4 Tips to Plan and Execute a Successful Business Event
by Abdul Aziz Mondal Business Planning Published on: 08 July 2021 Last Updated on: 16 September 2021
Hosting any event, be it a family gathering or a festival, can be challenging and exhausting. It requires loads of preparation, proper food and sitting arrangement, and certain recreational activities. Many people find event management to be a draining activity.
Hence, organizing a full-fledged business event would undoubtedly be a daunting task for them. Well, corporate events are a challenging task for anyone, even for large-scale multinationals. It is mainly because the larger the organization, the greater the stakes.
Business events carry an image for the organizer and are of great strategic importance. Therefore, they require diligent planning. These events host the most essential and influential stakeholders for the business. Their satisfaction and comparable positive response are monumental for relationship maintenance. Moreover, there are innumerable opportunities for networking and enhancing your reach in the industry. So it’s imperative join an online community for entrepreneurs prior to hosting a business event.
Business event planning and management are different from regular event management. It incorporates a strategic insight into the purpose of the event. Therefore, it requires a different approach as well. This article tells you four of those tips to help you plan and execute a successful business event.
1. Know your Prerequisites
No one knows the importance of pre-action planning than a business executive. The same is required in organizing business events. The organizer must carefully note down all the prerequisites, material requirements, and outsourcing needs way before the event. They must build an inventory list for the things and arrangements that need to be taken care of before the event.
The seating arrangement, venue setup, presentation tools, refreshments, and other similar details must be catered to beforehand. In case international guests are arriving, receiving them and handling them is also crucial. Mostly, business events are also moments for strategic deals and decision-making like annual general meetings.
Therefore, organizers should consider checking out meeting rooms for rent to accommodate in-person meetings. These are all the things that the organizers should manage and prepare for before the eleventh hour.
2. Streamline the Vendors in Time
Organizing a formal business event will undoubtedly require many external vendors. From event giveaways to venue branding and marketing collaterals to foods, interaction with vendors is always there. Since they don’t have direct stakes in the event, there’s always a chance of mishaps from their end.
Organizers need to carefully choose the right vendor that promises quality service at the right price. You should always approach more than one vendor and then finalize one. However, keep one as a backup too.
Organizations pay vendors through Purchase Orders (POs) and not in hard cash in most formal corporate settings. PO is a commercial document that an organization’s purchase department uses while dealing with vendors. And since they might take some time to process, organizers should inform vendors before selection to avoid any future hassles.
Choosing a vendor means entrusting them with important aspects of your event. Therefore, you must go through their portfolio to understand their previous work and client relations.
3. Plan a detailed follow-up schedule
Just delegating the tasks is never enough. You must have a strong and carefully sketched follow-up plan. You must follow up with all the vendors to check if all the arrangements are timely or not. If you are organizing a trade show, you must follow up with all the exhibitors to ensure they show up timely on the day.
If you are organizing an Annual General Meeting (AGM), you must follow up with all the essential stakeholders. You must ensure that all prominent guests like the board members are in tune with the date and time of the event.
The follow-up doesn’t end with the event. Responsible organizers do a post-event follow-up as well, eliciting attendee satisfaction. According to EventMB, 91% of corporate event organizers measure event success through attendee satisfaction. Therefore, post-event follow-up has now become a norm in the industry. It won’t just tell you about event success but also the areas where you can improve. It also creates a positive word of mouth for your organization.
4. Leverage Marketing
The world knows about the Geneva Motor Show. The entire global textile industry knows about Heimtextil. Almost every tourist knows about the Dubai Expo. All these events and trade shows are known worldwide because the organizers spend millions in marketing efforts.
Proper marketing can make your business event the talk of the town. It would help if you targeted the befitting audience and marketing channels according to your event category. There are corporate event management authorities in almost every industry to assist events. So, enlist your events with them to generate corporate recognition.
It doesn’t only produce a market buzz for your company but also enhances the corporate image. Now, in the world of digitalization, marketing has already become mandatory. Only social media marketing can produce the desired results for you. However, marketing should not only be pre-event. You should utilize marketing channels during the event as well. You can go live on specific social media platforms and post real-time updates. You can even interact with the attendees over social media.
Final Thoughts
Business events as big as an annual dinner and as small as a product launch ceremony carry prestige for an organization. A single mistake can tarnish the image of the organization. Therefore, organizers should carefully take a well-thought-out route in business event planning and execution. As rightfully said, good beginnings follow into successful endings.
Similarly, business events are a systematic approach from the start till the end and even after the event comes to an end. The steps mentioned above can provide you great help in planning and executing successful business events. However, the needs and requirements of every business event are different, so manage them accordingly.
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