“No power so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” – Edmund Burke
Let’s face it; audience acquisition for face-to-face events has become increasingly harder each year. Between the multitude of online learning options, budget cuts, and additional work piled on due to downsizing of teams, getting anyone to take a few days out of their schedule to attend a live, in-person event is challenging. Today, the audience acquisition strategy and event messaging must evolve beyond simply promoting speakers, sessions, and schedules. We need to better understand what drives people to act, what makes an experience feel worth their time, and how behavioral science can help shape stronger event decisions.
Understanding Behavioral Science
The human decision-making process has received an incredible amount of attention over the last decade. The popularity of social and behavioral science has brought a better understanding as to why we humans do what we do, how our decisions are made, and, specifically, how emotions play into those decisions.
Over 30 years ago, Robert Cialdini wrote a national bestseller titled, INFLUENCE: The Psychology of Persuasion, which changed the way many people think about decision making. More recently, the popularity of books by Dan Ariely, such as Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, have further proven the role emotions play in our decisions. Science has taught us that the emotional side of our brain more often wins in the decision-making process than the rational side.
Emotion as Action
Research of the brain’s action pathways, using fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging, has helped us better understand how emotion translates into action. In the event space, this means prospective attendees are not only making decisions based on logistics, cost, or convenience. They are also responding to perceived value, belonging, curiosity, relevance, and the feeling that an experience is worth stepping away from their daily routine.
“The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions.”
“The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions,” writes neurologist Donald Calne in Within Reason: Rationality and Human Behaviour.
Since we’re looking for prospective attendees to act by registering, our marketing messages must focus on helping them feel connected to the value of the experience.
We don’t have to look any further than the rise of digital learning to see how audience behavior continues to shift. Online options, webinars, and on-demand content have made information easier to access than ever before. While this creates more competition for live events, it also clarifies what face-to-face experiences do best. They create energy, connection, shared moments, and direct engagement that cannot be fully replicated online. Event messaging must go back to the basics of showing people why being in the room matters.
Addressing Behavior in Pre-Event Messaging
We will need to see this same change in message for our industry to continue growing.
When emotion is present in the decision-making process, it often shapes what people notice, remember, and act on. Too much uncertainty around the value of attending can lead to hesitation. Acknowledging the fact that emotion influences our decision-making process is essential. If we want people to return to live events, our priority must be to deliver messages designed to make the experience feel relevant, valuable, and worth prioritizing.
We should be empathetic to the demands competing for their time and attention.
We should be indicating how the event will be useful, engaging, meaningful, and easy to say yes to.
We should be explicitly outlining the takeaways, networking opportunities, experiences, and moments that make attendance valuable.
Final Thoughts
One last item to think about is that behavioral science can also be helpful when trying to encourage people to register and attend. Properly utilizing the notion of FOMO, or the fear of missing out, in marketing messages is a proven, yet sometimes frowned upon, method. “FOMO is basically counterfactual thinking: imagining that I could, or should, be somewhere else than where I really am,” says Ariely. “And that thought is extremely unpleasant.” Anticipated regret can create urgency in the present, which no one prefers.
Understanding the influence that a person’s anticipated regret may have on their decision making can help us develop our messaging. Simultaneously delivering a strong FOMO message, accompanied with an offer that reduces hesitation, is a perfect way to move people to decide. Take, for example, the approach of limited time offers with flexible registration options; such offers use the concern of missing the opportunity while giving prospective attendees a way to feel confident in their decision.
As an industry, we need to do everything we can to make live events feel essential, relevant, and valuable. Understanding the presence and power of behavioral science is one of the best ways for our industry to motivate audiences, strengthen messaging, and move people from consideration to action.
