The thought has probably crossed your mind a few times...“Does my event really need its own website, separate from my organization’s??”
The short answer is yes, absolutely! We get it, though: With everything else you’re managing, adding a website to that list can feel overwhelming. But the benefits are so worth it.
“Benefits, you say?” Of course! There are a lot of reasons why your event NEEDS its own website, but here are four of the biggest:
To entice event attendees to support your organization’s good work, your team needs to plan and execute an amazing event that will keep them talking about your organization. Now, if your organization's team is like most others, you may not have an event planning guru ready to take charge and blow this event out of the water.
So, you do what anyone would do: you turn to the internet. However, it’s important to remember that the first event planning software you find isn’t necessarily the best choice. New tools are very important investments, so you owe it to your organization to put extra thought into picking one.
A healthy sponsorship program relies on keeping your sponsors satisfied with the value they’re receiving in return for spending their time and money on your event. Sounds simple enough, right? Theoretically, you should just be able to focus on fulfilling the details in their agreement - but in practice, it doesn’t always happen that way.
Unfortunately, despite your best efforts, some sponsors walk away from events dissatisfied. Whether it was a hard-to-please on-site rep, a venue problem that was out of your control, or you simply made a mistake (we’re all human!) your next task is to do what you can to turn that relationship around. Here are some steps to take:
If your event relies on the help of volunteers, then you know how difficult recruiting them can be. A person’s time is valuable - and asking them to spend a chunk of it with you doing work, for no pay? Well, that’s tough.
The good news is, most people are happy to volunteer their time for a cause or organization that matters to them. But getting them to return for your next event (so you can spend less time recruiting) depends on their experience the first time around: how well they’re treated by staff and if they felt it was a good use of their time.
With care and attention to the specific volunteer experience, retention should be a breeze! Start by following these rules:
Concert, fundraiser, conference, or 5k - no matter what type of event, your main goal is to get people to show up. That’s a LOT of pressure! Even if it’s an event you’ve been hosting for years, there’s a lot about event planning that makes attendance unpredictable.
To ease your mind, I recommend creating an event promotion plan - but treat it more like a guideline. You’ll want to be flexible and make changes as needed, but having a blueprint will keep the momentum going and make the whole promotional process feel a lot less hectic.
That all said, here are the four steps to take toward building your event promotion plan:
Many non-event planners probably wouldn’t believe us if we told them that building an effective online event registration form can actually get quite complicated. Finding a balance between asking for information you need without being overwhelming (and risking losing a potential registrant) is not an easy task. Not to mention, ensuring your registrants have a clear understanding of how to fill the form out and make their selections...
Well from our experience, there are 7 things that you should ALWAYS include on an online event registration form. Use this as a guide to any time you start to build one:
The size of your event venue can really make or break the entire attendee experience. Those dimensions define exactly what you can use the space for - not to mention, how many people can actually fit in it!
Now with a space that’s too large, you can usually add extra furniture to fill it up or use some kind of divider to “get rid of” square footage. But small spaces? Those get tricky. You want to make sure that your attendees will be comfortable and able to engage.
Luckily, there are ways to make do with a small space, depending on the type of event. Here are some suggestions:
Challenges in event planning will always exist: Some will come and go with time, some will be more persistent. But either way, getting ahead of them will allow you to come up with strategic solutions before the challenge turns into an outright problem.
That’s where survey results like this come in. A group of meeting planners and hoteliers identified what challenges are on the horizon for 2019: Do they align with yours? Probably so!
These challenges would resonate with any event planner, regardless of your industry. We put together some tips and resources for you to get a jump start on overcoming them:
Part of creating an amazing event experience are all the little touches you add that go beyond what’s expected. Something that may seem small, but could actually be huge to an attendee, is giving them a secure place to store their personal items.
Think about it: Your attendees would much rather be focused on the content of the event than worried about having to carry things around. And on the flip side, YOU want more engaged attendees!
There are a couple of types of item checks that are pretty standard:
Lots of different types of people attend conferences - and I don’t just mean different roles, career levels, educational backgrounds, etc. I’m talking personality type: introverts and extroverts; people who are there to learn, and people who are there to kick back; people who take effective notes and people who...don’t, so much.
Depending on your personality (or even your mood), a different vibe will affect your comfort. These are four go-to environment types we recommend incorporating into any conference that’ll leave ALL attendees feeling refreshed and engaged: