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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
Whether they invest on a high level, commit to covering specific costs (food, badges, supplies, etc.), or are part of a trade, engaging sponsors is a smart way to add some extra padding to your event budget.
That said, it’s important that your partnerships make sense - after all, money is involved! And that doesn't just mean for you and the sponsor. Anyone you invite to have a presence on-site should make sense for your attendees, too. But why, exactly, do sponsorships need to make sense on so many levels?
Handing out swag - or, “stuff we all get” - at events is an easy way to engage attendees and leave a lasting impression. The key, though, is to find an item that’s both useful enough that attendees won’t immediately throw it away, and interesting enough that they’ll talk about it with others.
Now, we know budget is always a constraint - but let’s put money aside for the moment and have some fun! To help you start brainstorming, we put together a list of unique items you could brand and use as swag:
Answering attendee questions is an inevitable part of event planning. That said, with all the other balls your juggling, it can be hard to take the time to answer the same questions over, and over, and over...and over again.
That’s where an FAQ, or “frequently asked questions,” page comes in handy. Here are some thoughts on writing your FAQ page in a way that’ll effectively keep attendees in-the-know:
You already know that a post-event survey is a MUST. Attendees, vendors, sponsors - everyone who was on-site will have valuable feedback you can use to make your next event better.
But knowing what to ask can be a challenge, and having a mile-long survey will deter most from filling it out! Here are our go-to questions for a quick and easy survey that are bound to give you the feedback you’re looking for: