How Forrester Has Adapted Its Event Strategy and Embraced Digital

Forrester Research hosts 11 events annually in three categories — B2B Marketing, B2C Marketing (Customer Experience (CX)), and Technology — and serves thousands of customers and attendees in the North America, EMEA, and APAC regions. The company didn’t waste any time in responding to the pandemic by adapting its events for a digital format in 2020 and continued to iterate and host profitable digital experiences throughout 2021.

Its event program hasn’t changed, meaning that Forrester held all 11 of its normally scheduled annual events during the last two years, only they were held digitally instead of in-person. If things go as planned, all of Forrester’s 2022 events will be held in a hybrid format with both in-person and digital experiences.

Lisa Riley, Senior Vice President and Head of Events at Forrester, spoke with XLIVE about how she and her team went about cracking the code of virtual events in the early days of the pandemic and shared some advice for designing successful digital experiences.

XLIVE: How did you initially adapt when the pandemic hit, and how has your strategy evolved?

Lisa Riley: Back in March of 2020, when the world learned that everything was going to change, we had our biggest event, B2B Summit North America, coming up. The greatest thing about Forrester is that we're customer obsessed. We place the customer at the center of our strategy, operations and leadership. In the context of events, it meant that we were going to pivot quickly and deliver our content digitally as our customers truly value the content that our analysts deliver at our events. So, it was just a matter of how quickly could we actually transition what was an in-person event to digital.

We were ultimately able to do that in six weeks’ time — one, because we knew what the value proposition was, which was that our content was the key driver for our audience. Secondly, and in fairness, I had a really quick route to evaluating digital event platforms because I have analysts like Laura Ramos [VP, Principal Analyst at Forrester] who helped me quickly decipher what was the right platform for us to use. So we were able to make a quick strategic decision, choose the technology, and successfully deliver our biggest monetized event, to thousands of people in May 2020. I felt really good about how the transition was made, what the strategy was, and to this day, that strategy has not changed since March of 2020.

XL: You mentioned that even before the pandemic, you were thinking about going digital. How did the pandemic affect your timeline for that or force your hand?

LR: For us, I think like all event organizers, the majority of our content — if not all of our content — at that stage was delivered in person. There was always that consideration of where digital content delivery could be valuable, because most of the monetization of the events business at that stage had been in person. There were a lot of companies that were running webcasts, and we were not doing that, but it was something that we were thinking about internally for us to be able to reach new audiences, who, back in 2019, could not attend an in-person event. Not because of Covid, but because they just weren't able to attend the event for whatever reason.

What happened is that the pandemic forced us to go into digital execution faster, not because we had to do it, but because we also knew that there was a bigger footprint that we were going to provide our customers. And we were seeing that because the customer base that we were able to attract at each of our events had grown. Some of our North America events, which typically attracted predominantly North American attendees, were starting to see European attendees. With some of our Sydney events, we started to grow a bigger footprint in the China market. For us, it was a forcing function of how we could expand our footprint and content and regional exposure into digital delivery. It’s a great opportunity for Forrester to expand our business moving forward.

XL: What are the some of the specific tools or strategies that you that you've implemented? How have you kept attendees engaged at these digital events?

LR: I think that's the biggest question. Throughout the past two years, we were always serving our client base and thinking of how we could improve the overall experience. As we first delivered our digital experience, we knew that there was an opportunity to innovate and improve the overall UX, particularly on the digital platform, for the next event. In addition to that, we were also asking forward-looking questions, like, “When do you expect to go back to in-person events?” Who thought back in March 2020 that we would still be having this conversation. And regardless of what they put for the timing, we asked, “What are the main reasons to attend an in-person event?” And outside of content, networking and engagement was the number one driver of getting back to an in-person event, which isn't surprising.

We’ve also learned a lot about onboarding attendees on the digital platform. Outside of bringing in networking opportunities on the platform, one of the questions was, how do we deliver a great onboarding experience prior to the event? Because we knew that if we were able to onboard our attendees — meaning they knew where they were registered, how to get onto the platform even faster, how to actually build an agenda, etc. — it provided a more positive impact at the beginning of the event. If that was a little bit challenging, they didn't have a great experience. No different from back when we were in the in-person days — if an attendee showed up at the event and had a bad registration experience, usually you had to win them back with a great event because the first impression wasn't as great.

We have tried over the past year and a half to improve the engagement on the platform because outside of content, one of the pillars of the value proposition that we talk about, particularly for Forrester, is a sense of community. And you create community by engaging people. So we've gone through various stages of having big networking sessions, of having people opt-in on a topic. And we match attendee to attendee based on topics of interest, and also attendee to sponsor. That uptick has been really good in terms of how many people are actually engaging, and based on post-event evaluations, they find it valuable.

When it comes to things like workshops or roundtables, our biggest wins are facilitation. When we’ve had facilitated conversations in an environment, particularly with an expert from Forrester, there was more active participation, which is key. To create that engagement, that sense of community, you need the attendees actually engaging, asking questions, answering questions, talking to one another. We try to keep those facilitated conversations under 50, but some of the topics end up with over 100 participants because they all want to be part of that conversation. The key is using applications that help drive those conversations, and secondly, it’s about managing those conversations by topic, or by facilitated host, because it helps manage the conversation and pull in those passive participants, which creates more of a colorful experience for everyone where they're learning and engaging with one another.

XL: When it comes to the platform, were there certain things that you prioritized or that you knew you were looking for?

LR: Decide your event strategy first. If you create a strategy, and you understand the core components of your event strategy, then finding a platform goes smoothly. For Forrester, we knew that if our strategy was right, if we created the right content for our audiences that we served, if we created those communities — because we knew that was a value component — and if we created that ecosystem of buyers and sellers, as long as we could create those things and think about how that would then translate into a digital experience, the evaluation process for a platform went pretty quickly.

Because we have those main components, it was easier for me, particularly working with our analysts, to basically shortlist the platforms that could truly support the needs of our business — we had thousands of attendees, we had multiple tracks, we had show floors, etc. And because it was at that time a platform industry of maybe 20 or so providers — which has now skyrocketed — we got to our platform pretty quickly because the list became very short.

XL: How are you approaching the return of in-person and hybrid events?

LR: Originally, as we headed into the beginning of 2021, our plan was to hold the first half of 2021 digitally, and in the second half we were going to hold hybrid. Based on what happened with the pandemic and based on the survey results that we had from our audiences, we did not hold hybrid events in 2021. We are fully planning on running hybrid events in 2022. Our first event is, B2B North America in Austin, Texas. This would be our first large-scale event that we plan to run as a hybrid event in 2022.

XL: Is there an event that stands out from the past year that was particularly engaging and successful? I believe you continued to monetize your digital events, is that correct?

LR: The events business is one of our core business units at Forrester. So, we drive revenue and profit, top and bottom line. We monetized our events because we delivered the same quality of content that we would have delivered in an in-person environment. Because of the pandemic, we just delivered it digitally. The presentations at Forrester events are based on Forrester Research — the models, frameworks, and benchmarks that we're known for — so there's huge value in that content.

To answer your first question, I think the most significant event will always be B2B Summit North America 2020, because that was the largest and first event we had to transition to digital. It was a huge win for Forrester, and it was a huge win from an overall event success perspective. At a time when most companies were canceling their events, we pivoted to digital events quite successfully. We received lots of accolades and our clients were turning to us for best practices on how to pivot to digital events.

Despite challenges, we were fully successful. We captured more attendees than we had ever before. I feel really, really proud about that.

From where we were back in May of 2020 to where we are now, we did make some changes. We adapted and innovated. But our key strategy did not change. For example, we shortened the length of our presentations from 45-minute presentations to “TED talk style ” 20-minute presentations, to make them more digestible on the digital platform. We also shortened the lengths of the events. And we made sure that we were being very conscious about time zones — we didn’t starts events at 8am Eastern so our West Coast attendees could join.

XL: Have you experienced any drop off in attendees since events have started to come back?

LR: The metrics that we had going into the digital environment were based on in-person. It was more about “feet on the street,”. When we moved to digital, we started using new metrics, particularly around ROI. How do you ascertain the ROI at a digital event? Will people actually show up at an event? How long will they stay? Will they potentially come to event earlier for some pre-event content? Will they stay for post-event content? We found that there was huge interest from our attendees. At a typical in-person event, the no-show rate could be maybe 10% or 15%, depending on the size and scale of your event. I think that's seemingly the industry average. Getting into our first event, we were all wondering what our drop off rate was going to be. And it ended up being the same. We had 90% of our attendees showing up on day one.

As we headed into the back half of 2021, attendance wasn't at the 90% levels that we started with at the beginning of 2020, but we also started to see more demand for on-demand content. Our events offer multiple tracks sessions, and because we create events for specific roles, all of the content is relevant to all attendees. But we know that an attendee can’t attend more than one concurrent session. Thanks to a digital platform, we started seeing the consumption of content increasing, because we made content available to all attendees for 90 days post-event. Although we might have seen a drop off, we saw an increase in participation post-event because our attendees were coming back and continuing to consume content. That was a huge ROI driver for us as our attendees could consume more content than they could in an in-person setting.

XL: What are some of the biggest tips that you would give to other planners based on your learnings in virtual and hybrid so far?

LR: If you have your strategy, creating the experiences and selecting the platforms will flow naturally. Another piece of advice is look to your peers. Ask questions to your partners in the industry. To deliver exceptional experiences to the audiences that you serve, whatever industry that is in, make sure that those experiences match your strategy and match up to what you want to deliver. So if you’re holding an in-person event, make sure that your strategy is aligned to that. For example, in the current scenario, you also have to  make decisions about whether you're going to require vaccinations, etc. Whatever you decide, make sure that you communicate that very well and consistently to your audience and sponsors.

If you still plan to run a digital component of the event, do your homework. Ask your customers and prospective attendees about the experience that they want. How do they want to consume digital content? Do they want to see live streaming, or do they just want to make sure that they have content on demand because that suits them better? For an in-person attendee, do your due diligence, understand how they want to consume digital content. Do they want digital content, or are they really looking to attend an in-person event because they're looking for that in-person engagement?

Speak to the audiences that you want to serve so you can understand and customize experiences according to their needs. Your customers should be front and center in helping you create and validate the strategy that you need to deliver, which is then going to help you measure your ROI and metrics and KPIs to determine if your event — whether hybrid, in-person only, or digital only — was a success or not. Those would be my tips at this stage.