One of the best things about working at Get Invited is that I get to find out about all the great new events, before they even go live! In fact, last week I attended an event organised by our friend Dean Langasco ‘A Joyful Guide to Content Marketing, on board the SS Nomadic Belfast.
If you’ve ever met Dean, he has a real flair for making you feel important, because to him, you genuinely are. Where he is particularly impressive is how he uses this intrinsic nature of his and successfully transfers this onto any project he touches.
I have been to tons of great events over the years, with large and smaller budgets, however I have not been to many where the organisers has made their attendees feel quite as welcomed as Dean did, so I wanted to share some of the ways he did this with you all for some inspiration.
Here’s 5 tips inspired from Dean’s event on how to make your guests feel special at your next event and leave them with an experience they will never forget!
1) Give them something unexpected
Dean started the workshop off in the usual manner, with a little introduction to himself. This is a fairly typical start to any speaker, and is expected. However, his next move was not expected. After a brief introduction to himself, Dean pulled up a video on the screen and announced that he would like to know more about us, he then played a video where some friends, families and colleagues of a few guests popped up on screen and described some of the individuals in the room.
Dean had contacted a selection of his guests’ friends, family and colleagues and asked them to provide a short video piece on the person. It was really moving, and was done in such a fun way that it wasn’t intrusive.
2) Make it personal
Just before we broke for a coffee break, Dean asked us to check under our seats, where he had placed envelopes with further kind words from some of our friends, family and colleagues on paper. This was another lovely touch, and acted as a great ice breaker for those of us who hadn’t met previously.
3) Offer prizes for participation
Throughout his talk, Dean involved the audience and asked questions on our opinion and encouraged us to get involved. In fact, he even gave out a few prizes for audience participation, in the form of copies of helpful marketing books, which he recommended.
4) Make it worth their Time (and money)
Of course, although these little touches were lovely, the event wouldn’t have been the success it was if Dean hadn’t delivered on the content. After all, that’s why we bought a ticket. Throughout his workshop Dean had case study examples and videos to illustrate best practice in content marketing. What was really useful was how he then applied some of the theories to the attendees’ businesses, which again, made the experience more personal, and very worthwhile.
5) Leave a parting gift
After already making all of his guests feel special at his workshop, Dean had left a small present for us which had some chocolates and a ‘positive’ bracelet. This was the final cherry on top, and meant that everyone leaving the event left feeling valued.
I’m not suggesting that you need to copy all of the things that Dean did for his event. For one, they wouldn’t work for a lot of events, however, the principles of making the experience personal for each guest in any small way you can, is what stood out for me, and can be adopted by anyone, and you can be as creative with that as you wish.
Dean really went out of his way to give his guests a memorable experience, and, to return the favour, I asked a few of the guests to leave a message for him!
I really enjoyed Dean’s event. He was energetic, passionate and easy to understand – even for someone with little to no marketing experience. I found the content of the talk to be very useful and relevant, and will definitely make creating a marketing strategy easier – Áine McGuckian, The Little Herbalista
Dean’s clear enthusiasm, passion and knowledge of his industry made the workshop a very enjoyable way to spend a morning. The fact that he was willing to interact directly with his audience, using up-to-date videos and case studies to illustrate his findings made it all the more engaging – Fergas McGrath, Simply Zesty
Dean is an ambitious, caring and fun individual – a real people person. He is passionate about marketing, and in particular, creating unique and engaging content to promote people and brands. Combining his desire to understand what makes people tick, his knowledge of the principles of Content Marketing and his natural creative flair, Dean creates great content that connects with his target audiences. His recent Content Marketing seminar was an interesting, emotional and memorable experience for myself, and many of the other delegates who attended – Denise Cowan, Digital Den
Dean’s Content Marketing workshop was very interesting, entertaining, surprising, educational and totally worthwhile. I thoroughly enjoyed the morning aboard the SS Nomadic and look forward to his next workshop – Jacqueline, whatsonni.com
As I have known Dean for many years now I expected that Dean would have gone to a lot of trouble to put together something that was really good. However Dean exceeded my expectations. The venue was excellent, the welcome was warm, the crowd was great and the presentation was both informative and engaging. Considering this was his first event Dean did an excellent job . My only complaint is that the morning went by too quickly – Martin Gilchrist, Gilchrist & Co Accountants
