Project Type: Full-Service Event Production, Planning and Management
Client Type: Corporate
Audience Type: Regional Sales Staff
This
particular project took us almost three months of developing concepts,
pitching ideas to the top brass and making changes until we saw a big smile on the CEO's face and a mischievious sparkle
in his eye...and every minute was worth the hard work on the forefront
because we knew once the CEO showed enthusiasm, his energy would funnel down through every level in the
company!
Challenge: This was the first time our client,
a major Cell Phone provider, had engaged an outside planner to help
plan the annual sales meetings, which consisted of a "road show" in
which meetings took place across the state over a period of 3 weeks.The
client brought us in to take the professionalism of their meetings to
the next level with a full-blown stage production.
Planning Strategy:
We turned to our industry colleagues for help and put together a full
team of professionals to collaborate on behalf of the client. Together,
we developed a stage theme that visually demonstrated the CEO's message
to the employees. We hired a scriptwriter to make the visual theme a
spoken reality. Since the attendance was comprised of young sales
people, we included the C-Level Executives as part of the show for a
light and fun feel where serious information was being delivered by the
CEO.
Marketing Strategy:
Again, we were surprised to learn this large a company never had an
event website to promote the meetings and provide online registration.
Because the audience was young and savvier about technology, we built a
condensed, informative website and included a registration component
that was quick to complete. Further, because the audience was young, we
wanted to engage their interest and obtain feedback from them...so we
experimented....
Interactive Marketing Experiment: We added a component to this
site that allowed employees to submit their best sales/service
practices. They also were able to submit questions to the CEO. (Our
client, who worked alongside the CEO, was fine with us adding the
component but didn't think we'd get many responses.)
Interactive Marketing Results:
Guess what? The employees did indeed respond...in droves...with
questions and best practice ideas! We were able to discern quickly that
the questions being asked veered way off from the information currently
scheduled to be presented. Since we have a deep respect for the
financial investment a company makes to produce meetings, and because
we wanted the CEO to present correct information to his entire
sales staff, during one of the development meetings, we bravely handed
him the reports.
As a result, the entire script was revamped to answer
the employee's concerns and deliver relevant information to best help
the sales teams meet their targets!
OVERALL ASSESSMENT: This
project could not have been successful without the collaborative
involvement of our partner suppliers and the fearlessness of executive
management to not only hear the truth, but care enough to respond to
the truth! The employees loved the theme, the presentation was
energetic, humorous and useful and the organization at each event was
seamlessly smooth thanks to the finesse of DMM Group.
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