SUPERCHARGE YOUR SKO!
5 Steps for a Better SKO
APPLYING STRATEGY TO REINVIGORATE YOUR EVENT
"The creative and production edge you brought to HP Software and HP Enterprise events made it possible to fully engage our most important audiences. Thank you for all the great work."
THOMAS HOGAN | Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing
03 KPI”s & OTHER METRICS
define your strategy
Developing objectives can be complex or even overly esoteric at times. But we like to keep it simple, starting with a few “human” questions. What does a home run look like for SKO stakeholders and audiences? What do you want attendees to feel? What do you want them to do when they get home? These types of questions inform what becomes a unified set of objectives that define critical paths for event development.
04 BOOSTING ENGAGEMENT
measure what matters
Event goals–especially for events designed to rally the sales troops–are often based on sentiment and “soft” metrics. While an objective that is clear yet hard to measure is still useful, a metric-driven means of measuring success will provide important data critical for continued improvement. Tracking a subjective goal just requires a bit more creativity to determine meaningful and measurable KPIs.
Know your audience
Is the sales force mostly seasoned consultant types or are they recent college grads just starting their sales careers? Demographics–even among internal audiences–is a critical driver of effective content creation. It can be the difference between a message landing or drifting away unnoticed.
01 FOCUS
05 DON’T CREATE EVENT ISLANDS
UP-LEVEL CONTENT & DESIGN
Attendance may be mandatory but engagement is optional. We recommend starting with a look at the agenda. Is it moving fast enough, with visual “change-ups” about every 15 minutes? Is there enough content that’s for the benefit of the audience, rather than the only topics for the business? A design and content makeover goes a long way, and doesn’t have to break the bank to be effective, especially when making smart use of video and motion graphics.
CONNECT YOUR EVENTS
It’s common to think of an event like an SKO as an island, an event that sits apart from other external and even internal events. We see this approach as a missed opportunity or, worse, a big disconnect among the audience. If we consider a year’s worth of content like product launches, demos, and presentations, there are numerous opportunities to utilize them across multiple events with a little planning.
Disconnected from other events like product
launches and user conferences
Creates unclear focus and mixed messages
Leverage content and design across multiple events to maximize messaging consistency, budget efficiency, and focus.
02 EVENT & AUDIENCE OBJECTIVES