WEC Speaker Spotlight - Lori Pugh Marcum

Name and designations: Lori Pugh Marcum, MEM, CMP, CMM, CED 
Contact information: Email: lpughmarcum@ensembleiq.com 
Linked IN: Lori Pugh Marcum

Who is Lori Pugh Marcum, MEM, CMP, CMM, CED?

Lori Pugh Marcum has 16 years of experience in the meetings and events industry on both the planner and supplier side of the business.

She worked for six years with Meeting Professionals International as Head of Meeting Innovation before joining EnsembleIQ as the Events Content Director. She holds a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) focused in Communications and Advertising from the University of North Florida and graduated with her Master’s Degree in Meeting and Event Management from San Diego State University in December of 2020.

Exploring Customer Journey Maps at WEC 2022

Can you tell us about one thing meeting professionals often fail to consider when exploring an attendee journey map?

It’s important to keep in mind that your attendees can be divided into different categories or personas, and each will likely have different journeys. Not all of your attendees take the same path or have the same goals and objectives. You can start at a high level tracking the average attendee's journey but to refine the experience you need to dig deeper.

What’s a common mistake many meeting professionals make when trying to build journey maps?

It helps immensely if you create personas of the different types of attendees or stakeholders that you have. The more quantitative and qualitative data you have, the more accurate your attendee journey will be. It’s also very important to vet your attendee journey with a subset of your attendees to make sure you aren't making assumptions about their paths.

What is one tip you can give away to meeting professionals who wishes to start building their strategy around a customer's journey?

Bring in other departments and stakeholders outside of the events team to create a customer journey map together. The process of collaborating and getting a clear visual representation of the attendee journey will help to create a cohesive strategy for the changes that need to be made which eases the process of change management.  

What do you hope attendees will take away from this session?

My goal is for everyone to think strategically about how they design their events and how to be proactive instead of reactive in refining and improving their customer touchpoints. It’s important to consider that your attendees’ journey doesn't just start when they arrive at the event. Consider how your potential attendees interact with your brand before the event in the awareness and consideration phase of the journey. 

 Article edited by Darlene Kelly-Stewart, Stonehouse Sales & Marketing Services