Top event professionals, rising from the just concluded BusyBee Events Group’s International Virtual Summit 4.0, have said that the only way practitioners can remain in business without losing relevance is to innovate, re-invent and pivot.
The one day-event, which held recently virtually, had top resource persons from Nigeria, USA, Australia and Ghana.
In her opening remarks, Bisi Sotunde, convener of the summit and CEO of the BusyBee Events Group, said the idea of a virtual summit was no doubt a good development as the world battled the novel Covid-19 pandemic.
Sotunde said the summit gave over 200 Nigerian event stakeholders and participants the opportunity to connect and learn from the experiences of the international speakers.
Taking the first shot as speaker at the summit, Australia-based Anniemarie Cross, stressed the need for participants to live on current glory because of the changing trajectory of the event market. She told them to leverage their uniqueness, work on their personal brand, deliver quality content and be ‘uncopyable’ at all times.
During her session, one of Nigeria’s top marketing coach, Tricia Ikponwonba, said the novel Covid-19 really was a blessing in disguise, stressing the need to change strategy and increase online brand visibility.
She listed ways to be visible to include; owning a business website, brand profiling in the press, appearing as guest columnist in the media either virtually or offline, among others.
Ghana-based CEO of Think Mahogany Events, Debra-Jane Nelson, in her presentation, urged participants to innovate or go extinct.
Nelson reiterated that the new normal had become an eye-opener, stressing that it would make business sense for everyone to inject individual uniqueness into their business, rather than do what others were doing. She admonished the event practitioners not to give up but remain consistent.
Brand and story-telling expert, Aleya Harris, in her presentation, emphasised the need to tell well-crafted brand stories as a means to connect, teach, influence , inspire and attract clients. She urged participants to create an ideal customer avatar and also have a marketing funnel so as to keep track of prospects.
Taking his turn at the summit, a USA- based lifestyle and design expert, Eddie Zaratsian, told participants that it was important to pay attention to details in handling clients’ jobs. He said they should step up on their creativity without worrying about whether people copied their jobs or not.
“What’s important is for you to create your own unique path which cannot be taken. Learn to use colours rightly. Don’t limit where you draw inspiration from. Inspiration could be from people, places, fashion shows and colleagues not necessarily from magazines.”
