Association Insight International & European Association Insights Spring 2015 | Page 40
Association Insights | Association Success Story
Association Success Story
Project
Activities
Development of an AGM with small table-tops, to a
commercially viable leading Industry Event, resulting in
500% increase in exhibition space over 5 years.
Defining the event strategy – establishing the goals and
objectives not only of the Association but also the event
stakeholders (sponsors, large-scale exhibitors, key media
partners)to ensure a successful event for all parties.
Reviewing the key success factors throughout the project
to ensure on track.
Categories
Strategic Event Development, Event Management,
Marketing, Sponsorship& Exhibition Sales
Dates
Mid-November Annually
Association
LEEA (Lifting Equipment Engineers Association)
Members
Made up ofalmost 900 company members worldwide
Project team
Operations Director, Business Development Director, Web
Developer, Marketing Manager, Conference Producer,
Onsite Support Staff
Position LiftEx as the leading event in its fieldand elevate
the event to the next level by adding educational content,
knowledge sharing, new features, and targeted networking
opportunities – so that it is the ‘go to’ event for all those
interested in the overhead lifting industry from relevant
vertical markets.
Holistic communication strategy – produce a consistent
message across all touch points driving to a single event
landing page - be it an email signature, advert, HMTL
email, etc, providing a toolkit and making it easy for the
association to market. This also enables us to analyse the
results of every part of the campaign.
Create an event identity complementing the Association
branding but as a “stand-alone” event.
Objectives
To leverage the existing AGM attendance:
» For the event to be the UK’s leading exhibition for the
lifting industry
» Members to have an annual platform to meet and
network and discuss issues outside of the AGM
» Make this a LEEA-endorsed event with strong member
benefits, but attract non-members to boost membership.
» To align the event with key industry media partners
» Increase the % of end-user buyers across all relevant
vertical markets
» Target – Aim for 1000sqm net exhibition space in 5 years
» Target – 2000 visitors by the 2015 event
» Make this the no.1 go-to event for education, industry
updates, innovation and networking
Introduction
LiftEx brings together those involved in the Lifting
Equipment Industry across the UK, Europe and Worldwide.
We partner with a PCO to meet our strategic event
objectives
Background
LiftEx began in 2005 after a few member companies
wished to display their products at the AGM during the
coffee breaks and grew organically for the next 5 years. In
2010, increased demand led us to create LiftEx and bring
on a partner to professionalise and strategically develop
the event for the long term, and to remove roadblocks to
help us streamline our workload and help us achieve our
goals.
40 | © Associations Network 2015
The logo was designed to incorporate key products in the
industry in a simple and striking way, as well as highlighting
the 3 key strands of the event. We produce consistent
branding across all marketing channels including website,
print and social media.
Design and build a simple yet effective event website
which to act as the hub for the event.
Marketing campaign – create a full annual campaign
reaching out to all end-user markets
As part of this campaign a key focus was to work closely
with the media partners to establish close, ongoing
relationships
Using relevant content and compelling messages to drive
potential visitors to find out more on the website and
ultimately register their attendance
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