Why your thought leadership campaign should include an event
Thought leadership campaigns can be synonymous with content marketing and often involve a lot of social-media visibility and large volumes of whitepapers, blog posts and other content. Adding a thought leadership event into your campaign can be a powerful addition as they allow you to show off your experts, test new ideas with live results, connect with your audience directly and produce ‘live’ and ‘trending’ content. So let’s look at the biggest opportunities your business can benefit from hosting a thought leadership event.
Boost your brand
Hosting an event is subtle, engaging and innovative marketing at its best. Rather than constantly trying to connect with your audience through social media campaigns and content, you’re aligning your brand with a positive and interactive experience that will remain front of mind.
By making your thought leaders directly accessible to your audience, it’s a great chance for individuals and companies to come together to share and sharpen their expertise, which in turn will create a sizable boost to your brand.
Introduce social media hashtags and competitions at your event to get trending and expand your audience further. The more you can get your attendees to share, endorse and show off your brand and event on social media the better, this will further your reach and brand awareness within their virtual community.
Although your event may pass by in a day or two, the impact of your event will stay around for longer. Through video recordings, pictures and reviews, you have re-usable content for your website and social media to further boost your thought leadership campaign. The follow-up engagement from your event can be just as important as on the day so it is vital to continue to share results and newly discovered content from the event.
Show you are the expert in your field
Thought leadership events are an innovative way for companies to participate and lead the important discussion topics of their industry. If organised correctly, your business could be well on its way to being an industry leader and advisor.
By selecting hot, buzz-worthy topics in your field, with top, influential speakers you will instantly attract your current audience to attend your event but also potentially reach and entice a fresh group of people who may not have heard of your company before. Don’t be afraid to bring in speakers from outside your business, aligning your brand with reputable and established experts helps your audience associate you with one another. Speakers that are industry influencers can attract large audience numbers to your event that you can convert into your community and customers.
Panel-style thought leadership events are especially helpful for creating engaging and insightful discussions not only between speakers but also the audience interaction. You want your event to encourage and provide learning, discussion and networking opportunities that showcase that you are the experts in your field. Attendees will expect to come away with genuine insight that they can pass on or apply once they have left the event.
Remember the main goal will be to establish your brand as a go-to industry resource for knowledge and expertise and you can’t do that without the right topics and speakers.
Engage your community
As great as events are at bringing in new members to your business’ community, they’re also a fantastic opportunity to reconnect with your current community and audience. Maintaining that communication and interaction between customers, leaders and staff is vital to ensuring your brand remains seen as relevant and important to the industry.
Ensure your event is filled with Q&A, networking and meet and greet opportunities, the more your community feels involved the more they will look back at you for advice and insight.
Thought leadership has become a big part of business communication lingo but take a look at your campaign and see if you could be getting even more out of your campaign by running a thought leadership event. The more you make your brand accessible to its community and directly showcase your experts, the more success you will have in establishing your brand as a leader in your industry.
When organising your event it’s important to keep the following questions front of mind:
How will it advance our thought leadership campaign?
What do we want to present to participants?
What do you want them to take home?
How do we want them to engage with us in the future?
Looking for more advice on how to run a thought leadership event? Speak to our Sleek experts here. We are ready to help whether you are looking to take your event virtual this year or are planning ahead for next year.
Ready To Plan Your Event?
Looking to create a thriving, live community for your brand? Sleek specialises in event management that engages and corporate events that connect.
It all begins with an idea. It’s about connecting, inspiring and educating through events – and creating the shared experiences that build lifelong relationships. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story can make all the difference.