By now we all know to expect the unexpected… however, it’s always great to have a strategy in place to ultimately be able to meet your goals and KPIs for the year! It’s so important through all this that we keep engaging with our audiences, especially during these times, and events are the perfect tool for that!
Having an event strategy is genuinely the key to your success. Events will help you build your brand, reputation, audience, business networks and so much more.
A clear strategy allows you to focus on the desired outcomes of your events and how to go about achieving them. We’ve got some really useful steps for you that will help you to create a well-defined strategy for the year ahead.
It’s not too important to think about the ‘where’ when you’re initially creating your strategy. However, it’s no secret that Virtual Events are going to dominate the best part of this year, so there’s never been a better time to get planning your Online Events! We can hopefully start to think about returning to live events towards the end of the year, so it’d be a great idea to get a plan in place so you’re ahead of the game!
Step 1: Why are you holding these events?
Identifying why you’re holding these events will really help you to focus on your desired outcomes and essentially support you in achieving your long-term business goals! If your goals include delivering a powerful message, generating new leads, educating your audience, keeping your colleagues engaged, or increasing brand awareness, there are so many different types of events that can help you to meet these goals! Once you’ve really pinpointed your ‘why’, you’ll be able to focus on the bigger picture.
Step 2: Who do I want to attend my events?
Now you need to focus on your audience. Who would you like at your events and why? Is it your dream clients? You need to identify who you’re targeting and then create your event ideas around their needs. This will really help you focus on what you want to achieve.
Step 3: What do you want your audience to get out of attending?
Do you want your audience to learn something? Would you like to position yourselves as thought leaders? You could focus your events on a problem that your audience is facing and then solve this problem by bringing in an experienced speaker or discussion panel to resolve the topic at hand!
Step 4: When will your events take place? Or how often?
Do you have one event idea that can be developed into a recurring event? You could create a recognized brand in its own right and something that people look forward to attending! It’s so important to think about the wider picture. Where does your event fit within your wider marketing strategy? Think about how you want to be represented to your audience, and what you want them to talk about when they leave. Once these questions are answered, you will have a clearer understanding of when you’d like to hold your events. It could be quarterly, annually, or more frequently! Recurring events can create communities which in turn will benefit your business and ROI.
Step 5: How do I actually plan these events?
Up to this point, you’re probably thinking “I’d love to create an events strategy to build our brand and meet our business goals, but I have no idea how to actually pull the events off”. Well, this is why The Secret Event Service exists: to help you with your events! We are experts in the field and can support you from the simplest of things such as actually identifying your desired outcomes to turning your ideas into reality! We offer Virtual Event Consultancy to guide you through the whole process from start to finish, OR we can be your Event Delivery Partner and work with you every step of the way to successfully launch and deliver the most successful event you’ve ever held!
We hope that these 5 steps help you understand what it takes to create a well-defined events strategy. If there’s one thing to take away from this guide, it’s that your goals are crucial to your event strategy. Having concrete goals will provide you with the direction you need to proceed with your event strategy timeline, in 2021 and beyond.
If you’d like more information on what kind of events you should be planning to meet your goals, what your goals should be, and how we can help you, get in touch today!
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