A post-event strategy means thinking about after the event before the event even happens, said Erica St. Angel, vice-president of marketing for Sonic Foundry at Event Camp Twin Cities.

A conference’s ending is “precisely the moment I need to be re-engaging in a different way and having a strategy to kick in a second stage of rocket fuel.”

Asking participants why they feel it is difficult to engage participants after an event, St. Angel asked for ideas to turn content—including conversations, networks, handouts, webcasts, blog posts, and evaluation forms—into a dynamic post-event strategy. Using Google Moderator, groups discussed ways to leverage post-event content to attract sponsorship, increase registration, drive traffic to websites, inspire online interactions, grow contact databases, and provide added value.

Participants brainstormed solutions including creating editorial calendars based on conference themes, interviewing and creating content before the event to avoid post-event adrenaline crash, launching a preview video of next year’s location on YouTube, providing participants with special discounts and exclusive content, becoming a post-event information hub, increasing physical and virtual word of mouth, providing attendees with return on investment to take back like DVDs and jump drives, and using media appropriate to specific audiences.

St. Angel encouraged participants to tweet or text a pledge to implement at least one idea that would make a difference. “If you make it public, we will hold you accountable.”

Learn More:
Watch the Video from Erica's Session
Read Erica's Review of the Session in Can You Run An Interactive Brainstorm During A Hybrid Event?
Read the 37 Dynamite Ideas that attendees created during the session
Review the full list of 100+ Ideas in Google Moderator