You’ve decided to plan an event to promote your business, but you have never done it before and have no idea how to organize it. Don’t worry as we have got you covered. Let’s take a look at four major tips to get you running on how to make your business event a huge success.
Pinpoint your Event Purpose
First and foremost, whatever the purpose of your event is, it should be well established for you and be communicated to everyone who will be attending it. Remember that your goal needs to be realistic and reachable. Lacking a true objective can end up being a costly effort that simply doesn’t help your business. Figure out what are your targeted goals to achieve, that way organizing your event will be stress-free.
Pin-point the key aspects of your event to communicate them properly to your audience. It will keep them well engaged and interested throughout the whole event. Doing this will also help you keep everything organized. You will have clarity of what the event is going to be like beforehand, this prepares you to look into the minor details of the event.
Know your Audience
Just like you need to understand the purpose of your event, it’s also important to know your targeted audience. You probably won’t want just anyone to attend, every event demands a targeted audience to tailor your event more to their needs. A conference is usually aimed at those in your industry, while a product launch may be mainly organized for the media, your buyers, and shareholders.
It is better to only invite those people you can be binomial for your event or those who will be interested in attending it, this way both parties can get the full perks of the event. Choosing the right audience will help you in building a useful network of people who can help you in your future endeavors.
Delegate Responsibilities
Make sure to delegate responsibilities, to keep everyone in the loop with regular communication. You can assign details from your plan to employees or volunteers, who will be responsible for each task to avoid a mess. If possible, have your employees manage the areas they’re most expert in. This will help everyone to do their task in less time and with little effort.
Don’t take all of the responsibility on your shoulders. We know that your business event is of utmost importance for you, but it is really important to delegate responsibilities to your employees and volunteers so you can also enjoy your event and be at your best when communicating with your peers.
Create a Marketing Plan
In addition to sending email invitations to your customer or client list, post it on social media. It would give you an insight into how many people are interested in your event and make arrangements for your guests accordingly. This way you can plan your event to the minor details
You can promote your event to your targeted audience with similar interest as to what your event purpose is (blending in tips 1 and 2) and make sure the right people have your event in their newsfeed. Customize your promotions by keeping your targeted audience in mind.
Partner with other Businesses
You can partner with other businesses which complement yours to boost your audience. Let’s say your work is related to sports, you can collaborate with any shoes or kits business and host an event together. They can bring their products which customers can put on to try them out. It can be the crossover for your targeted audience as well and both parties can benefit from the outcomes of the event.
Keep in mind when you choose to collaborate with other businesses, make sure they don’t have direct competition with you. This can promote your business to a new audience and you can build a powerful network of customers. Likewise, you might get new ideas to expand your franchise.
Give out gifts
Whenever people attend business events they expect some free gifts on their way. It can be a great opportunity for you to boost your sales by handing out free samples. You can hand out samples to increase customers’ interest in your product. Keep in mind to only give products that can actually be useful for your customers, don’t give out handbags or pens as these things aren’t of any use for clienteles.
If your products fall retailer category you can give samples of those products in lesser quantities. But if you work with bigger products like electronics or cars etc., you’d have to think outside the box. Maybe come up with products that compliment your actual products. For example, if you sell electronics, you can give out cutlery or tissue boxes with your logo printed on them.
Create scarcity
Usually, people wait till the last moment to book their tickets for the event. It can be frustrating for you if your venue or other plans related to the event depends on the number of tickets you sold. We suggest you create a scarcity of tickets to increase people’s interest in your event.
You can post about having limited tickets, this way people will buy tickets quickly. You can also give some discounts to people who buy tickets early, or group discounts. This way you can sell your tickets beforehand and make plans accordingly.
Keep it personal
You need to make your event stand out if you want people to attend your future events. You shouldn’t just send invitations by email and think your job is done here. You can make your invitations more personalized, maybe ask your guests what they’d like to drink when they’ll arrive at the venue. This way your guests will respond to you and entertain them with their favorite drink at the venue. Maybe hand out some pleasantries, they might take snaps of those and put them on social media. This can add to the post-promotion of the event.
You can also make some spots for guests to take their pictures. Maybe add a photo booth, or props like wigs, funky sunglasses. This way events won’t pass by in a monotonic manner, rather people will have fun and post it on social media. It will be changed from the standard uptight business events format, where people click pretty standard pictures.
Network and follow up
Don’t forget to follow up once you are done with the event. You can ask attendees about their experience by giving them a feedback form. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a professional type of feedback form, you can their review by simply adding similes in the form. You can hand them out as soon they are ready to leave the event. They can quickly fill it out and you’ll get to know how the event went instantly.
Also follow up within a few days, before people forget about it. Make sure to use your networking skills to build your connections and potential customers. It can be extremely helpful for your future endeavors.
If you follow these steps, your business event will be a hit. Let us know if you have any suggestions or questions.