The ‘Who’ Defines the ‘Why’: Stakeholder Mapping

When designing events, remembering the needs of all stakeholder groups is key to ensuring the event is impactful for all parties involved. Remember, impactful event planners understand the importance of the symbiotic relationship between a brand’s message and its audience. It’s understanding the Who that connects the Why to the Wow!

The event landscape has transitioned from a place of obligatory attendance to a value proposition — ‘does attending this event bring me value or does it simply disrupt my life?’ If it is the latter, you now know why attendance at your events has dwindled.

IDENTIFY STAKEHOLDER GROUPS

A stakeholder is defined as a person or group of people with an interest or concern in an Event. They choose to create or be part of an event because it is more important to them to participate than to not.

When planning an event that can effect change and add value, clearly identify and make a list of all stakeholder groups involved.

A common mistake made in corporate events is that throughout the planning process, the focus tends to remain predominantly through the lens of those hosting the event, leaving the needs of the audience and other stakeholder groups secondary in priority.

This often results in a passive experience for your audience and event partners, leaving the design and execution uninspired and disengaging. The audience feedback generally looks like, “that could have been a webinar” or worse, “that was a waste of my time, I’ll never attend that event again!”

DEFINE (ALL) THE WHYs

When planning an event, we hopefully know the high-level Why behind it. There’s a new building being built, we’re celebrating the achievements of the sales team, we’re launching a new product, we’re incentivizing our top leaders, etc… These are ‘big bucket’ Whys — and sadly, all too often that’s where the strategy ends and the logistical planning begins.

Before diving right into logistics, dig a little bit deeper into understanding the needs of all stakeholder groups. This will inform how to plan, design, articulate, and execute a more impactful event.

CHANGE

Each stakeholder group has a reason for participating in your event. We know that events are an opportunity to effect change — and that change is desired by all stakeholders. Take time to ask and answer the following questions of each of your stakeholder groups:

What is their entering behavior?
What are their expectations of the event and pain points around participating?
What do they hope to gain and will the event meet their needs?
What is their exiting behavior?
Did the event effect change for them?

FRAME

To ensure the biggest return on investment for all stakeholder groups is to understand the framing around why they are choosing to participate:

What is their commitment level?
Why are they choosing to invest their time and energy in your event?
What are the short-term rewards they are looking to gain from your event?
What will this event cost them, not just financially, but also in time and public opinion?
What revenue might they gain directly or indirectly from participating in your event?
What goals does this event help them accomplish?
What ultimately does the stakeholder gain from participating in this event?

DESIGN

Hold up, we’re not quite to the point of choosing linen and floral, we’re talking experiential design, meeting design, and how each of your stakeholder groups is going to experience your event:

What are the experiences your stakeholders are going to need? Networking, education, exposure? What will make or break their experience at your event?
In order for them to experience change, what is the best format for them to hear and learn about your message? How do you reinforce that throughout the event?

BRING IT TO LIFE!

Now that you have a much more comprehensive understanding around Why each stakeholder group may choose to participate in your event, you have a much better understanding on:

How to communicate with them before, during, and after the event.
What they will enjoy participating in, and what challenges they may have in doing so.
How to frame the messaging and identify new ways they could experience it throughout the event.

By taking the time to be a little more strategic and thoughtful around the Why for ALL stakeholders of your event, you give yourself the gift of clarity, inspiration, understanding, and most importantly, a much more thoughtful and comprehensive purpose behind your event.

This is how you flip the script on those post-event surveys to now say, “I’m so glad I was there!” and “This is an event you don’t want to miss!”

Note: I must give credit to The Event Design Collective and their Event Canvas process which has helped inform us, and so many other event professionals, on how to create more inspired and impactful events that meet the needs of all stakeholders.