Why we’re doubling down on personalisation

We’re noticing a trend towards specificity in the events running on Tito.

Ten years ago, the big-ticket, multi-track Annual Technology Conference™ was the one you couldn’t miss.

And those events still have their place. But more and more, the events doing especially well on our platforms are highly focused and designed for a specific audience.

Rather than trying to appeal to everyone, organisers are putting more effort into serving a well-defined group. From AI summits for marketers to wooden spoon carving festivals, we’re seeing tons of demand for events that centre around shared roles, interests and values, rather than gathering for gathering’s sake.

The pandemic likely played a big part in this shift. Without the possibility of mass get-togethers, people increasingly sought connection online, often around shared passions and values. 

This sense of identity-based community, paired with a lingering sense of trepidation as the world started to reopen, made people reevaluate the purpose of attending in-person gatherings.

It needed to feel worth it.

"The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest thing is to respond. But the hardest thing is to initiate."

― Seth Godin, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

In his 2008 book, Godin suggests that people naturally form groups around shared values and interests, and that these groups are just waiting for someone to lead them. 

Thanks to the way the internet has evolved (forums, subreddits, hashtags, [insert_topic]Tok, etc.), these interests are getting increasingly specific. We’re now in the era of the “microtribe”.

Side note: while the word “tribe” has been widely used in marketing, it carries important cultural meaning for Indigenous peoples, so I’ll be using “niche communities” instead.

As the events industry has slowly recovered over the past few years, we’ve noticed that much of that recovery has come from people creating spaces for these niche communities. But that shift has brought new expectations with it. Generic event marketing doesn’t tend to fit the bill for this audience.

As we’re building our new platform (current name IO, new name pending), we’re thinking about how every touchpoint, from the registration flow to confirmation emails, waitlist logic to the language on buttons, might need to be tailored by the event organiser to fit a niche audience.

But we’re not stopping at event-level customisation. We’re making it possible for organisers to offer individual attendees a completely custom experience as well. We loved to see one of our earliest customers leverage our custom fields to include personalised videos in invitations to their top VIPs, for instance.

Crucially, for event organisers who know their people well, this level of flexibility means the registration experience can feel like a natural extension of the community itself. And when people feel like something was made for them, they’re much more likely to feel invested.

If you’re creating events for a niche audience and want to make the experience feel more personal, book a demo. We’d love to show you what’s possible.