communicate your plans- make sure you have an internal committee at your organization of the folks you think are pivotal to the success of your event (and can help support your needs/remove barriers so you can hit your timeline). We had folks from our design team, demand gen, CS, sales and ELT apart of the process. By communicating with them on things I needed, I not only felt supported, but then it also felt like a team victory and that the organization was supporting my efforts- which is seriously the best feeling. They were able to help me be accountable while also supporting my efforts.
   
   

Last week I shared how valuable it is to engage with new members, and even re-engage with members who haven’t been near as involved as they once were. I still stand by the value of re-engagement campaigns and making sure all members feel supported and important to your community. Every single person has something they can bring to your community, and it’s our job to create a place where they feel valued and apart of the community.

I was recently on a webinar for Gainsight with Nisha from Gong and we chatted about the value of aligning your community goals with your organizational goals.

Honestly- this can be incredibly challenging, especially without having all the fancy tools and resources. We discussed the SPACES model by CMX and how you can align on that front, but I also shared how important it is to have executive support and really understand their goals for the community.

Sometimes you have to backwards plan these! Some leaders will say they want a community of 10k strong members, but you can’t just start with 10k. You have to start small and build, so learning how to reverse engineer that is pivotal and it will help set important expectations so you’re not disappointing your leadership team.

Since we all struggle with what to track- here are some crowdsources recommendations:

• engagement (this may seem like a fluff number, but it’s not. understanding how your members engage, how they like to engage, when they engage, etc. can help you support them better)

• growth (this is also a fluff metric but you need to think below the surface on this. it’s not all about being the biggest community, but how your community grows. are they growing through referrals? are they growing through ads? if we’re not growing, why not and what should we change?)

• supporting sales metrics (are we using our community for lead gen/demand gen? if so, how is it supporting those goals?)

• supporting CS/Product feedback metrics (if we’re a customer education community, are our customers engaging with the product resources? how does that effect churn and retention? are they sharing product feedback?)

  
  
  These are all incredibly important items to track, but as I always say, it’s about going deeper and understanding the why and how for your metrics and how they align to your organizations goals.

No question this week! If you have a question, just hit reply and it will be featured next week!

Thank you again for checking out the All Things Community & Events Newsletter!