When C2 Montréal was pushed back until the fall, the theme changed from “reinvention” to “resilience.” This theme change speaks powerfully to how the pandemic has tested entire communities, businesses and the event industry, which has had to reimagine events as we know them. We talked to Julia Cyboran, Vice President of Marketing for C2 Montréal for her take, as the event kicks-off this Monday, October 19.
C2 Montréal strikes me as an exclusive event. It’s the type of affair that you have to attend in-person to really get the full experience. How did you go about transitioning to an online event?
Julia Cyboran : Our mission is the same—we want to inspire leaders and help them connect with each other. When we settled on making this an online event, we decided to build it around our strengths: quality content, genuine experiences and collaboration. Our goal is for all participants to not only interact with each other but with the event speakers as well.
How has moving online impacted the marketing and promotion of the event?
Julia Cyboran: The entire event industry has had to reinvent the wheel this year. We can no longer solely rely on FOMO to promote an event.
All sorts of events have moved online, so it’s hard to stand out. As a marketing team, we have to be able to pinpoint what makes our event unique and then convey that to our audience.
Our mission at C2 Montréal is to inspire leaders. From a marketing point of view, we zero in on what our participants will experience and learn with us. We have to show them how valuable that is—before, during and after the event.
Which channels and strategies will you use to convey this message?
Julia Cyboran : Every C2 Montréal participant is sent content before, during and after each event. We share leadership content. We talk about the collaborative learning sessions that will take place. We share key lessons, quotes and other inspirational content. We also include a bit of storytelling, where we share background information on our event speakers.
We also have a data-driven digital strategy. We are extremely in-tune with the type of content that works best on our social media accounts, and so we tailor that content to meet the needs of our varied audience.
We have a very active and engaged Facebook following. So, our mission is to listen to their needs and business challenges so that we can give them the content that they want.
Does holding the C2 Montréal event online open up opportunities for more international participation?
Julia Cyboran : C2 Montréal has always had a very strong international representation. In the past, we’ve had participants from Europe, the United States and South America—we’ve even had delegates from Brazil, Mexico, China and Japan attend the event.
As an online event, anyone from around the world can attend. This makes it a lot more affordable and allows us to democratize the C2 Montréal content. Another one of our missions is to make Montréal’s leadership community shine. Hosting the event online allows us to showcase Montréal to people from all over the world.
