| who should attend? |
| This course is designed for all those whose role involves generating new topics and ideas for conferences and events: conference producers, conference managers, sales managers and marketing managers. |
| the course objective |
| This course aims to put rigour into the methods and processes used to identify new topic areas, provide advanced techniques in fully assessing new product opportunities and provide evaluation techniques for testing the viability of new topics. |
| the course programme |
| maximising the potential for developments from existing events |
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Determining when there is a role for exact repeats: what percentage of delegate revenue can be expected? |
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Building on amended repeats and updates |
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Maximising the revenue opportunities of spin-offs – case study |
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Analysing and learning from delegate lists |
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job titles |
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geographic locations |
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business sectors – exercise |
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Reviewing delegate lists in light of the marketing campaign. Comparing how delegate lists vary between the same courses – what has changed and why? Can new ideas be generated from this? |
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Getting the most from evaluation forms – exercise |
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Reviewing marketing analysis and understanding how it can inform topic generation – exercise |
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Comparing delegate lists to databases |
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Learning from telesales: putting in the right structure to capture all potential topic information – case study |
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What the competition can tell you |
| generating ideas from the media |
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Identifying and monitoring the media, press, TV, internet |
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Top tips for spotting new topic ideas when reading – exercise |
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Generating new topics via job advertisements – case study |
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Monitoring new associations, media launches and international bodies |
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Tracking the advertisers in your target media to inform new events |
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Comparing relevant media demographics to delegate lists and databases – analysing divergences and using this for new topics and geographical expansion – exercise |
| using the market as a dynamic source of topic generation |
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Making full use of delegates, speakers and sponsors at your events |
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Maximising speaker and delegate ideas with speaker loyalty events and pre- and post-event hosting – case study |
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Working with consultants and sponsors but recognising their agendas |
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Cultivating media contacts and becoming an industry player and the recognised leader in the market |
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Building advisory boards to maximise market knowledge and access top-level know-how – in-depth study |
| motivating your team to originate new ideas |
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Managing topic meetings – who should be there? How often? |
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One-to-one vs brainstorming |
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Putting in place structures to ensure topic ideas aren’t “lost” |
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Incentivising the team for viable new ideas – case study |
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Repositioning yourself as an industry resource |
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Utilising post-event analysis |
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Coaching your team into topic generation |
| knowing your target market and mapping your universe |
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Defining the pyramid of your market – exercise |
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SWOT – its use and application in topic generation |
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Mapping your market: |
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Who you are targeting / not targeting (job titles and departments) – can new course topics be developed? |
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Gaps in the subject matter of your courses. Where are they? |
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Where is the competition – are you letting others take part of your market? – exercise |
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Client Analysis: |
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Which clients spend most money, and why? |
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What are you doing to maximise client spending? |
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Which competitive events do they attend - why? |
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Where are potential new clients? |
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| establishing criteria for evaluating new topics |
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Developing a topic viability checklist – exercise |
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Essential criteria to include: Key drivers for new topics |
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Developing a scoring system for each criterion – exercise |
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Testing new topics – qualitative / quantitative – using your “gut feeling” |
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Establishing how new topics fit into existing programme of courses, competitive events and clients’ calendars |
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Evaluating the role of risk in topic generation |
| the course format |
| Course numbers will be limited to ensure the day can be very practical and business focused. Small break out groups will work through real case studies, practice techniques and develop skills which can be applied immediately. |
| booking information |
The competition were moving in on our market and I needed to get my team coming up with more new ideas. This course really focused all of our minds and we are now producing more new events then ever. It has helped us have our best financial year. 
