The power of events is something we should always keep in mind. Well executed, they can be of great help to your brand image. Implementing an event in your communication strategy will help you consolidate your community and increase the number of potential customers for your business. Undoubtedly, it is always an option when it comes to viralize your communication, but.. how do we do it?
Below we will mention the steps to follow to carry out a perfect event that generates all the above mentioned.
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If you run a restaurant or banquet hall, maybe you hadn’t thought of this possibility. As a consequence, the utility of digital marketing is rather than proven, because it offers a frequent and long-term contact with our audience.
However, we shouldn’t forget the power of these events, these are well executed and it can be very beneficial for your brand image. It generates commitment with the customer, consolidates your community and increases the opportunity of appearing in non-paid media through word of mouth, attendants’ social networks and your own.
In other words, experiential events become necessary in order to enhance the engagement of our brand with the audience, according to the study Brand experience in events.
If you want to celebrate an event, you should begin to pose the following questions: Why do you wish to do it? Who will participate in it? What sensation do you want to cause? What type of event do you wish to perform?
Firstly, clarify that an event involves more than the unique concept of “party” and can take the shape of an exhibition, a career awareness, an activity for raising funds, etc.
To organize any type of event, it is crucial to define the target audience as exhaustively as possible. In fact, do it as you were describing a particular and real person. Regarding that, think of how to satisfy their needs, what experiences they look for, how you should attend to them, what services you offer, where and when the celebration would be more convenient for this profile…
To know this information you can conduct small surveys to your close circle, but it would be perfect to dispose of a previous database, whose available information serves to you like inspiration and with which you can survey your audience to obtain new information.
This is the moment of thinking about which services you are going to offer, if you will collaborate with other brands or companies, who will be your potential providers, etc.
Finishing step one, you can begin to visualize the event from an esthetical point of view. Here, you have to ask yourself if the decoration is important or if for your audience it is something secondary. For example, for a career it wouldn’t be as important aspect. Nevertheless, our recommendation is, although it would not be primordial in your situation, take care of this point to the maximum.
Antonio Alvarado was awarded as Spanish fashion designer, he says that the inspiration comes from a bag where we keep our experiences. So inspire you by bringing back previous events which you had attended to or reading specialized magazines, by accessing sector professionals’ social networks that provide ideas and recommendations about event planning, etc. Indeed, platforms such as Pinterest can be useful for it.
This is the most creative part, so don’t be shy and let your imagination run wild! For example, if you run a restaurant and you meet a fashion designer, why don’t you organize a fashion show with catering? And if you collaborate with a local group of music and you serve your special menu? Or you organize a meeting from a particular sector and you allow them to be able to do networking?
This is, certainly, the longest period of all process. You must contact the providers and negotiate with them; talk with sponsors and reach an beneficial agreement for both; look for and create a promotion network and create a budget for the event.
Know how much money we need to pay providers, decoration, staff or extra pays and those elements which we consider as required, such as to estimate the money that we will obtain.
According to the initial objective, the latter will vary. We find two different situations: that we search to celebrate an event which allows you to gain money with tickets, drink, menu which serves, etc.; or celebrate an event only to create a brand image. In this second case, economic benefit will be indirect because sales would increase and in that case, at medium or long term.
The most important is to make sure that estimated income is greater than money invested, although you don’t obtain it at once. If you think that it will be profitable, create a calendar with the task that you have to do and which date will be every one.
Some of those actions can be: ticketing period; meetings with contributors; payment date; promotion period of the event; when report of the event to the media; when should be ready the sound editing, decoration, visual effects, etc.
Our recommendation is using a gantt diagram. Remember that not all actions require making them an exact day, at least, choose the week to make each one.
This is the moment when the event is being celebrated. Don’t forget doing previous rehearsals with the persons who are directly involved; this is especially important if the event is not something you do often, because your employees won’t know exactly how you want them to do their job.
Perform sound tests a few days before or the same day of the event, it trains in advance to waiters and barmans if they have to do something special, it allows dancers or models practice in the place of the celebration, etc.
During the own event, make sure enjoy the work made! Even so, you have to be aware of developing it and count on a small trust group to be able to solve possible drawbacks that it can arise.
Finally, extract data from your workers as well as the audience to evaluate the satisfaction with the development of the event. For example, if the validation of the tickets was effective or, by contrast, rather slow; if a lot of drinks were left or missed; if the sound quality and service was the adequate; if the attention of the assistants can be improved; if the security of the place was enough; if expected tickets were sold, and why, etc.
For this step you can use tools that help you to take a register of sales data and the entry to the local such as, for example, our tool dashboard and reports. Also, it is important using surveys to evaluate the other interest points.
In this moment, you can also take notes about the own planification: which phases you could have accelerated, what would you do different in case of repeating the event, if searching for new collaborators or repeat with the sames, etc., and all that you consider important to modify to get better results in the future.
Now you are ready to celebrate your own event. Don’t forget that there are a lot of possibilities that can work with your business, and in Premiumguest we can help you to make that process more simple.