Business events bring many benefits to your business. They can be a way to make contacts, sign new clients and can be an excellent way to promote your business. But aside from that, they are fun and exciting and can add a new dimension to your business compared to the usual day-to-day.
But if you’ve never planned an event before, the prospect can be daunting. There are a lot of elements that need to come together to make it a success, and you’ll no doubt learn a lot of lessons along the way. But if you want to help make sure your first event goes off without a hitch, then the following tips might help.
Here’s how to make a success of your first business event.
Make It Purposeful
All events need an objective. Whether you’re looking to entertain clients, engage with customers or promote your business, you need to think carefully about the purpose of your event. Defining your event’s purpose can help you decide on the right format, helping you to inform your other decisions as well.
Plan Your Budget
A budget is important for your event; it will help you decide on elements like the venue, catering, entertainment and more. Managing your events budget effectively will help make sure you don’t overspend and that you get the most out of what you put in. There are some areas where you can cut costs, including hosting your event on your own premises or partnering with another business. Track your costs as you go – it will help you keep things on track.
Get the Basics Right
There are some basic things that will help you run a smooth and enjoyable event. It’s important to find the right venue that’s a good size for the type of event you want, and can also cater to all of your needs, such as staging, technical equipment and more. Get yourself an event planning checklist together ready to help you tick off all of the basic elements of your event to make sure they’re all in place.
Think Carefully About Your Guest List
Creating your guest list is another crucial element of planning your event. You’ll need to make sure that you’re targeting the right people based on your objective, and that they are relevant to your business. For free events, the drop off rate can be significant, so it’s important to send reminders to your guests asking to let you know if they can’t attend. Having additional guests means you can invite will help you fill up your spaces and make sure you get as many people to attend as possible.
Paid-for events are different, as people stand more to lose if they don’t show up. But it’s worth having a clear no-resale/refund policy to make sure your event doesn’t lose money through a load of last-minute cancellations.
Find a Great Keynote Speaker
Events need a good draw to help make places coveted. Having some good entertainment or a strong guest speaker will make people want to attend your event, and even book a space on the waiting list too. Research keynote speakers who are inspiring and experienced. You can find a keynote speaker related to your industry to make your event more relevant. As well as keynote speakers, you could also consider panel-style events which are a great way to bring in several amazing speakers.
Follow Up
After every event, it’s important that you follow up with your guests to ask for feedback. Some evaluation on what worked well and not so well will help you make improvements to your next event, helping you establish scale, budget and how much catering is required. You’ll also want to follow up to help you reach your objective, some key tips for follow up emails after your event include being forthcoming about why you’re contacting them, making it personal and keeping things direct. Your follow up could generate further leads to ensure further success for your event.
Taking the right steps with your business can lead to growth and some exciting opportunities, with events being one of the ways to achieve this. From boosting sales to developing relationships with stakeholders or clients, you could stand a lot to gain from your first business event. Follow all of the advice you can and be meticulous with the details – with each event it will get easier and they’ll soon become a normal and fun part of your business calendar.
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