Did you ever consider why you are organizing an event before you put all the wheels in motion to do so? If you don’t have a detailed view of what your objectives for this event are, you are missing a solid foundation that you can build on – and missing out on the opportunity to measure the outcome of your event afterwards. Zone in on exactly what that goal on the horizon is for this specific event, so that you can work towards it in a straight line.
Some questions to ask yourself before you even start organizing the event:
- What KPIs do I want to achieve?
- Who is my target audience?
- What content do I want to convey during the event?
- What conversion points do I offer during the event (opportunities for guests to purchase products, schedule intake interviews, etc.)?
- …
The biggest lessons often lie in the past. This is no different when organizing events. If you, as an event organizer, neglect the opportunity to look back on and learn from past events, you will be missing out on a lot of opportunities in the future. Ask yourself:
- What were the key successes of past events?
- What went wrong? And how do we do better this time?
- What feedback did you receive from guests in the past?
Asking yourself these questions is a great first step. Taking informed decisions based on data is the gold standard. Use event data and an event software that keeps track of it those data in an automated and user-friendly way.
The people who attend your event are the biggest driver for success. Yet we often hear from organizers that they have to pull out all the stops to fill up the event last minute. This is unfortunate because the guests you invite at the last minute are not always as relevant to your event.
It makes sense for organizers to have this knee-jerk reaction, because in the end, you would like to maximize occupancy. But if the guest occupying the seat has absolutely no interest in or added value to bring to your event, then that seat might as well have remained empty.
Therefore, it is key to strategically reflect on who you are inviting to your event, and to ensure that the process you have in place is optimized to help you reach and convince your target audience in a timely manner. In order to ensure that your guest list is filled with the right guests, it’s a great idea to consult event data from previous attendees. InviteDesk offers a practical tool to help you manage the whole invitation process from A to Z.
Some event organizers follow up on guest registrations for their event using excel sheets, or even on paper! These are impractical methods that can also quickly make you lose track of certain things:
- You can’t work on the file with multiple colleagues at the same time;
- It is time-consuming and prone to errors – you will have to make manual adjustments for each confirmation or cancellation;
- You have to stay on top of things and constantly keep an eye on who has and has not yet responded to your invitation, in order to send out timely reminders.
There is a much more efficient way to handle this.
The InviteDesk platform offers a user-friendly solution that allows you to automatically send personalized invitations to relevant guests. Is an event or part of an event full? Then the system will automatically indicate that these options are full. Are your preferred guests unable to come? Then the tool will automatically send invitations to your reserve list. This enables you to achieve the maximum turnout of relevant guests at your event.
An event is significantly much more likely to succeed when sales and marketing join forces. Give the sales team some of the responsibilities, including when it comes to the invitations. It would be a shame if everything leading up to the event itself was perfectly prepared, only to find out that the sales team isn’t on board with the plans at all.
The commercial team often has the best customer knowledge and can play an important role in the invitation process. In addition, a good briefing before the event is crucial: who should they focus on talking to, what are their objectives, and how do they report back afterwards?
We’re almost certain that every event organizer has been guilty of at least one of the above mistakes at some point. That’s good news, right? That means there’s still room for growth. Opportunities to increase the ROI of your events and to achieve more wins.
At InviteDesk, we have experienced all of these frustrations ourselves. That’s why we decided to do something about them and act on them. We’ve developed a platform that allows you to take responsibility for the organization of your events. InviteDesk can be used as a stand-alone platform, but also integrates with your existing marketing automation or CRM tools.
Curious about how InviteDesk can take your event marketing to the next level.
