Ask a woman who runs her household, and she will tell you dozens of ways in which she cuts costs. This is done effortlessly by her without the rest of the family feeling any difference. This is unique talent women have. They can somehow extract more from every household dollar. When it comes to other activities too, women have this uncanny knack of being able to work in a cost effective manner. Today’s blog, for example, is about organizing events. We spoke to the scores of women who run their event management company. We also spoke to ladies who are employees or managers in such firms. These conversations gave us several insights into what these smart women do to make their events cost effective yet impressive. Here are the six most common suggestions that every female event planner gave us.
Time Spent Planning Is Time Well Spent
There is a misconception that quick action and early starts help get better results. For an event of any size, this couldn’t be more wrong. A few days spent chalking out the storyboard helps immensely. Seeing the big picture clearly at the start helps to focus on the right details at the opportune moment. The target audience, for example, needs to be decided at the very beginning. An event targeted at retired people would have an entirely different flavor from a recruitment event for young women. Depending on who you expect to attend, the rest of the planning for the event can be done. After you have decided who the target is, you need to spend some time to jot down all the details you need to take care of. It won’t be a complete list at that point. You will keep coming across things you need to add to that list such as custom embroidered promotional clothing among other marketing material that needs to be planned in advance. But getting at least half the list ready initially really helps you to keep on the straight and narrow. It helps you avoid wasting time on needless things. It also ensures you don’t miss out on anything important. If you need audiovisuals to promote or play specific videos for instance, you will need to check out services that offer this. By going here you can look into how that can be done and what it will add to your event.
Keep an Eye on Other Events
There are two aspects to this. Like the earlier point, this one too should be done before you begin planning for your own event. The first benefit you get when you keep track of other events is that you get to pick up best practices. You also get to learn from their mistakes for free. The second aspect of keeping track of other events is to ensure that you don’t end up scheduling yours on the same day as another event. It is a no brainer that two events on the same day are not good news for either of them. So taking a look at the event calendar before you begin planning your event is a smart thing to do.
Be SMART
This is an advice that holds true for anything you do. But for an event, there are a million things that could go wrong, so this advice is really very useful. SMART stands for Specific-Measurable-Acceptable-Realistic-Time bound. All five words are self-explanatory, so we will not waste your time explaining each. It is not wise to bite off more than you can chew while planning an event. So set yourself specific and realistic goals for the event which can be measured for effectiveness later.
Show Me the Money
Let us now come to what we started this blog with – finances. Some events need a sponsor on board before planning can begin. There are other events that seek to recover the expenses from the participation or registration fees of attending delegates. Some women plan events entirely with their own finances, and the funding for these events is dependent on anyone else. The scope and scale of your event would depend on which of these categories it falls under. Also, some events are organized in a not-for-profit architecture, while other events seek to make money at the end. All your planning and the different elements of your event would depend on these factors. So it is a good idea to decide on this first before deciding on the activities of your event.
Marketing your Event
Besides planning for every small and big detail of your event, the right marketing is probably the single most important activity for you. How well you market your event would decide how successful it is. The first thing that needs to be done for this is to come up with a list of reasons for people to attend your event. Your event needs to have a unique selling proposition and a hook to attract people. An alternative would be to look for specialized service providers that might help attract people to your event. A quick search for best supplier of destination management services uk on the Internet should help you connect with companies like UniqueWorld Global Destinations. The idea is to talk to different DMCs and zero in on those that can take care of the planning, coordination, reservations, travel itinerary, catering and any other requirements, thus affording you time to focus on the more pertinent aspects of an event. Think of the event, not from your perspective. Think about it for a person who would spend time and money on your event. That will help you understand would attract that person to your event. One more advice we got was that it is wrong to assume that the audience knows and understands the purpose completely. So lay on the detail as thick as you can, in as few words as possible. Perhaps even consider utilizing a service similar to Salesforce chatbots that could help explain important details to anyone who asks. This could also double as a way to help book people into the event so it may be worth looking into. There is another aspect of marketing you would do well to keep in mind when laying out your event’s purpose. In today’s world, social media marketing is nearly the only marketing. And there is a lot you can do for free on social media. So make sure you utilize this weapon to the fullest.
Make It Easy To Sign Up
You must remember the days of events of two or decades back when long forms needed to be filled up for registration. In today’s age of miniscule attention spans, a long-form to be filled up would scare away potential delegates. Being a woman yourself, you would surely know how hard-pressed you usually are for time. So appreciate the time of your delegates as well. Give them a short 3-5 field online form to fill up.
Conclusion
A well planned and executed event has hundreds of loose ends to tie up. A single blog can never equip you completely for organizing an event. This blog only attempts you to give you six cost effective tips to impress on your next event. All the Best!!
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