Verge; Plan!
By Jo Phillips
Planning the Perfect Corporate Event Made Easy
It’s time to plan another corporate event, and you know from past experience it can be a nightmare. This time around you admit you need some help planning for the best ever event. To get you started, here are some steps you can take to make the planning stages easier than you ever dreamed possible.
Begin by Defining the Purpose of Your Corporate Event
Before you can do anything, you need to define the purpose of your corporate event. Is it going to be a holiday party for the entire staff, or perhaps it’s time for another round of training and company updates. Sometimes a corporate event is a marketing strategy to bring in new clients. No matter what the purpose, it must be clearly defined before you can go any further.
Select an Event Planning Committee
Whether you choose to hire an event planning coordinator, you’ll need to appoint a committee of key people within your company. Their input will be vital, especially if the purpose of the event is to showcase new products or services. Again, it depends on the purpose of your corporate event, but the departments affected most by the event should have input for the best results.
Set the Date
Although you can set the date, this must be kept a bit fluid. Based on availability of such things as venues, menus and entertainment, you’ll want to have a little play room to work with. If you will be using an out-of-house keynote speaker, his or her schedule must be accounted for as well.
Choose a Venue
This is the main reason why you need to keep your dates flexible. The venue you choose may not be where you’d like to host your event, but the number of attendees is important. You can’t very well hold a corporate event which may see over a thousand guests in a venue that seats only a few hundred. Also, the venue must have the services you require, so keep that in mind as well.
Finding Entertainment to Match the Event
No two corporate events are ever the same. While they may be organised within similar industries, everything from venue to entertainment will vary. Have your committee meet with your event coordinator to get suggestions on the kind of entertainment you may wish to hire. Once that has been established, you can choose from a variety of corporate event entertainment easily by filling out a few details about your event online. You can be given several choices of acts which may meet your requirements, but always keep in mind the wide range of tastes within your audience.
Corporate Announcements and Invitations
Once you have everything lined up on the date of your choice, it’s time to send out corporate announcements and invitations. This can be done via email, but sometimes it’s more professional and elegant to have invitations printed. These can be posted in the offices or homes of those you’ve invited to attend as a visual reminder of the location, date and time.
Dedicate a Web Page to Market Your Event
Finally, if you are hosting a corporate event to showcase your products and services, you may want to set up a web page to promote the event. You can make it as simple as a single landing page or you can have content highlighting things which will be showcased at the event. If you are looking to broaden your reach, use web pages to supplement any invitations you have sent via the post.
Planning a corporate event really doesn’t have to be a nightmare if you follow these steps. Just make sure to start planning early so that you submit yourself to reduced levels of last-minute stress. Now see, wasn’t that easy?