What worked last time?

The room went silent.

I was helping a membership organisation develop a promotional strategy for their annual conference. They had an ambitious target for registrations, but this wasn’t their first conference.

My first question in the meeting was “So, what worked last time?”

Which channels drove registrations? What messages resonated? Which tactics flopped?

They didn’t know.

Staff turnover was partly to blame—when people left, valuable insights walked out with them. But even in stable teams, the rush of execution rarely leaves time to document these critical lessons.

The result is a blank page when ‘next time’ rolls around. It’s a waste of time and money - both of which are hard to come by.

I’m now very intentional at documenting:

• What we said (messaging)

• Who we said it to (audience)

• How we said it (formats)

• When we said it (timings)

• How much we paid to say it (paid budget)

• What happened as a result (key metrics and conversions)

A little bit of time documenting along the way saves a lot of time and money when planning the next campaign.