Earlier this month, a few MGAers attended the annual Meetings Industry Council of Colorado (MIC) Educational Conference. It was interesting to attend a full day of professional development sessions for an area that MGA offers as a service (meetings and special events) and to be surrounded by professionals who do this full-time.
The most interesting thing we walked away with is a different way of measuring success. Rather than focusing on ROI, consider ROA, or Return on Attention. Getting the attention of your prospective audiences – and keeping them engaged – is even more important in an age of mobile devices and short attention spans.
This has been part of MGA’s core work in community engagement for years, but it was interesting to hear it from special event and meeting planners. In a society where our online and offline lives are merging, the attention and engagement of your audiences (or customers) is even more critical to business success – regardless of which business you are in.
Here are three other themes we observed at MIC that clearly cross over into public relations as a whole:
- The importance of incorporating mobile technology: More and more people are living in a “3 Screen Life,” particularly millennials. They are getting their information via TVs, tablets, laptops and mobile phones, sometimes at the same time.
- The importance of strong, clear messages: One of the speakers reported that adults lose 95 percent of information they hear within 24 hours of hearing it. In order for your message to be a part of the other five percent, your messages need to be easy to understand, relevant to your audience and clear about how they are relevant to your audience.
- The importance of creating an emotional connection: Creating an emotional connection with your audience will keep your audience engaged. Tell a story. Use videos or sounds. Elicit a nostalgic memory that relates to your message. Find the emotion behind your content, and tap into it.
At MGA, we develop and enhance relationships that make or break our clients’ businesses. Coupled with education and empowerment of stakeholders, engagement is critical.
By incorporating the above themes into our public relations practices, we can all reach audiences across a number of platforms, with memorable content that will keep them engaged. With that connection come the benefits of ROA.
How do you keep your clients or customers engaged?
