Re-inventing the European Self Storage Conference based on a platform of quality, venue, content and sponsorship
Success Achieved
Re-inventing, managing and implementing a project with 3 staff - How the Federation of European Self Storage Associations overcame all challenges and transformed a conference that was loosing delegates and money into a value-providing and profitable event.
Organisation
| Name: | Federation of European Self Storage Associations |
| Member geography: | European |
| Members: | European |
| Based in: | Belgium |
| Website: | https://www.fedessa.org |
Introduction
The conference was declining in attendance and sponsorship. Attendees were viewing it not as a must attend event, but something to think about attending every few years. Too much focus had been placed on reducing cost to the detriment of the quality of the event. The event was re-invented based on a platform of quality venue, content and sponsorship and then a ticket price set that reflected this.
Discovery
After the 2012 conference, the event had shown declining attendance for 4 years and had lost money for the past 2 years. When attendance began to decline the strategy had been to make the event as affordable as possible, however this had also reduced the quality of the speakers and venues.
The SSA UK proposed a new strategy to completely rework the event, investing heavily in quality speakers and premium venues, working with sponsors and increasing ticket prices for delegates.
This would begin to be implemented over 2 events as the venue and some speakers had already been secured for 2013. There was significant financial risk in this strategy as funding would need to be committed to investing in the premium product, with no guarantee delegates would pay a higher ticket price. The SSA UK agreed to take on the entire financial risk of the event for the next 3 years.
Objectives
The aim was by 2014 to have:
- 330 people attend the event from all over Europe,
- Make a £30k profit and
- Double income from sponsors and trade.
Importantly, the event was to be reviewed by attendees as an essential investment in their development and a flagship industry event.
Project period
May 2013 - October 2014
Project Team
- Rennie Schafer – FEDESSA and SSA UK CEO
- Bryony Caswell – SSA UK Membership Services Officer
- Tracey Prigmore – SSA UK Administration Officer
Project Partners
This project was planned, managed and predominately implemented in house by the SSA UK staff, a total of 3 people while also completing their “normal duties”.
- Johnsons Printers - completed the graphic design work on the marketing material and printing
- Radison Blu - assisted during the event and with logistics pre and post.
- Transport companies - used to assist exhibitors in shipping their materials to Stockholm.
- Speakers Corner - provided some of the speakers
- Nexus Collections - produced delegate bags and other branded merchandise materials.
- The 5 major sponsors - who provided input throughout the planning process and actively marketed the event to their clients
- The Swedish members - gave us local knowledge, assisted with local suppliers and made all our delegates feel welcome in their home town.
Activities
Sponsor Involvement
Communication was had with existing sponsors as to what was important to them; they wanted better trade space and more promotion of the trade show.
Major sponsors were actively engaged in the planning process of the event. During the 2013 conference, a meeting was held of suppliers and exhibitors to explain how the event would change and get their input. This meeting is now held as a part of the event every year.
Venue
A venue was sought in an accessible European city with large and suitable trade space, state of the art plenary rooms and hotel accommodation all under the one roof. The priority was the venue, not the location.
Previous “rotation” policies were discarded, however consideration was given to the size of the local market for delegate attendance.
The Raddison Blu Stockholm Waterfront was chosen as it had the best facilities and negotiations then began on securing the best price. Pricing was not considered as part of the venue selection, it was purely done on the facilities and service offering.
Speakers
Rather than just using industry speakers and free speakers who often promote their own businesses, investment was made into business speakers from other industries whose message could transfer to self storage. Industry speakers were also sought from developed self storage markets outside Europe and a professional moderator was hired for the event.
The professional moderator made a huge difference lifting the whole mood of the event and freeing staff up to deal with delegates and not have to worry about speakers and sessions.
Having high profile business speakers enhanced ticket sales and gave the event a huge point of difference to other industry events.
Innovation
There was some resistance from certain delegates to commit to the increased cost, this was partly managed through a money back guarantee offer to selected people where, if after the first day they said they did not find value, they would get a full refund including accommodation costs. This encouraged attendance and no-one claimed their fees back.
Marketing
Consistent, clean and professional theme used in all marketing materials
A consistent theme was used for all marketing material that was clean and professional. Brochures were developed as well as emails and social media campaigns.
The aim was for people to understand this event was completely different to anything done before. Documents were translated and customized for local European countries and the event was marketed in Australia and South Africa as a global event.
Challenges
- The SSA UK is a relatively small association with a staff of 3, a turnover of less than £600,000 of which just over £250,000 is the conference, and a membership of 286 businesses. They are producing a conference that compares and, in many cases, exceeds those put on by associations that are many times their size.
- The SSA UK recognised that the event was not meeting the needs of the membership, not just in the UK but across Europe, so took control of the event and made the changes required to transform it completely. There was considerable risk in doing this given the event was losing money when they took it over, and then the association almost doubled the committed expense on the event with no guarantee that delegates or sponsors would support the event and higher ticket price. The results show that their understanding of the market was sound and this was an exceptionally good investment by all measures. They are now attracting delegates and exhibitors to the event from all over the world as it is viewed as a premium self storage event globally.
- Finding relevant business speakers is always a challenge, and the decision was made to wherever possible only use speakers that we could get independent verification on. That is a speaker that someone had heard and would recommend. The speakers bureau were exceptionally helpful in this regard, taking the time to understand out needs and refer a short list of suitable speakers for us to research rather than a huge list of “potentials”.
Achievements
- Increased attendance
- Become a profit-making event
- Hold largest self storage exhibition outside the USA
- Raise delegate satisfaction survey results
- Increase repeat attendance following year
- Double income from sponsors and exhibitors
- Hold a world class event that people would highly recommend
There is very little true innovation in conference development these days. What makes this event notable is the way the SSA UK focused on quality rather than price for the event. After researching their members and engaging with sponsors, they invested in quality, increased the cost of the ticket price, but also the overall value to delegates. Venues, speakers and materials were selected based on their compliance with the event’s needs, then price was negotiated after selection.
In most cases when considering items the subcommittee were not aware of their price. Most event organisers have a ticket price in mind when they develop their budget and create their event to meet this price. In this case the event was created to meet a quality specification and then the ticket price was set to match that event. The results show that this was far more appealing to delegates and profitable for the Association.
24 people attended from Australia and South Africa, up from only 8 the year before. There was also just under double the amount of Spanish delegates, largely due to the customised marketing material. The 2014 the event made a £49,233 profit.
Targets & Statistics
Comparative conference statistics - 2014 vs 2012
What would we do differently?
- While the professional moderator is good, maybe using an industry person to moderate the industry panels would have facilitated some more lively discussion on some issues as well as the professional to keep things moving.
- We still have not got the social media campaigns as robust as we would like. Need more time to track likes and commenters to convert into registrants.
- Sell the tickets in Euros and Pounds so people know what they are paying and then take the hit on currency rates.
- We are looking at using translators during the sessions and online broadcasting of certain sessions in multiple languages. Translating the marketing material into a local language really helped but then if all the sessions are in English then the non-English speakers do not get as much value from the event.
Feedback & Testimonials
“A vastly improved conference when compared to last year”
“An extremely well organised conference and I would say an excellent use of our time”
“The best Self Storage conference I have ever attended, including the US ones”
“The quality of this event was outstanding, the business speakers were focused and relevant to my business”
“This was the first FEDESSA event we have exhibited at and the quality and volume of leads has ensured it will not be out last”
Wider Impact
The new strategy was a huge success with all targets exceeded. In fact, almost all the 3 year targets were met in year 2. Sponsors felt a valued part of the process rather than “cash cows”.
