In June 2018, Impact Networking hosted its first-ever business and technology summit, Impact Optimize. With just 100 paid attendees, the inaugural event proved to have huge potential in providing education and thought leadership to clients, prospects and community members.
In 2019, Impact Optimize grew tenfold, hosting over 1,000 business leaders at Chicago’s iconic Navy Pier with keynote speakers, Robert Herjavec and Michael “MafiaBoy” Calce. And now, the team at Impact is already preparing for Impact Optimize 2020—set to be the biggest and best summit to-date—which will again take place at Navy Pier Aug. 13. Daniel Pink is confirmed to take the stage as the keynote speaker, and Konica Minolta has secured a Platinum-level sponsorship.
Let’s take a look at how Impact Optimize grew in popularity and get a sneak peek at this year’s event.
How did Impact Optimize Come About?
The event came to life after Impact Vice President of Managed IT and Co-Founder of Impact Optimize, Patrick Layton spoke with Impact CEO Frank Cucco about why he wasn’t involved in the company’s past tech shows. Knowing the IT solution didn’t have associated physical hardware to present at a tech show, Layton proposed that the best way to sell Impact’s IT solution was to host a summit focused on educating potential customers. Cucco agreed that this type of event would set Impact apart, while providing value for customers and prospects. Frank DeGeorge, Impact CTO and co-founder of Impact Optimize, came together with Layton to spearhead the event, gather sponsors and vendors, and fill the agenda with educational tracks.
How Has the Event’s Focus Evolved?
The first Impact Optimize was concentrated almost solely on security, targeted towards IT professionals. As the event has grown in size, so has the focus.
In 2019, the theme for the event was “Digital Transformation for Growing Companies.” Since a true digital transformation typically involves multiple people from one team, the summit’s ticket pricing changed. It allowed attendees who bought one full-priced ticket to purchase up to four additional tickets at a discounted price, making it easier for multiple members from one company to attend. With a number of different agenda tracks in 2019, team members could walk away with a different understanding and strategy based on their roles in digital transformation.
In 2020, the event will cover business and technology trends aimed at helping companies “Fuel the Future of Business” with seven defined tracks—Business Agility; Security & Compliance; Customer Experience; AI, Machine Learning & Automation; Operational Efficiency; IT & Cloud; and Culture & Strategy. The goal is to bring current customers, future customers and community members together to collaborate and network with their peers.
How Does it All Come Together?
Putting together an event such as Impact Optimize is no easy feat—it takes months of research, planning and preparation. Over the last year, Carly Cucco, Impact operations manager, has taken on event planning, leading the logistics behind the annual summit. This includes everything from coordinating the AV teams for the Aon Grand Ballroom and seven breakout rooms; setup for vendors and sponsors in the sponsor hall; and coordination of all main stage speakers.
The logistics start nearly a year in advance, making sure to reserve the space for an appropriate date and begin sourcing talent for the keynote address. However, even with months of planning, event coordination happens right up until minutes before the event, ensuring every detail is ready for attendees when they arrive.
In addition to Cucco, the Impact corporate marketing team begins working on Impact Optimize nearly a year in advance of the next summit. As technology experts, DeGeorge and Layton provide the marketing team with current trends and themes the summit should focus on. From there, the marketing team dives into researching possible themes, taglines and agenda tracks that would interest attendees. These first steps guide not only the branding, but the summit content, so it’s critical research done ahead of time.
An important step was giving Impact Optimize its own branding to stand apart from the Impact brand. Impact is a sales organization, but Impact Optimize is focused on education, and while sales typically occur from the event, that isn’t the main goal. The best way to communicate this distinction was to give Impact Optimize its own branding and voice as an educational summit that anyone—Impact client or not—could attend to learn about trends in business and technology.
The event branding is truly the first step—from there it’s important to start researching ticket platforms, creating an event website, building out 50-plus sessions and demos for the agenda, coordinating both speakers and vendors, crafting onsite signage and décor for the 18,000-plus-square-foot space and more. A fun element of last year’s event included sourcing on-site experiences for attendees to enjoy throughout the day. Impact Optimize 2019 featured a Twitter vending machine, at which attendees could Tweet using #ImpactOptimize2019 and receive a prize; a Birdly virtual-reality flight simulator, which helped attendees realize their dream of flying over the New York City skyline; and Millennia, a world-class mobile social robot that interacted with guests.
Driving Attendance
Although Impact may be well known throughout the Chicagoland area, the Impact Optimize event is still a growing brand, and marketing it to potential attendees requires a multichannel strategic campaign. For Impact Optimize 2019, marketing efforts included Metra advertising, social media (paid and organic), paid search, radio advertising, email marketing, affiliate marketing through partner events, billboards, emails, print materials for sales reps, videos, direct mailers and more. This year, organizers continue to use a multichannel approach while investing more in digital marketing and focusing on the value of the event.
Impact’s sales team was also a driving force for attracting registrants. Although this was a paid event, which was a departure from past lunch and learns and tech shows, sales reps were offering their prospects and customers the opportunity to educate themselves on issues they were facing in their organizations. There’s always a degree of worry when building out a new event or brand, but the Impact team was happy to discover that people truly valued the education presented by Impact leaders, industry experts and vendors.
Impact Optimize 2019 By the Numbers
- 43 emails sent inviting people to register
- 147 customer services emails answers
- 2.63 million day-of social media impressions
- ImpactOptimize2019 was trending on Twitter on the day of the event
- 327,049 website pageviews
- 1,000 attendees
- 26 sponsors
- 60+ speakers
- 60+ breakout sessions & demos
Feedback and Final Analysis
Planning and executing an event such as Impact Optimize takes months of effort by a large team of people, but the payoff is worth it. Although 2019’s event was educational, and not a sales pitch, the aftereffect of customers and prospects wanting to speak with account executives and specialists about their businesses needs was remarkable. Based on an anonymous survey, 94% of attendees from Impact Optimize 2019 said they would recommend the event to a colleague. When asked what the most-valuable takeaway was, attendees said:
- “I identified new opportunities where my company can improve our systems.” —VP of Operations
- “A plan for what my organization needs to do moving forward to secure our information as well as improve our efficiency with new technology.” —CEO
- “New insight on cybersecurity, process improvement, and digital transformation.” —IT Director
Based on attendee feedback and associated sales from the event, there is no doubt that the investment in time and resources was well worth it. We are excited to remain a leader in the industry, and to provide our clients and prospects with the knowledge and education to grow their businesses and remain competitive.
