Weddings, birthday celebrations, business meetings, and seminars are just a few examples of events that an event manager can organize. Many people see it hard when planning an event, but little did they know that event management is exciting if you have the right knowledge and preparation.
Many factors can affect the overall outcome of a successful event. Enlisted below are the 15 secret tips that you may inculcate in your event planning.
15 Tips for a successful event online
1. Define the event type, and purpose
The first step is to choose the purpose and sort of event you wish to hold. Having a goal makes an event successful because it makes it easy to identify all the objectives needed to achieve as you begin planning.
Your focus on planning may differ as you identify the type of event you would like to conduct. Conference, business meeting, team building, seminar, and family catch-up talk are just a few of several events to choose from. Whether you decide on hosting a small or large event, setting SMART objectives is the best way to set great events.
2. A competent team and event name
Once you have enlisted the objectives you want to achieve, you may then put together a reliable event team. Assembling an event team involves hiring skilled people or employing your current staff and assigning them responsibilities based on their skills. By giving team members a specific role, you can create an accountability system for the event logistics.
One of the critical elements in event planning is the event name. It is best to get the entire team involved in deciding the best event name, for it will serve as your brand.
3. Allocate responsibilities
The entire team must have their task zone. These zones are what they should be responsible for throughout the whole duration of the event, making it easier for everyone to contact certain team members if any challenges occur.
The following are a few of the tasks that you can appoint to each person from your team:
- Promotion
- Engaging with audience and registration
- Event program
- Publicity
- Sound systems
- Catering
- Venue management
- Decoration concept
4. Draft your budget
Having a well-planned budget affects the overall result of an event idea. So before you start planning your event, it is recommended to determine your budget because failure to do so may lead your event idea to loss.
Here are a few essential things you must include in your budget:
- Venue: subscription, platform access, or accommodation costs
- Marketing: expenses to promote the event to a target audience.
- Entertainment: key speakers, hosts, special guests, a professional photographer or a media team, and so on.
- Labor costs: volunteers and staff
- Contingency: emergency funds
5. Set the event date
Of course, a successful event does not happen out of anywhere; it shall be set on a specific date. You may consider these pointers for choosing your event date:
A. Give yourself four to six months for large events and at least one month for smaller events.
B. Avoid upcoming holidays
C. Beware of school holiday time periods
Once you decide when to do your event, make sure to invite your key speakers or VIP guests ahead of time so they can set their schedule accordingly.
6. Choose the right venue
The venue might be the most expensive that you can have in your event budget. For in-person events, you shall get a place in an accessible location that offers enough seating space, entertainment area, parking, etc.
It is best to acquire an online platform from vendors that will suit your needs for online events. It is good to have a platform to handle many participants or a digital space called a breakout room for each session.
7. Have a plan B
A backup plan is critical when planning events because you will never know what challenges could come. For example, your special guests could not attend the event. For sure, you do not want all your participants to be in danger because they couldn’t see the person they are expecting to see. It would be best to think of a possible solution for specific issues so your organization can solve them immediately when a problem comes.
8. Put everything on paper
Your hard work in the planning shall never ruin just by forgetting the steps or objectives to accomplish. That is why you should transcribe everything into a document.
You are not just making a document for proper planning; instead, you are also preparing your resources of the event details for presentation to potential sponsorships.
9. Securing Sponsorships
If you are looking for any business or large corporations to sponsor your event, paper resources and details about the event are critical for them. If you have previous sponsors who can testify for your end, it is good to compile their feedback to develop a good portfolio.
On the other hand, it is best to do thorough research before sending a proposal when looking for potential sponsors. Seeking a company that has the following feature may be beneficial for you:
- have sponsored other events
- has a similar target audience
- offers products or services complimenting your event.
10. Creating a marketing plan
Having a marketing plan is crucial in organizing an event because it will guide you on how you will market your event idea to your target audience and attendees. In marketing, you can use an advertisement, social media, sending event awareness, brand awareness campaign, email marketing, and so on to tell everyone that your event is in the best venue, provides lovely experience, entertainment, and all that they are looking for.
11. Create brand awareness
Enlisted are some of the crucial factors in creating brand awareness.
Event name: The event name is the first thing your attendees will notice. That is why the event name you shall choose would reflect the vision and purpose of the event you are planning.
Theme: The event concept will hook the event attendees together.
Color palette: To never let your attendees, event sponsors, and business sponsors, you shall make all your marketing materials in a consistent color palette.
Branding is a huge task, so keep in mind that every element, like registration, event venue, or location, should come together to support the event you want to execute.
12. Utilize social media
You shall not focus your marketing on the old ways of marketing. Right now, social media account exists for almost everyone around the globe. As an event organizer, you can utilize social media to market and promote your event. It will also be best for your event to have a page to increase awareness and participants in one place and possibly generate new leads.
13. Protect yourself
Organizing events come with risk. Many will claim to be interested in attending your event, while some will simply be looking for inspiration by inquiring about it. Fishing ideas always happen, especially to the brand leaving its mark in the industry. The more social media noise you create, the riskier it can be. So, keep an eye on the actual clients and participants when answering all the queries.
How can you say an event is successful?
Organizing an event might be exhausting after all, but there is still one thing left to do, and it is something that you shall never forget – analyze the success of your event. The following tip can do event success analysis:
14. Post-event evaluation
Post-event evaluation is one of the most challenging parts of event planning. Event evaluation is a tool used to measure if you meet your event objectives and document all the lessons learned to improve the outcome of a future event.
The results of your post-evaluation can be used to generate public relations (PR) to convince sponsors or companies to support your upcoming events. Overall, the post-event evaluation will determine if you had a successful event or not.
There are many ways to evaluate whether you have provided a great service or not. But sometimes, your instincts can also be part of your evaluation tool that directly tells whether you have been successful or not.
How do you say thank you for a successful event?
15. Social media mentions
Social media is an excellent place to source feedback and event assessment. Your audience, event participants, and sponsors helped you turn your event idea into a successful one, so after the event, it is your turn to give back for their participation by saying thank you.
You can post on your social media page and mention how thankful you have everyone on the event day. You may also like to provide an audio-video recording or posting photos recalling all the funniest moments and highlights of the event.
Saying thank you to all your participants, sponsors, and people involved is not just your obligation. This is also a way to build rapport and trust in your company. So, as you plan your future events, make sure that you follow all these fifteen tips to successfully bring your event into a great success that you will be wanting.