Successful Event Promotion: Create WV 2008

The picture at left, while somewhat blurry and low-res, shows one important measurement of the success of an event: a packed house!

At Maple Creative, we measure a successful event in three ways:
1- Packed house, standing room only
2- Full media coverage
3- Smiling happy client

The fellow standing on stage is our smiling, happy client, Mr. Jeff James. Jeff, who is one of the most gifted, passionate leaders I've ever known, is the chairperson of the Creative Communities Team of Vision Shared. Working with Jeff and his team of passionate volunteer leaders (change agents), made promoting the Create West Virginia 2008 Conference "an easy sell." In Jeff's words, "I feel good that the event execution has been in Maple's hands this year. It's great when things are organized. Great work by your team.

In terms of full media coverage, the state's newspaper, The Charleston Gazette, wrote two excellent stories. One was published on the 2nd day of the conference; the other, a conference recap, was featured on the front of the Sunday business section. These and many other positive stories were the result of a strategic, statewide media plan that we implemented over a four-month period from July through October. In crafting this plan, we worked carefully to create compelling storylines that provided diversity and relevance by focusing on various aspects of the conference: keynote speakers, record attendance, entertainment, venue and diversity. In such work, it is important to offset media fatigue, helping to mitigate reporters' potential burnout on event coverage. Again, in the client's words,"Really great work…I’m hard pressed to think of any event I’ve read more about since I’ve been to WV the last three years."

When we talk about full attendance and standing room only, we are not exaggerating. The goal for attendance was 300, which represented a healthy 20% increase over the 2007 event. In the end, we had over 400 participants in attendance. Despite the fact that we over-prepared, we still ran out of lanyards and name-badge holders. And on the final session of the last day, a full assembly and keynote presentation, when we expected some attrition, the venue catering staff had to set up extra tables and had to rush to prepare extra lunch plates. What a good problem to have!

In the end, this success story is one of planning & execution, teamwork & passion and the implementation of a leadership team's vision!

Marketing an Event: What's Most Effective?

October is peak event season in our world. Conferences, annual meetings and grand openings abound. We are working hard and having so much fun promoting an exciting, important event. The CreateWV '08 Conference is right around the corner, Oct. 20-22.

We've had the honor of promoting this event, again for its 2nd year, working with a very talented planning team and an army of enthusiastic volunteers. The strategic, layered marketing plan, which commenced in July, includes the following tactical elements:

• Earned media - press releases, Op-Eds, feature articles, newspaper tab, radio interviews
• Direct mail - two postcards and an invitation brochure
• Social media - blog posts, blogger carnival, Twitter presence, Facebook - event, group
• Buzz / WOM accelerators - traveling art display of creative cones, "No Misoneism"
• Advertising - a few targeted program/newsletter ads, banners, Facebook ads
• Sales offers - early bird special, group discount program
• Web site, event Web site and blog - all working in concert

The conference is almost sold out, with about 400 attendees registered. The event registration process involves a step to ask folks: How Did You Hear About CreateWV? After 100 days, we've got a good set of data to show what's working to drive such great results:

100 registrations from Direct Mail

50 registrations from Word-of-Mouth/Referral

5 registrations from Media/News

* (the other 200 didn't bother to tell us. we'll forgive them.)

What can we learn from this? In our electronic communications world, marketing messages printed on paper are still important and can be very effective.

FestivALL - Great or Successful? 10 Ways to Decide

FestivALL was great. You'd find few who would argue anything to the contrary. Given such, was it successful? Did it meet its goals and hit its performance parameters?

I have not seen those numbers, but as a results-driven marketing guy focused on measurement and accountability, here are the things I want to know (for the sake of enabling it to become even greater):

1- How did people hear about FestivALL (especially first-timers) ... did it reach more customers through earned media, through advertising or Web-based marketing?

2- How many people attended the street fair?

3- How many people visited FestivALL for the first time ... how many returning customers?
4- How many people attended more than one event?
5- How many out-of-state visitors did we attract?
6- Did anyone conduct any clipboard-capture interviews to assess customer satisfaction?
7- What did the typical visitor spend, on average?
8- How many people exchanged Twitter messages with the @FestivALL rep?
9- How many folks viewed the event Web site ... and how many posted a comment?
10- Finally--how many people were so moved or engaged as to refer FestivALL to others?

If you live in the Greater Charleston region, or if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you've heard about FestivALL and perhaps seen a few photos from me. Simply put, it is Charleston's summer festival. Truly, FestivALL has something for everyone. As a resident of Charleston, I felt that FestivALL was great. It would be hard to recall a more fun, active and energetic week than last week's FestivALL. There's a positive energy, a buzz about town, that is palpable. I love that feeling! And it fuels my civic pride.

We enjoyed an amazing ArtWalk with 20 participating galleries, featuring the work of twice as many local artists. The downtown streets were crawling with artists, patrons and supporters of the arts! Moving from the fine arts to the performing arts ... we took in a performance by Savion Glover, the world's best tapdancer/percussionist, at our amazing venue The Clay Center. Also last week, we enjoyed a street fair with three city blocks worth of fun, food, families, arts and performances. See Rick Lee's awesome photo chronicle. As if that weren't enough, we jammed out at Blues, Brews & BBQs on Friday, followed by a fabulous Wine and All That Jazz outing on Saturday night, with both events on the beautiful lawn at University of Charleston, along the banks of the Kanawha River.

So was it great ... or was FestivALL successful? I hope someone is addressing those all-too-important marketing questions noted above. And I hope the answer is: it was both ... great and successful!

PS - If FestivALL needs a marketing partner to help address such questions, gather the data, analyze it and work the findings into a strategic marketing plan, please contact me (e-mail to skip at maplecreative dot com) or any one of my colleagues at Maple Creative!

Photo credit: Charleston Gazette (top photo)

FUNancial Fest 2008: Walking the Walk

For over a year, Maple Creative has had the opportunity to work with one of North-Central West Virginia's most innovative (and talent-filled) organizations: Fairmont Federal Credit Union. The partnership has produced many exciting results: new branding (logo, positioning statement), new Web site (http://www.fairmontfcu.com/) and ongoing advertising and public relations consulting, just to name a few.

A goal throughout has been credit union education, i.e. debunking myths, highlighting the contrasts between the not-for-profit credit unions and corporate banks that often pander more to stockholders than their customers and emphasizing the national credit union philosophy of, "People Helping People." This philosophy was the bedrock for an event held last Saturday - FUNancial Fest 2008.

Fairmont Federal Credit Union (FFCU), and four other regional credit unions in North-Central, WV, combined their resources for this day of fun, prizes and financial learning opportunities for the local community, held at Valley Worlds of Fun in Fairmont. To list all of the prizes and activities available Saturday would put even the most dedicated Marketing Genius into a coma, but judging from the turnout - around 500 attendees from young to old, not to mention the smiling faces - the event was a huge success. As a "qusai outsider" to the credit union world, FUNancial Fest 2008 had their organizational values written all over it: local, personalized, friendly, in addition to the will and ability to go above and beyond.

The organizers had a simple goal: provide the local community with a fun-filled and affordable (have you stood at a gas pump lately?) "mini-vacation" while simultaneously exposing them to the benefits of credit union membership. I'm willing to bet that the 20-something, non-credit union member, mother-of-three - who incidentally won over $350 during her time in a Money Machine - has asked herself, "What has my bank done for me lately?" plenty of times since Saturday.

Score one for Fairmont Federal Credit Union and their partners. Saturday, they showed they could walk the walk.

Visit http://www.cufunfest.com/, the official Web site of FUNancial Fest 2008 for more about this great event.

Did You Use Quicken, TurboTax or Quickbooks Today?

Today was Tax Day in America. If you used Quicken, TurboTax or QuickBooks to help prepare your tax filing, you were not alone. You were joined by millions of Americans who use software created and produced by Inuit Corp. And you can thank the guy in the photo at the left.

Intuit's President and CEO is West Virginia native, Brad Smith. He has graciously agreed to come and serve as the keynote speaker for the Charleston Area Alliance's Annual Celebration on May 6th. This is a tremendous opportunity for us to hear from one of the nation's technology leaders. We are so fortunate to have Brad coming to this great event, and I hope you will join me in attending and learing how Brad's West Virginia roots have shaped his leadership style.

When it comes to leadership, Brad Smith is a highly accomplished and successful leader. Upon joining Intuit, he had a meteoric and battle-tested rise to the top. Serving in each of the company's five business units over an intensive, five-year period, Brad became known as the leader within Intuit who could "sell" change to the employees. As many of you know, there are not many challenges tougher than getting several hundred employees to embrace and accept new programs, new ways of doing thing or new ideas. He did it, establishing himself as a true leader and change agent.

It never ceases to amaze me how many corporate leaders come from West Virginia! Brad Smith is a native of Kenova, West Virginia. After attending Marshall University, Brad went on to graduate studies at Aquinas College in Michigan. His prior corporate experience includes Pepsi, ADP and Advo. Brad's full bio is here.

Please register now to attend. Don't miss this tremendous learning opportunity!

Packed House. Standing Room Only. Full Media Coverage

The words in the headline of this article represent a successful event. Those words equate to what good looks like, from our clients' perspective.


Successful events require skill and tenacity ... and even a bit of luck.




Skill - you have to know how to do it. We rely upon our trusted RSVP process to guide us in strategy. Then, we rely upon talented professionals, failsafe systems, flawless execution to get the job done. You have to understand when and how to contact the media (if they are part of the event mix).




Tenacity - when things go wrong, or break or fail to show up (and they always do), you have to have the wits and the toughness to work through such adversity. Plus, you have to have the confidence and poise to avoid getting flustered.


Luck - you have to be lucky in the sense that bad weather, a natural disaster, a competing event or major world news event can hurt your event's attendance. Stuff happens.


Personally, I truly love working on events... love conceptualizing, planning, promoting and working events. And I love the high stakes nature of events. Many of my colleagues at Maple do, too. Regarding our performance in this area of our practice, Maple is "undefeated." Every single time, without exception, the results are: packed house, standing room only, full media coverage.

The photo above was taken at our most recent event, the public announcement ceremony for a tourism project in Beckley, West Virginia. See the packed house. You can see a few pieces of media gear, too.


No one does events better than Maple. That's not arrogance. It is, perhaps, pride in what we do ... and the passion that we bring to our work. And I make no apologies for such statements.


Whenever someone is engaged in something that they love, isn't it magic? Isn't it beautiful to see passion in action! Can passion rightfully applied ever be defeated?

This next photo below shows Michael Haid and I passionately engaged in our work at the event. It was taken just prior to the start of the press ceremony. Look closely and you'll also see the nice stage setup, the backdrop and the phenomenal artistry that our design team does on brand identity. More details about the event and the project are available here.

DreamLink - a Jam Session for Your Business

As an entrepreneur and a vocal advocate for entrepreneurship programs, I am a big fan of the West Virginia Conference on Entrepreneurship. This marks the fifth year of this inspiring, educational conference, now known as DreamLink. The conference will be held on May 15, 2007. Mark your calendar today, and save this date.

DreamLink truly is a jam session for your business ... and who doesn't need one of those every now and then! Each year, attendees come away feeling rejuvenated, motivated and connected. At last year's smash-success event, 250 entrepreneurs enjoyed keynote speaker and marketing guru Harry Beckwith. If you are anywhere in the Eastern United States, I encourage you to make plans to attend.