Corporate Events - It's The Vibe Of The Thing!
“Your smile is your logo, your personality is your business card, how you leave others feeling after having an experience with you becomes your trademark.”
― Jay Danzie
"Every time a person comes in contact with your company you have an opportunity to create value"
-Tom Connellan - Inside The Magic Kingdom.
Live events are one of the best and most effective ways of striking an emotional chord with your target audience, clients, or business partners. With this in mind, it is essential to represent yourself and your brand through the quality and dynamics of your next corporate event, fundraiser, networking event, or office party. There is no mistaking that a physical space, that speaks to all of the senses of sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste, is much more productive at leaving a lasting impression than any print, online or television ad. It's so critical in fact that big corporations spend billions of dollars each year to make sure that they are creating spaces that people want to be in. But that’s not to say it’s an easy feat by any means. Lucky for you, this Complete Corporate Event Planning Guide provides a step by step solution to ensure your event is pulled off perfectly. Here are a few things to consider when planning your next event and creating the perfect vibe.
Be Prepared and allow plenty of time
The overall feel of your event will rely on so much more than the event itself. It involves the perfect execution of plans, careful curation of the guest list, a wonderful invitation, great promotion, location, venue and venue embellishments. Some organisations plan their events months ahead of time and some have even been known to plan years ahead, these are usually the best corporate events. From the moment a guest receives their invitation, to the moment they leave your event, everything has to be unique, inspiring, meaningful and attractive to your target audience. So think about what you’ll need to prepare. Here’s a rough list:
- A date, time and location
- A venue
- A theme
- A clear idea of your target audience
- A way of promoting your event, or invitations
- Staff or stakeholders to plan and host the event
- An event program
- Entertainment (including sound systems, an MC, dance floor etc)
- Décor
- Food and drinks
- Transport and parking
- Media and photography
This list is just an outline and you’ll have plenty of other aspects to add, no doubt.
Be Creative
Another consideration is determining what you want your guests to come away from the event with. In other words, what are you trying to tell them? Are you a car dealership who wants to show you sell the best cars? Then why not hold your event on-site and allow your guests to see, sit in and discuss the vehicles. You could even do some test drives, as long as alcohol isn’t involved. Do you own a beauty product or haircare company? Why not hold a special day spa that allows your guests to exclusively use your products and hand out free samples at the end of it?
Next, you’ll need to consider your budget, time frames, and stakeholder involvement, as well as whether or not you’re going to partner up with other businesses, or hold the event yourself. Hosting your event with another business is an excellent idea for large-scale or charitable events, as your attendees will enjoy double the fun, but you’ll only be paying half the price. For a smaller event, two or more businesses might find themselves jostling for promotional opportunities and the attention of their guests; however, it can definitely still work with a bit of forward planning and lots of communication. Remember that thought you are hosting an event for a specific reason the outcome is always determined by the impression you left your guests with and providing a good time should always be paramount above promoting and selling. Be mindful of the vibe at all times, momentum drops a lot faster then it builds and so stopping the fun frequently to promote or to speak to the audience could be more of a hindrance than a help.
This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of information on creating and hosting an excellent event. In many cases, it is best to speak to a professional and get some advice on your upcoming events. If you are looking to plan your next event now then please fell free to Contact Us today.