Hey Community-ers
About a year ago I posted here asking how you promote community at events.
2 weeks ago, my company www.mews.com hosted it’s annual hospitality conference. I wanted to share this here as we did 2 things differently this time around with some great results so thought I’d share here. Hopefully this is somewhat inspiring!!:
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Community Drinks Event (Pre-Conference):
We hosted an exclusive rooftop event for customers already in town the evening before the main conference. We had support staff managing logistics so I could focus on mingling. I budgeted for a live DJ and a magician which added a special touch. The evening was hosted in a beautiful waterside rooftop venue in the sun which certainly helped with the strong turnout. As a result, I was able to have some great conversation about the community with my customers, get new customers signed up to the community and got some verbal commitments for community-exclusive success story interviews - one of my key targets in 2025.
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Community Lounge & Gamification (Conference Day):
A dedicated lounge with soft seating attracted both members and new prospects. While our original idea of community matchmaking proved too manual (we connect similar personas from similar customers), the Marketing team ran a gamified activity where attendees earned stamps for engaging in key actions (e.g. signing up for the community, visiting booths, sharing on social media). High-quality merch, including custom Nike trainers, incentivised participation and led to a spike in community registrations. It was a huge success and in contrast to last year, this gamified element meant I had a constant stream of customers and prospects to talk to.
Results and key learnings:
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You can’t beat face to face engagement with your audience. It’s made me realise I need to make more time for this.
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It’s generated a strong pipeline of customers for success stories
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There is a lot of community engagement that goes on behind the scenes. 2 customers now have a in-person catch up once a quarter - they met through the community. Another customer is getting a lot of DMs in community because these members don’t want to post publicly. She’s agreed to do an interview piece for the community. Both I wouldn’t have been aware of if I didn’t have these conversations.
