Planning and managing events can be stressful for everyone involved.
Your team may have the experience, knowledge and capabilities, but without a solid event management plan, you may not see the results you desire.
Instead, create an automated and centralised Event Management plan that will guide you and your team to a common goal.
What is an Event Management Plan?
An event management plan is simply a list of all details that will be involved in organizing your event.
These details are often included in an event management template, which is shared with other stakeholders or the entire event management team.
An event management plan should be based on a clear event goal and strategy. It should also outline the steps involved in executing an event, including promotion, logistics and analysis.
- What Are the Steps to Event Management?
- Event Management Strategy
- Event Logistics
- Promoting Your Event
- Event Registration and Paid Ticket Management
- On-the–day Event Attendance Marking, and SMS Communications
What are the steps of event management?
It can be overwhelming to manage an event, especially when you consider all the moving parts. While organizing an event is easy, planning and managing it can be overwhelming.
In a nutshell, the 6 steps of event management:
- Strategising
- Confirming logistics: Event Budget and Event Venue, Event Catering, Event Content, Speakers, Event Content
- Promotion of your event: Email Marketing and Landing Page. Social Media
- Register & manage your tickets
- Management of attendance and SMS communications
- After-event feedback and analysis of the report
Event Management Strategy
A clear and measurable goal is essential for your event. If you don’t know where it is, you won’t be able to get there.
Event management plans can only be successful if you strategize.
It describes the goal and how it is measured. The steps that will lead to the goal are well-researched.
Your event management plan will lack direction if it doesn’t include a solid event management strategy.
“A high-quality event strategy will deliver a return on your investment every time. Not only for the participants of your events who spend their time and money to attend, but also for your organisation and employees.” – Caiman Consulting
Event logistics, e.g. Budget, Venue Catering, Content Speakers
Live events require a where, when and what… and how much.
The first step is to determine the budget for your event. The event budget will establish expectations about the venue, catering, content, and speakers that you can access.
Look at many vendors when looking for venues or catering. Compare their prices, target audience, and event goals.
Events Content
The content of your event will have an impact on the venue choice. You may need certain facilities, such as board rooms for simultaneous workshops, large powerpoint screens, round tables, and ample seating for discussions over food.
As part of your event management strategy, ensure that your event logistics are clearly defined.
Promotion of your Event: Email Marketing and Landing Page. Social Media
If you promote your event properly, it can only be a great success.
You might want to be able to market your event through both digital and traditional channels.
These are some online marketing campaigns you might want to use to promote your event.
- Email Marketing: Event Shout-Outs in E-newsletters, einvites, Auto-triggered Emails that are sent to site visitors
- Landing page: is a web page dedicated to your event that allows you to register easily. To capture potential registrants from your marketing channels, drive all traffic to this page.
- Social media: use boosted posts to promote your event on Facebook and target a particular audience. Promoting your event on Twitter and Instagram will drive traffic to your landing pages.
Multi-channel Marketing Campaigns
It sounds difficult to manage a multichannel marketing campaign for an event. But it is not.
You can automate a lot of the work with a centralised, all in one marketing automation platform.
Below, we will discuss the advantages of such a platform at the end.
Event Registration and Paid Ticket Management
To reach your event goals, you need a strong and easy-to-use registration system.
What event is complete without participants?
Register online and get paid tickets with an integrated payment gateway. This will take the hassle out of registration and make it easy for you and your attendees.
A clear understanding of the registration process is essential for your event management plan.
SMS Communications and Attendance Marking for Event-On-the-Day
When your guests arrive at your venue, you want to make the best impression.
They find this the most tedious part of the event. It is therefore crucial to have a smooth and efficient registration process.
For a better experience, both staff and registrants will prefer an automated registration management system application to replace paper attendance-marking.
If this is the case, ensure that event staff can connect your paperwork with the person in real life.
SMS communication
SMS is a great way to stay in touch with your attendees and get them excited about your event.
All the information should be kept in one place. Also, ensure that messages are delivered promptly.
After-event feedback and analysis of the report
What was your experience this time? This information will help you calculate your ROI and make even more progress the next time.
You can get feedback from attendees directly by using online surveys
Maximize your feedback response by promising a reward, such as a white paper download or voucher.
It is important to have a clear and measurable goal in your event strategy.
Measure your results
Your event’s success or failure can be measured against your goals.
What you will need to know:
- How effective your promotions were and whether your emails had a high engagement rate (opens/clicks, conversions).
- If your event budget was able to meet your goal, it is worth determining. Double check to make sure you are within your budget.
- The origin of most of your registrants. To see which channels are most successful at driving traffic, check your landing page statistics.
How can you organize an event checklist?
You might not have the time to create an event management plan from scratch. Instead, you may be looking for something quick and easy to reference and guide you.
It is best to take it one step at a time. This is why an event management checklist is so useful.
A checklist for event management is simply a list containing all the tasks required to make your event a success.
The benefits of an All-in One Event Management Platform
Automated event management software is able to take the strain off your hands and give you more time so that you can excel at what you do.