A Must-Know Guide To Planning Corporate Events

Do you have a corporate event to plan? It is possible with your assistance.

Corporate events can be crucial for developing important customer and company relationships.

Corporate event planning goes beyond meeting planning. The majority of your work may consist of conferences and meetings, but you may also be asked to plan corporate hospitality, client entertainment, conventions, exhibitions, and employee events, such as incentive travel reward programs, team-building activities, motivational events, receptions, parties, and charity fundraising days.

It takes a lot of work to organize and carry out a good corporate event. Typically, it takes multiple phases and a number of organizational tasks over the course of several months.

You can better grasp how the corporate event planning sector functions by reviewing the information below:

Types of Corporate Events

• Event budget

• Event objective

• Venue sourcing

• Event marketing

• Attendee engagement

• Corporate event planning checklist

• Corporate Event types:

Corporate events can include anything from company conferences and internal training seminars to team outings and client hospitality, as was previously mentioned. Therefore, it is preferable to consider the scale of business events while making planning decisions.

Micro events:- Corporate events, which typically take the form of meetings or brief training sessions, are open to attendance. These mini-events could simply need to hire a room, a place for the presentations, refreshments for the breakout sessions, and registration. Organizing an expedition or hospitality for 50 senior managers can be just as difficult as planning a conference for 500 people, therefore the term "simple events" may be misleading.

Small events:- are categorized as having 100 to 250 delegates. They could be training days, lectures, or departmental conferences. The main stage schedule, several break-out sessions, lunch, refreshments, audio-visual equipment, online registration, and transportation are all things that event planners may need to take care of.

Mid-size events:- utilize technology more. They might be company-wide events with up to 1,000 attendees or leadership summits for significant clients to meet with senior officials. Budgetary considerations should include a branded website, pre-event messaging, and a mobile app for the event. Delegates could need a hotel room as well as transportation to and from the venue. While a sophisticated multi-stream conference schedule can call for a pre-or post-event reception or nighttime entertainment.

Large-scale events:- management of components including hotel room reservations, delegate flights, budgets, and online registration frequently calls for enterprise technology tools. These events could last many days, so you might need to plan off-site activities, meals, partner programs, an awards ceremony, or another complicated itinerary. Management of the staff, catering, registration, speakers, and delegates will all require scaled planning and careful consideration. For instance, conventions may draw up to 10,000 visitors and may last a few days.

Event budget

Every facet of arranging a corporate event, from the venue and speakers to the degree of cuisine, entertainment, technology, and staffing, can be influenced by the budget that is available.

Determine whether your budget just includes expenses or if it can be augmented by money from sponsors, exhibitors, or other sources of outside income.

Has this occurrence occurred before? If so, utilize the prior budget as a foundation while making sure to account for inflation and changing demands.

Budget information from previous years can help to more accurately depict the prices that specific vendors will demand. Use them when asking vendors for first quotations to make sure you are not being overcharged.

But every budget for an event must have some level of flexibility. It's important to manage the entire budget in accordance with the fact that unexpected expenses frequently occur and supplier costs are frequently presented as estimates rather than fixed pricing. Additionally, a contingency fund must be set up to utilize.

Make a thorough inventory of every budget line item in the event lifecycle after gathering supplier costs, including venue rental, AV, food and beverage, lodging and travel, speaker fees, staffing costs, and marketing and service fees.

Consider corporate event management software suites, which include an event budget management tool, for larger or more complicated budget planning. This will guarantee the precise collection of your budgetary data, make it simple for you to keep track of spending, provide budget reports, and show the event's return on investment.

Event objective

"What is the purpose of the event?" This should be your first question when attending a corporate event. You'll be able to plan more successfully and express your ideas in a way that your superiors will comprehend if you get a thorough understanding of the deliverables that important stakeholders hope to attain.

After determining whether the event's goal is, for example, to raise brand awareness, communicate business strategy, reward and motivate, or introduce a new good or service, you can set objectives, deploy the required metrics to track progress, and determine the characteristics and expectations of the attendees.

Planning, promoting, and staying within your budget are all made much simpler when your event's goals and objectives are well established.

Event objectives should be SMART

Specific: What is the intended result, and by when must it be realized?

Measurable: Return on Objectives, Return on Investment, or both?

Achievable: Make sure the event's goal can be genuinely realized; otherwise, top executives will view it as a failure.

Relevant: The overall objective needs to remain something that relates back to the company’s goals throughout the entire planning process.

Timebound: Make plans for the event's goal to be accomplished within two time frames. This can call for additional training sessions or a follow-up event to evaluate the results of the first.

Venue sourcing

Your choice of location may also be influenced by the event's goals. For example, the location must contribute and provide a remarkable wow factor if stakeholders hope to make a lasting impact on important or potential clients.

Your venue choice will also be influenced by other aspects including your budget, the venue's capacity, location, availability, and logistics. You may narrow down potential venues, issue requests for written proposals (RFPs), and schedule site visits if you have a firm knowledge of these event needs.

The cost of hiring a space may vary depending on the time of year because certain locations have seasonal pricing. Find out the price for your preferred location on the specified date. You might be able to negotiate a cheaper price at your selected venue if your dates are flexible.

Keep an eye out for last-minute venue specials if you have a short lead time for your event because there are frequently excellent savings to be had. If you're organizing a far-off event, take into account venues that are being renovated or that haven't yet opened. They might be more willing to negotiate because they'll be eager to win your business.

Three steps to venue sourcing

Step One: Find Venues

Understand the goals and specifications for the meeting. You can shorten the search process by determining this upfront.

Take into account the comments made by the audience. Is this a yearly occurrence? Look at the comments to choose a location that would resonate better if attendees gave the venue from the previous year a bad rating.

Do not feel isolated. Talk to your team or other interested parties to come up with a list of the most crucial elements.

Step Two: Write the perfect RFP

Define your purpose now that you are aware of the broad criteria and objectives. Make it clear what is needed and what this event wants to accomplish.

Get specific. Give as much information as you can about the event.

Although no one enjoys talking about money, you must disclose your spending priorities. One of the biggest expenses for an event is the location, which may make or break your spending plan.

Clearly state your deadlines. Give a time and date that will allow venues to respond.

Avoid beginning from scratch. Use a template you found online.

Prepare responses to any inquiries venues may have regarding the proposal or event.

Step Three: Send and evaluate proposals

You can look up venues, filter them, and send one RFP to several venues at once using a tool for finding venues.

Using the venue sourcing tool of choice or by manually inputting data into a spreadsheet, evaluate proposals

Make a list of any qualitative qualities that are not as tangible.

Keep an eye out for the conference rooms; are the sizes and arrangements appropriate for your event?

To determine how useful the venues will be if you chose them, compare how responsive and helpful they are.

Event marketing

Your event's participants and stakeholders will feel more invested and involved if you create a marketing campaign around it. Additionally, you'll be able to deliver important instructions and announcements with confidence knowing that your audience is already attentive.

Teaser emails, social media platforms, a branded website, and a mobile event app are examples of event marketing resources. To keep the event top-of-mind and the anticipation high, you could also want to design and produce posters, flyers, pin badges, and other accessories.

Before participants arrive, a personalized pre-event website will promote the event's attractions and expand on the idea of "experience." A website can be used to simplify registration and establish a one-stop shop for reserving lodging or transportation.

Make sure you pay close attention to how your event website is planned and constructed because it will be essential to the success of your event.

The most recent corporate event management software solutions have made it simpler than ever to create a unique event website. You don't need to know HTML, and you don't even need technical knowledge. A straightforward drag-and-drop tool makes it easy to create a full website from scratch.

In the meanwhile, attendees will be able to check the agenda, get notifications of scheduling updates, and organize networking through a custom mobile event app. Additionally, you'll be able to direct visitors to crucial resources like the venue's Wi-Fi password, a list of sponsors, information on nearby hotels, or sign-up pages for sessions.

Your marketing strategy should also take into account on-site advertising, which can be done through signage, banners, pamphlets, brochures, and other event collateral.

Attendee engagement

Depending on their persona, age, and location, attendees' expectations and demands vary dramatically, according to a poll by Cvent and Edelman Intelligence.

For instance, a Millennial from the UK can have very different event expectations than a Baby Boomer from Germany. You need to have a strong event management plan in place, supported by a strong digital strategy, to create a distinctive and engaging experience for every guest.

The ability of attendance to remember information will be affected if a corporate event fails to spark interest.

In the current mobile-first, digital world, the human attention span has considerably decreased. The necessity to minimize information overload has forced event planners to abandon "death by PowerPoint" presentations in favor of more creative session designs.

It should be a major priority to use the appropriate event technology tools, implement feedback tactics like live polls, balance objectives and expectations, and maintain authenticity.

The purpose of plenary sessions should be to delegate involvement. Use more captivating speakers, live polls, in-person Q&As, roundtable discussions, and other techniques to maintain a high level of participant engagement and attention.

Breakout sessions at conferences ought to be planned to offer your audience relevant, genuinely interactive content. The mistake of making them into mini-keynotes is a prevalent one in event preparation.

There are two well-liked breakout formats:

Breakout sessions:- This style gives participants the chance to delve deeper and study a topic of interest and is typically utilized for conferences or sales rallies.

Breakout groups:- Small groups of up to 12 people work in pairs, trios, or small groups to brainstorm, do a business exercise, or evaluate a particular business issue. Breakout groups are often utilized in team-building exercises and training and development programs for projects and skill practice.

Meanwhile, networking opportunities should be planned into coffee and lunch breaks. So, to encourage conversation, think about icebreakers, buffet stations, and other open-ended formats and activities.

Before and after the event, a solid digital strategy will foster a sense of community. Social media platforms and making sure your event app is accessible well in advance and has integrated social features are two ways to create online communities.

Building attendee engagement for your event is essential during the week leading up to it.

Create a special countdown with engaging material, such as quiz contests with alluring prizes, a preview of the main keynote speakers, or any other number of options, in the form of emails or website updates to maintain the energy and excitement.

The major four forms of audience engagement:- 

Engaging with content:- Giving participants the appropriate workshops, displays, and other events will help them learn the most and get the most out of their attendance.

Engaging with each other:- Many people attend events primarily in order to network. By establishing networking opportunities, whether in-person or online, one-on-one or in groups, organizers may promote and enable networking and provide attendees with a more worthwhile experience.

Engaging with sponsors:- If you've offered sponsorships for your event, those paying participants will be seeking more than simply signage; they'll also be looking for genuine connections with the proper kind of attendees.

Engaging with you:- For promotional, consultative, or logistical reasons, you as the event planner must effectively interact with your participants. Communication is a two-way street.

Corporate Event Planning Checklist

1. Utilize the aforementioned best practice recommendations in addition to these 21 action actions to ensure successful corporate event planning.
2. Establish the main aims and overarching goals you hope to achieve with your event.
3. Determine the audience to ascertain their expectations for the event's takeaways and tone of speech.
4. Discuss how the occasion fits into the wider business plan. What are the company's long-term goals?
5. Make a careful note of each line item in the budget that is related to the event lifecycle.
6. Establish a planning committee and assign roles.
7. Make a timetable for the planning sessions.
8. Select the day or dates that the event will occur.
9. Create a rough budget based on supplier quotations and historical costs.
10. Make a list of the conditions for the site.
11. Compare locations and make a deal.
12. Layout the event in advance.
13. dependable speakers
14. Create and implement an event marketing strategy.
15. Create a schedule for the event that allows enough time for transitions between sessions and activities as well as for any potential delays or technical issues.
16. Make reservations for your travel and lodging needs.
17. Consider dietary considerations when creating the menus for meals and snacks.
18. Print and prepare event materials.
19. Confirm or hire employees for the event.
20. If necessary, practice your speakers.
21. After the event, get in touch with the presenters and attendees to thank them and share the main takeaways. Conduct polls, gather opinions, and compile final costings for future use.

Conclusion

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