When having your event, planning is one of the core stages to enhance the success of your event. It entails various steps that are important for organising and planning the different activities you’d use to enhance the success of your event. Despite involving simple processes, most individuals have found it challenging to complete this critical stage of your event. If you’re looking for the appropriate guide on event planning, you’re in the right place. This article outlines an ultimate guide on how to plan an event step by step guide.
Step 1. Define the Goals and Objectives of Your Events
When planning for your goals, the first step is to define your event’s goals and objectives. It’ll be essential to ask yourself the main reasons you want to have the event and get realistic & tangible objectives. For instance, the objectives of your goals might be to increase brand awareness, drive more sales or increase social media followers.
When choosing these goals, it’ll be imperative to consider using the SMART principle to get relevant and appropriate goals to enhance the success of your event. Experts recommend that you choose specific, measurable, relevant, and attainable goals that are time-bound to help you achieve them easily.
Step 2. Draft a Preliminary Plan
After getting the objectives and goals of your events, you can now create a draft plan of the event’s programs. This plan should entail essential details and provide a proper strategy for achieving these goals or objectives. Importantly, when having the draft plan, ensure that it’s flexible to allow room for some changes or flexibility.
Your preliminary details should include factors like the time frame to achieve your goals and objectives. Consider whether you want to have an offline, virtual, or hybrid event, then choose your preferred location. Furthermore, on the preliminary plan, consider the details of your attendees and the type of event, such as festivals, conferences, or speaker sessions.
Step 3. Decide Your Event’s Date and Venue
Deciding on the date and venue will be one of the appropriate steps you must take while planning your event. You can start researching the suitable venues you prefer in advance to prevent last-minute inconveniences. Importantly, you’ll also need to determine the date when the venue or space will be available, as many platforms tend to be busy most of the time.
When choosing the appropriate venues, it’ll be imperative to consider the type of event you’re having, the audience, and the cost. Additionally, consider your attendees’ travel arrangements, accommodation, design & layout, and catering services. When deciding on the dates and venues, ensure most attendees are comfortable with them.
Step 4. Establish Your Team
Establishing an event team is very important to accomplish all the set programs and tasks easily. The size of your group may vary depending on the size and type of event you want to host. You’ll go for a larger team when having a huge event and a smaller team when hosting a smaller event or meeting.
The team will be essential to help you organise, plan and execute your event production. Importantly, assign every member of your team their responsibility or department and choose an overall project manager to oversee the entire project. When creating your team, the event manager, marketing coordinator, designer, scheduling, even technologists, registration, and sponsorship are the vital roles to consider.
Step 5. Create Your Event Branding Strategies
Developing your event branding is a vital element to enhance a strong personality to help stay on the minds of your prospective attendees. Choosing the appropriate brand marketing strategies is beneficial to steer your events in the right direction. It’ll be imperative to create brand awareness strategies that align with the theme and objectives of your brand.
When aligning your brand awareness strategies with the event themes, we’ve got numerous things you’ve to put in mind. Consider the name of your event, the brand colours, design elements, and your event’s logo. Lastly, consider the email signature, signage, and on-site decoration to ensure the promotional materials support the overall event branding needs.
Step 6. Detail Your Plan
It’s an easy step that involves providing more details on your plan or the event program. These details may include the exact venue, time, and type of event. Nevertheless, you don’t have to finalise the event’s schedule or programs to continue your promotion tasks. You can always allow some room for adjustments.
Step 7. Confirming Sponsors, Speakers or Exhibitors
It’s an important step that involves securing external parties that play an essential role in the success of your business. Develop a list of exhibitors and sponsors you choose to present or participate in your event. You can achieve this by conducting thorough research to check if they fit the roles you assign them.
Notably, when choosing the sponsors, you must figure out how they’ll benefit your event by collaborating with them. Considering the complementary services or products, mutual target audience or their recent product launch needs promotion to get the suitable sponsors. Before reaching for the sponsors, it’ll be vital to consider creating a comprehensive sponsorship package.
Step 8. Secure the Technology Stack
It won’t be appropriate to organise an event without virtual devices with technology development. Importantly, choose virtual technology that’ll be beneficial to accomplish different tasks while planning and executing your event. These devices and tools will be essential to enhance the productivity of your tasks and team.
While considering the technology stack or devices, you can consider the online registration tool to make it easy to manage registration. The other technology features will be essential for streamlining your operations, such as communications or promotions. Lastly, consider the appropriate live streaming software if you’re a virtual or hybrid event to enhance the user experience.
Step 9. Have a Sound Promotion Plan
When having your event planning process, the last step is creating a comprehensive event marketing plan. At this step, it’s imperative to include various marketing tactics that help market your event and create awareness. Research your target attendees and develop the appropriate marketing plan to entice and attract more to your event. Additionally, evaluate the different marketing channels and get the right ones to reach your target customers or audience.
Wrapping Up
Planning your event well is an important aspect that enhances the success of your event. Despite the size of your event, you’ll need detailed planning and organisation to achieve the set goals and objectives. Considering the above guide on how to plan an event step by step guide will be the best way to keep you on track and maximise the success of your event.
