So, you’ve decided to organize an event to nurture your business. That’s terrific! Events are an amazing way to create awareness for your brand, connect with your audience, get feedback on your products and more. But. How do you make it all run smoothly and turn your online registration form into a stream of attendees? Let’s roll up our sleeves and see what important steps are to follow.
Step 1: Design the concept with your audience in mind
Ideas make the world go round and concepts help them take shape and move your event planning in the right direction. In order to outline an insightful concept you have to first define your target audience. Doing this will help you spell out good reasons for people to show up. What type of industry do they come from? What are their topics of interest? What knowledge or curiosity gaps can your business fill in?
Don’t shy away from asking them about these things straight on with an online survey and find out what they’re drawn to. Digging that up will influence other decisions like – event format, content, speakers, location etc.
Step 2: Set up SMARTer goals. Budget wisely!
A successful event doesn’t just happen. It’s based on clear objectives that state why you are doing this. Whether your goals are to boost customer loyalty, shake that lead generation or grow your brand awareness, shape them well. Every decision after that should support your main goal.
Place along with that another objective – spend the budget wisely. Make a thorough list of all the expenses and then highlight areas where you think you need some sponsorship. Keep close a partnership agreement form and work with other brands and partners in order to save more
Step 3: Create the agenda
In here come the organizing questions – how & when & who. How everything is set up, when certain things will happen and who will take care that everything will come off the right way, at the right time. Good team members with different skills are needed at this point. They can help with everything from preparing schedules and budgets, to making invitations and posters, to welcoming in guests. Want further resources to help you on this matter? Here’s a roundup.
Step 4: Think multi-channel when marketing your event
Nowadays, spreading the word about your upcoming event has become really accessible with the multitude of tools and platforms available out there.
So, start early and start with the obvious – a landing page for your event, fully optimized and registration friendly. Dive into social with Facebook events and helpful Twitter apps for events like TweetMyEvents or TweetVite. Consider setting up a unique and creative hashtag. Bring in the interaction factor during your event and conduct real time online polls to find out what people think about the discussed topics. Awesome statistics could spring out of these polls.
Go further and use e-mail teasers to give a preview of what’s to come at the main event and don’t forget the journalists and bloggers. When it comes down to reaching them, try to avoid hard sales pitches and offer relevant and worthy information.
Step 5: Use the mighty online registration form
Offering online registration for your event is a must have for today’s hasty audience. It gives you more time to focus on other important tasks instead of manually processing registrations and event payments.
Setting up an online registration form is as easy as 1-2-3 and the outcomes are great:
– you can capture contact information
– collect payments safe and quickly
– inquire confirmation by setting form autoresponders (reduce no-shows)
– create charts and reports to share event statistics and more.
Further advice:
– gain more exposure by integrating it into social platforms
– use a template event registration form or customize it to your needs
– make it easy for anyone to fill out your form by formatting it to fit any mobile device
– include a map so that you guests don’t get lost on the way
– reach a wider audience by setting up a multi-language registration form.
Step 6: Make the follow-up as friendly as possible
Each event you hold should turn out like in the Casablanca movie – the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Cater that with a nice touch, like sending out photos with the whole experience, thank you notes or a brief feedback survey to find out impressions and get your guests’ suggestions. Work with this data to help you improve future events.
With these at hand, go and make that event memorable!
The post Manage Your Business Event Like a Pro – From Concept to Online Registration Form appeared first on 123ContactForm Blog.