connecting
The Advantis team recently returned from yet another successful content creation and development project and we’d like to share some key learnings.
A long-time client invited us again to join them at Autodesk University 2012 to secure media coverage, to create content for social media and to feed other multiplatform marketing efforts.
While at this technology conference, we secured numerous high profile media interviews, pumped out tweets, Facebook updates and shot and produced videos for their blogs right from the show floor. We produced a number of corporate videos and videos for blogger relations as well.
This annual industry conference is one of the few opportunities our client has to gather thought leaders from throughout their organization – all in one place at the same time. And customers attend the event too so instead of flying across North America to secure video content we could do it all in one place.
Planning for Success
How do we pull off this large project with such success every year? The key to success is in the planning. Just like “location, location, location” is key in real estate, “plan, plan, and then more planning” is key to successful content development and execution.
Before the conference we reviewed existing research and interviewed key players in the organization, including marketing, sales and even those experts behind the scenes. From these interviews we developed themes for pitching journalists onsite at AU2012, as well as themes for the video content. All themes of course were tied to business objectives. Planning also consisted of creating water tight itineraries that accounted for every team’s presence and activity while at the conference, from sunrise to sundown, and beyond – after all this is Vegas we’re talking about!
And of course there was always a Plan B ready to be put into action for those issues that could arise such as blowing fuses with video lighting to spokespeople potentially not showing up on time. Plans also incorporated sharing real time information via video from the show floor with Twitter and blog audiences – this required pre-scripting, onsite shooting and editing, followed by immediate distribution via social media channels. And once the information was distributed then someone needed to ensure the conversation continued to happen.
The extensive advance planning enabled our team to capture an enormous amount of quality content in just a few short days. Now this client has high quality video content that can be produced and distributed throughout the year in 2013.
So perhaps the most important piece of advice we can offer is that if your team is planning to exhibit at a key industry conference in the next six months, start your planning now!
If you have other experiences about creating content at conferences that you’d like to share please drop us comment and we’ll reply.