event technology Archives - Big Bold Thinkers

Did you know that 95% of marketers believe that in-person events can help achieve business goals?

Events are undoubtedly some of the most effective methods for marketing your business. They help you engage directly with your customers, generate leads, launch new products, create brand awareness, etc.

Unfortunately, organizing and managing an event successfully can be tremendously challenging. The good news is that strategic event management could be the answer to your problems.

The success of your event does not revolve around garnering maximum attention only. It hinges on attracting the right attendees and sparking engagement among the audience.

This post will break down the strategic management of events in great detail. Its objective is to help you and your team plan and organize events to fulfil your organizational goals.

What’s Your Role as an Event Planner?

Before you come up with your event management strategy, you need to understand the role of an event planner and strategist.

Event planners play an integral role in organizing an event. For example, you have to choose the event’s theme, identify a strategic location, and find incredible speakers. In addition, you’ll need to prepare a comprehensive list of activities for the event.

The other aspects of the event that you need to look at include;

• Sponsors
• Publicity
• Entertainment

However, you don’t have to do all these alone. You can start by developing the concept of the event and brainstorm the rest with your team.

The Role of Your Event Strategist

It is vital to have an event strategist on your team to help you with a couple of things. Part of this includes aligning your marketing campaigns with the event. The other role is to define the event’s goals and create a strategy to achieve them.

An event strategy revolves around intelligently persuading customers to embrace your new products. It also helps generate leads, strengthen customer loyalty, and boost customer retention.

While an event should be vibrant and fun, your event strategy works behind the scenes to ensure it meets its business objectives.

Essential Elements of Strategic Event Management

Managing events strategically is a broad discipline. This section covers some of its essential elements to help you organize stellar business events.

Events Budget

You should prepare a budget at the initial stages of planning an event. Knowing how much the event will cost will act as a guide for planning. It will keep you and your team realistic and disciplined.

Your events budget will cover the costs of;
• Venue
• Food and drinks
• Decor
• Entertainment
• Staff transportation and accommodation
• Marketing

You might have to collaborate with the finance department to create a realistic budget. Most importantly, your event budget should also have an allowance for miscellaneous expenses.

Team

When planning a conference or any other business event, the chances are that you will work with several people. The team you choose could either make or break the event. As a result, it is vital to allocate various responsibilities and tasks prudently.

This kind of planning should apply in all stages of the preparations. For instance, you can divide roles among team members per their expertise. If you know an individual with experience in catering, put them in charge of food and beverages for the guest.

Additionally, define the roles of the team clearly to avoid confusion. For example, the venue manager should identify an ideal location for the event. Besides that, they should gather information about its capacity, availability, and much more.

You can take it a notch higher by providing each member with a document detailing their specific tasks and responsibilities. The goal is to keep each one of them focused on their role.

Event Goals

Each business event you organize has a specific goal. The purpose could be launching a particular product or generating leads. You should discuss the business objective of the conference with your team.

The ultimate aim for you and your team should be to find the best possible ways to achieve these objectives. Ensure that the event’s goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

Branding

Branding is another important aspect of strategic event management that you cannot ignore. Your event should have a strong identity and personality.

The first step to getting your event branding right is using an event name that’s catchy and easy to remember and pronounce. Additionally, it should relate to what your event is all about.

You can create a logo for the event and use it for promotional purposes on social media and broadcast media—if your budget allows it, that is. If it’s an invitation-only event for a few stakeholders, you’ll not need to invest heavily in branding.

Technology

Technology plays a fundamental role in the management of events today. Instead of having many disjointed technological tools, investing in one holistic event management solution is essential.

Moreover, you will need to manage various aspects of the event. These will range from marketing campaigns to attendee tracking. Doing this in a unified way will make your work much more manageable.

For example, you may choose to hold a virtual event. In that case, you will need to establish one platform that all your audience members will use to participate in the proceedings of the events.

After the event, ensure that you have captured all the pertinent data, such as the number of attendees, products that drew the most attention, audience’s feedback on various activities, etc.

The information you collect can help you determine whether the event was successful. Based on the data, you will undoubtedly know the event management areas that need improvement in the future.

Tap into the Strengths of Strategic Event Management

Strategic event management can make your events more influential. The best part is that this is a strategy that any organization or business can adopt. If you’ve read this guide carefully, you are now equipped to plan bigger, more successful events.

If you’d like to learn more about intelligent event management and planning, subscribe to our blogs or contact us for our services.

While event technology has been on the upswing since the early 2000s, the Covid-19 pandemic proved organizers and attendees don’t just want it — they need it to stay relevant. Musicians alone have live-streamed almost 80,000 concerts since 2020.

Live streaming is only one aspect of the ever-growing event technology industry. Even if you don’t plan on streaming an event, here are six ways event tech can improve the attendee experience, bolster attendance and make every event smoother.

1. Reduce Long Lines for Tickets and Registration

The days of registering for events, whether it’s a charity run or concert, are over. That’s good for event planners because a recent survey showed that 45% of event-goers abandon lines without making purchases. While that study focused on purchasing food and drinks, the same may also be said for event registration and tickets.

People will wait in long lines for their favorite bands and new products, but if you’re a new brand, have you established that kind of loyalty yet? Unless you’re a true marketing maverick, the answer is probably not.

If you’re hosting a new trade show, convention or sporting event, you need the convenience of online registration technology on your side. When people don’t have to suffer through long lines, they may be more likely to give your event a chance.

2. Live Streaming Boosts Attendance

As we mentioned earlier, live streaming is on the rise. While that obviously means more people can see your event happening in real-time, it can also boost attendance for future events.

According to a survey conducted by event planning publication Events Today, 23% of people who attended virtual events later attended physical events organized by the same company. If potential participants are on the fence about attending, a virtual event is a way for them to test the waters.

3. Delivering and Presenting Content

If event technology makes events more accessible, what can it do for organizers during the event itself? That answer lies in better, more convenient audio/visual equipment.

A trained A/V team is hard to beat for large events and concerts, but not every organization is blessed with a big budget. Instead, event planners can turn to new event technology that uses less manpower and costly equipment. Let’s look at an example.

Say you’re hosting a seminar in a large space. Not everyone will be able to see the keynote speaker they’ve been waiting for. Traditionally, you’d need multiple cameras, a huge soundboard and lots of lights to make it happen. Every one of those aspects needs multiple trained technicians.

Now, you can use programmable LED light walls, digital cameras and wireless microphones to make that happen at a fraction of the cost and effort. A small team of two or three technicians oversees it all.

4. Communication and Direction

For successful events of all kinds, communication is key. Attendees need maps, schedules, pamphlets and signs to know where to go. Printing costs can bloat event budgets even though all of those materials are necessary.

Instead, consider communicating through digital platforms. This can be a website, social media page or even an AI chatbot that sends important information directly to attendees’ phones. While signage is still necessary, your event can rely on it much less when you implement digital marketing communications.

5. Networking

The last point hinted at the importance of social media to events, but networking shows just how essential it is. At a successful event, speakers, hosts and attendees will meet a lot of people. According to the International Association of Exhibitions and Events, 76% of event attendees go to events to network.

As the organizer, you want to facilitate those important relationships. This can be done using hashtags, Facebook event check-ins and other types of social media posts. Taking it a step further, you could also have an event-specific app that connects people. Either way, your attendees have quick ways to make going to your event worthwhile.

This does, however, require some savvy planning and marketing. As much as an event needs organizers on-site to make things run smoothly, they need preliminary marketing and planning to get it done.

6. Event Technology Facilitates Data Analysis

We’ve covered how event technology helps before and during events, but what about the aftermath? To be used to its fullest potential, technology for event strategy should also be used to analyze attendee data.

If your event tech strategy included a social media campaign, you can use that data to pin down your demographic. For future events, you can reach more people that would love to attend.

Event tech solutions can also be used to:

Get feedback on different aspects of your event
Plan future speakers and activities
Measure how many people registered versus how many attended
Track sales of products offered at your event by either your company or vendors

The Challenges of Event Technology

All of the advantages of integrating event technology come at a cost — your business needs to implement multiple strategies and platforms. This can be confusing and result in crossed wires. Maybe the marketing team thought another department was setting up the social media campaign. Perhaps you get banners back from printers and they don’t exactly embody your brand.

When that happens, attendees notice. They can sense when organizers aren’t on the same page. That’s why you need Big Bold Thinkers.

We don’t just specialize in corporate event management — we make digital marketing plans come to life. From the moment you announce your event online to the days of pouring over attendance statistics, we’re here to help. As an all-in-one marketing firm, we can help your team use event technology to its highest potential. Need a consultation? Contact our event technology planning team for help.

Tag: event technology

Strategic Event Management: Creating a Strong Foundation