Attracting a Whole New Audience
Summary
Helping Glasgow Young Professionals attract an entirely new audience with a range of inspirational professional development seminars.
Key Results
Increased number of new members, re-engagement of existing membership and increased team satisfaction.
Main Activities
Professional development events, event management, brand creation, brand sponsorships, brand naming, e-mail marketing, social media marketing, campaigns, graphic design and art-direction.
Intro
GYP is an organisation which brings together recently graduated professionals in Glasgow. The organisation had enjoyed tremendous success in its first 5 years and had a packed and very well attended social calendar. Despite this, there was a desire within the organisation to freshen things up, to begin appealing to a wider audience and to bring new members into the fold.
Our idea was to create and organise a series of professional development events featuring some of Scotland’s top thought-leaders, entrepreneurs and business people. The series of events would be called the #GYPSeminarSeries.
These events were a tremendous success for all involved with Glasgow Young Professionals (GYP,) this is how that was achieved or click here to skip to the end results >>>>>
Opting For ‘Professional Development
Professional development was chosen, as something ‘a bit different’ to the more sociable events organised by GYP at that time. This was considered a great way to energise everybody involved including the regular GYP attendees, the committee members and others.
Attracting Scotland’s Brightest and Best
We were able to attract a range of great speakers including Russell Wardrop, the influential Founder and CEO of Kissing With Confidence, Iain MacRitchie the incredibly successful social entrepreneur, the truly unique Charlie Burton and thought-leader Alan Meldrum amongst others. We were able to use the event format and overall mission as a way to persuade such successful people to give up their time for these events.
Creative Negotiating
With everybody donating their time, we had to ensure that each of the speakers could receive something of value for their contributions. Whether it was up-to-date photography they could then re-use at a later date, new presentation materials or social media content. The art-directed and storytelling photography, in particular, was a great draw and tremendously appreciated by each of the speakers.
A More Personalised Presentation
Tireless work was carried out with each of the speakers to ensure that their was an overall bold and compelling theme to each presentation given, that key takeaways were communicated clearly. The collaborative work with each of the speakers was greatly appreciated by all – which was important.
Tactical Sponsorships
We were able to use the event theme and overall goals to also persuade a range of sponsors to come on-board. There were donations of expertise and more importantly for the venue spaces. Securing the stunning Clydesdale Bank in St Vincent Street, Glasgow was a particular highlight.
Keeping The Conversation Going
For several of the events, the conversation was kept going online using Twitter and Facebook with both GYP and ourselves making contributions to build on the conversations established during the events.
True Partnership & Event Legacy
These exceptional events were all free to attend for GYP’s members with only sweat equity being used to pull it all together. We found that by creating an inspirational platform and giving something back of (sometimes intangible) value that we could persuade people and organisations to make a contribution.
For our speakers, this meant…
– Sending out a mass mailer to thousands of people for one of the charities to find new volunteers.
– Many of the marketing ideas being used, for event promotions, being re-used by speakers and their organisations for their own brand-marketing.
– Specialist photography being re-used for PR purposes.
For our event sponsors, particularly those providing venues…
– Being able to use content from the events for their own marketing.
– Being able to showcase a ‘CSR’ element to their donations.
Results
Extremely High Attendance for each and every event.
New Members signing upto the organisation.
Improved Attendance with corresponding events.
Renewed Interest amongst existing GYP members.
Renewed Contributions amongst other professional organisations.
Exceptional Brand Builder for Glasgow Young Professionals (GYP.)
New Partnership Opportunities for GYP with organisations in and around Glasgow.