Whether you desire a big-name celebrity or highly sought after industry expert, hiring an opening keynote speaker for your conference is a highly important part of an event budget. And if this is the first time using that speaker, there is a risk that they may not resonate with your attendees, which may cause your already tight budget to be under further scrutiny.

There are ways to help you and your speaker be successful, well before they are on the platform. Follow these tips and you will mitigate most risk factors AND help attendees feel connected to the Opening keynote speaker long after the conference is over.

5 Keys to Hiring A Budget Worthy Keynote Speaker

Connect the Keynote to the Audience Months Before The Conference

If attendees are connected with the keynote before your conference, they are more likely to be engaged, connected and interested during the meeting. Here are a few ways to connect meeting participants with them:

• Ask the keynote to write a guest blog for your event website.
• Share the keynote’s Twitter handle with registrants and ask them to follow and tweet questions to him or her. Put the handle in all your meeting communications.
• Share and encourage subscription to the speaker’s YouTube channel. Post one or more of their videos on your social channels.

Get Creative With The Keynote’s Time

Keynote speakers often “wiz in and out” of gigs because they are not asked to do anything but speak. Now is the time to ask for more. What is the worst that can happen? They may say no to all of the options listed below, but chances are they will agree to one or more of these suggestions:

• Participate in a special VIP networking session
• Sell their book at a discount and set up a book signing table
• Ask them to push all content about the conference on their own social channels using the event hashtag
• Be available for an interview after the keynote for your magazine or newsletter

If the keynote desires more money for the additional time, see if you can work out a deal that will benefit both parties. Perhaps you can introduce them to key attendees, write a great reference for their website or read their book and put a review of it on Amazon or GoodReads.

 Talk Before You Sign

An epic opening keynote speaker delivers a customized message that has not been heard a thousand times before. They are changing their presentation around current buzzworthy topics (i.e. Donald Trump) not old ones (i.e. QR codes). Before signing up your keynote, share with them all the demographic information about attendees and the topic you want them to talk about. Ask them how they will draw attendees in and get them engaged.

Hire Funny, Humorous or Entertaining With A Message

Even the most serious subject and speaker can have elements of levity. Humor is always well received and puts attendees at ease when done so in a relevant and professional manner.

However, you want a presenter that can also go the distance with their message. If attendees leave your conference and remember the speaker was funny but have no clue what their presentation was about, you have a problem. Their message needs to tie back to the conference theme in some way, shape or form and empower your attendees to gain new perspective on how that relates to their industry.

Gather Feedback

One of the easiest ways to know whether you hit a homerun or struck out with a speaker is to during and immediately following the session ask attendees to tweet about the keynote address and use a polling app like Polldaddy or Straw.

Use this data to further refine your keynote speaker criteria and if you have a great keynote, be sure to invite them back next year!

Jon Petz Is Your Opening Keynote Speaker

Jon is an Opening Keynote speaker! He will kick off your conference in a highly memorable fashion and ignite your attendees to be more energized, impactful and passionate about who they are and what they do. And importantly, he listens to your input and will customize his message to exceed your audience expectations along with enjoying the opportunity to speak and connect with the attendees before and after the keynote. Give Jon a call today at (614) 456-3072 to find out why he is the opening keynote speaker your group desires!

 

Photo source: Flickr