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Tips For A Successful Conference

StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article | Conference Room | Tips For A Successful ConferenceIf organisation is not your strong point then planning a conference can be particularly tricky. You need to start off with a vision and then carefully implement steps along the way in order to reap success. The trouble is that a lot of people don’t know where to start and they struggle with direction. If only you had a step by step guide that could see you through. Well, now you do! Read on to make your conference planning a lot easier.

What is your vision?

First of all, you need to be clear about your vision. What is the purpose of your conference? What is the message you are trying to convey? Never ever lose sight of this. Every part of the organisation needs to be central to your main goal. When you find a venue for example, you need to think; is this the perfect place for a conference on *subject A*, rather than is the venue fancy and stylish. Develop your purpose into a vision – how many people do you want to reach? When do you want this conference to take place? And so on and so forth. You cannot plan anything effectively without set targets in mind.

The budget

So you have your targets, but do you have the budget? In truth; as long as your aims aren’t ridiculously unrealistic, then any target can be met. In the current day and age it is all about searching, comparing, and hunting down the best deals. But set a budget in mind nonetheless – this is crucial. Then roughly estimate how much money is going to be dedicated to what areas. You’ll need to do your research in order to find figures for the average price range of things, such as; venue hire, equipment, and so on and so forth.

Purchasing process

You now have a clear focus; your goals and the means you have to achieve them. Now you need to begin the purchase process. Start with your venue. There are some great and diverse conference venues. You should search on the internet in order to unearth locations meeting the requirements you have set. Once you have got the venue and date sorted you can begin with invitations, equipment hire, and other aspects you may need, such as catering.

Venue

When you search for the perfect venue for your conference, there are lots of factors you need to consider. You want to ensure that the venue you select is impressive. You want to ensure that the venue is fully equipped with everything you need and that you get to hire it for a reasonable price. Nevertheless, one thing you must consider, that has a knock-on impact on everything else, is where the venue is situated.

Before you even begin to look for a conference venue, you should make a list of all of those who are going to be invited to the occasion. Get yourself a map and write each person’s initials on the area they are based. This will help you to determine a central location that would be easy for all of your guests to get to. After all, you do not want to pick somewhere resulting in a long drive for your attendees. This may deter your guests from even making the journey – let’s be realistic; not everybody wants to drive for several hours for business.

In addition to this, don’t take for granted the fact that not everybody drives. You need to pick somewhere easily accessible via public transport. Most cities are generally good for this. Nevertheless, you should make sure that the venue is within walking distance from the nearest public transport drop off point. This is all about convenience. At the end of the day, if your guests have had to experience a long hike in order to get to your venue then they are going to turn up in a bad mood, and that is the last thing you want when trying to impress.

The day itself

All the initial plans and organisation have now been put into place. You can zoom in on the day itself now. This is all of the little particular points that you shouldn’t forget. Make sure your guests know where to go to when they get to the venue. Make sure you have refreshments on offer. Don’t forget to practise your presentation in front of other people. You can make powerful presentations using Beautiful.AI. Make sure you familiarise yourself with where the disabled access is. Visit the venue and visualise where you are going to set everything up. All these little aspects are underestimated but vital in the grand scheme of things.

If you use this guide then you are bound to have a smoother organisation of your conference. Outline your goal, set your budget, find conference venues, get your equipment, and then deal with the finishing touches.

3 Tips on Holding an Event to Promote Your Business

If you want your business to seriously compete with the other players in the field, you need to promote it in the right way. Remember the different forms that promotion can take. For example, your online marketing will constitute part of your promotion efforts, as will any events that you host.

There is no right or wrong way to go about promoting your business; the best moves for your business will depend on exactly what it is, as well as who you are marketing to and competing against. There are, however, a number of things that you can do that will maximise the chances of your promotional event being a success.

Throw the Event You Would Want to Attend

The easiest way of ensuring that you plan the very best event that you can is to make it the kind of event that you would want to attend. It doesn’t mean that everything should match your personal taste, it just means that you should put in as much effort as you would want someone else to put in to an event you were attending.

This thinking should extend beyond the event itself and also include things like invitations sent out beforehand. If you don’t invite people to your event in the right way, the number of respondents who show up at all will be lower.

Make sure that every aspect of your event reflects the care and attention you have put into it. The best way of achieving this is to ensure adequate planning beforehand. It’s no use getting to the day of the event and still not having everything in place. The more organised you are beforehand, the better chance you have of pulling it off without a hitch.

Staff it Properly

There are two components to ensuring that you have the right staff on hand. The first is simply numbers as if your event is understaffed, it will show. Guests at an understaffed event will have a harder time navigating. Even if your event only takes place in a single room, and everything is clearly signposted, you need enough staff members to ensure that food is circulated properly and that any issues can be addressed promptly.

While some businesses choose to staff these events using their own staff, if you want to really push the boat out, and if you want this event to be a roaring success, then you should hire some temp staff externally. Through companies such as Staff Heroes, you’ll be able to find a range of staff that are available to work during the specific date of your event, and then choose each staff member based on their profile.

Promote it Beforehand

Hosting a killer event isn’t going to do much good if no one turns up. And, of course no one is going to turn up to an event they don’t know about (not intentionally anyway). The best way of promoting your event will depend upon a number of factors, namely what the nature of your event is, and who you are hoping to attract to it.

For example, if you are a software company who is hosting an event in the hopes of meeting other programmers and coders, with a view to working with anyone whose skills and interests complement your business’s other work, it would make sense to promote your event in places where coders will see it. By contrast, if your business is one that sells custom clothing, it’s unlikely you’ll be looking to fill a room with programmers. Instead, you should advertise your event with flyers in clothes stores, and any outdoor market clothing stalls near you.

Holding a killer event is an excellent way of raising your business’s, and your own, profile. With the right event, you can achieve almost anything. It is worth investing the necessary time and money to get it right.