Round table business meetings can be an effective way to engage and communicate with a wide variety of stakeholders, but successful organization requires extensive preparation and management.
Step one should be to identify your audience. Your aim should be to invite participants who share an interest in your topic and could potentially bring new insights and provide innovative solutions.
1. Identify your target audience
One of the cornerstones of successful round table business is identifying your target audience. This requires extensive research and an examination of demographics, behavior and interests of potential participants.
Attracting those likely to purchase your products or services should be your goal; creating buyer personas and targeting marketing campaigns at these groups are excellent strategies for reaching this end goal.
As a B2B marketer, one effective strategy for identifying your target audience is analyzing customer demographics and receiving feedback from them.
Once you have identified your target audience, hosting roundtable discussions is an effective way to engage them and build demand for your products or services. Furthermore, this type of dialogue allows you to gather invaluable insight that will assist with future marketing initiatives.
2. Identify your purpose
No matter the format of your event or virtual panel discussion, having a purpose and goals should always be clear. A great way to accomplish this goal is with a comprehensive discussion topic list and creative approaches in planning an approach for success. Consider holding a scavenger hunt to identify your most influential participants. With an effective CRM system in place, emails could also be sent out inviting top customers and prospects to participate. Teleconference calls may also prove effective for engaging a mass audience. Utilizing mobile technology, you could even set up an on-the-go version of your teleconference event! Planning is key when hosting successful round table meetings.
3. Find the right participants
Your round table business success hinges heavily on selecting experts and thought leaders with knowledge about and passion for the subject at hand as participants.
Consider inviting attendees from different industries, backgrounds and experience levels so that there will be an array of viewpoints.
Choose a moderator who will facilitate discussion and oversee group dynamics. They should have enough confidence in their role to keep conversations moving in an orderly fashion and return conversations back onto the main topic when necessary.
4. Organize the event
Before organizing any event, it is vital to establish the desired outcomes of the discussion for your target audience. This will enable you to set an event purpose that aligns with demand generation goals.
Ensuring the participants feel heard is also essential; to achieve this goal, ensure the roundtable contains a mix of experience from smaller to larger companies.
An informative panel discussion can give your business invaluable insights to enhance its operations and reach new markets with your products or services. Plus, it is an effective way to promote them!
5. Manage the discussion
A moderator’s job is to keep the conversation on track and ensure all attendees have equal opportunities to speak, as well as to calm down speakers who get carried away or have trouble controlling their emotions.
Discussion should center on a topic relevant to both participants and audience that serves a clear purpose, helping to prevent participants from wandering off topic and losing focus, which are two common pitfalls associated with roundtable discussions.
An effective moderator can make all the difference at your event. They should feel confident leading the conversation when things veer off-track, keeping everyone focused and on topic with their discussions.