Quick Summary
-
The true measure of a conference’s success isn’t about what happens on stage; it’s about what happens after attendees return to work — will they do something differently, or just fall back into familiar routines?
-
To maximize a keynote’s impact on the audience, speakers and event organizers should leverage proven tactics for facilitating learning and motivating behavioral change.
-
That can be achieved through a combination of thoughtful content, supporting materials, follow-up communication, and cultural reinforcement.
[Editor’s note: In addition to being Watermark’s founder, Jon Picoult is also a frequent keynote speaker at corporate conferences and association events. He periodically blogs on topics of interest to meeting and event professionals.]
Here’s a question for conference organizers and event professionals: What’s the most important day of your event?
The day attendees arrive? The day of the opening keynote? The day of the closing keynote? No, it’s none of those.
The most important day of your event is the day after it ends.
Because that’s the day attendees return to work and face a choice: apply what they learned or fall back into familiar routines.
Too often, it’s the latter. Even the most inspiring keynote can leave audiences energized in the moment but unequipped to translate inspiration into action. Without reinforcement, the excitement fades and old habits return.
The good news is that audience impact doesn’t have to be left to chance. It can be intentionally designed through a combination of thoughtful content, supporting materials, follow-up communication, and cultural reinforcement.
Here are four strategies that can help meeting organizers extend the impact of their keynote sessions well after attendees leave the convention center.
During the keynote: Connect the dots.
You can have the most brilliant keynote speakers onstage, delivering the most intriguing insights, but you won’t maximize the impact of those sessions unless they address a fundamental question for each audience member: What should I do differently when I go back to the office?
While customization of the keynote content (to the industry, or the organization) helps in that regard, there’s more to it than that. What’s really required is helping attendees connect the dots between big ideas and everyday decisions.
One way speakers can do this is by pairing every strategic concept with a few practical, role-specific actions (ideally no more than three, so the takeaways stay memorable). That removes ambiguity by showing attendees exactly how to put the keynote’s ideas into practice. (This video clip, from a keynote at the annual sales conference of a large agricultural equipment manufacturer, illustrates this approach.)
Immediately afterward: Provide takeaway materials.
If your audience leaves the session empty-handed, then many of them won’t take time to reflect later on what they heard. That’s a problem, because reflection reinforces learning. Revisiting key concepts after the event strengthens recall and increases the likelihood that attendees will actually use what they learned.
PDF handouts, slide decks, and concise summaries give attendees something to revisit after the event, refreshing their memory and providing practical guidance as they begin putting ideas into action.
In the weeks that follow: Launch a drip campaign.
Another effective way to facilitate absorption of keynote content, and motivate audience members to act on what they learned, is to remind them about it at regular intervals following the conference.
A “drip” communications campaign is an ideal vehicle for accomplishing this – structured, for example, as a 10-week virtual coaching sequence, sent via e-mail, with each message highlighting one keynote concept and how to apply it in a specific role.
Repetition is what makes this approach so powerful. Each reminder strengthens recall, reinforces key concepts, and nudges attendees to replace old habits with new ones.
Long-term: Invoke the keynote via leadership language.
If you want keynote ideas to become part of the organization’s culture, then leaders need to keep those ideas visible after the event by using the same “vocabulary” as the speaker – whether that comes in the form of a new mantra, a set of behavioral norms, or any other type of operational framework.
When leaders consistently invoke that language – in meetings, emails, performance reviews, and everyday conversations – it signals to the workforce that the keynote was more than just a one-time event. Rather, it was just the introduction to a new set of ideas that will guide how the organization operates going forward.
* * *
A great keynote doesn’t create value because people applaud it. It creates value because people act on it.
That’s why the true measure of conference success isn’t about what happens on stage; it’s about what happens after attendees return to work.
By intentionally reinforcing keynote ideas through practical application, follow-up resources, ongoing communication, and leadership support, keynote speakers and meeting organizers can dramatically increase the business impact of their events — long after the applause fades.
Jon Picoult is founder of Watermark Consulting, a customer experience advisory firm that helps companies impress customers and inspire employees, creating raving fans that drive business growth. Author of the Wall Street Journal featured book “From Impressed To Obsessed,” Picoult is a widely respected keynote speaker, as well as an advisor to some of the world’s foremost brands. Follow Jon on LinkedIn or Instagram, or subscribe to his monthly eNewsletter.