The importance of corporate events for disseminating information among prospects and generating demand continues to hold sway. This in spite of the tilt towards digital.
What has changed is expectations from clients who today expect much a much bigger bang for their marketing rupee. We have reached an era where the expectation is that every attendee needs to be from a filtered database. A prospect waiting to sign on the dotted line –preferably tomorrow.
The man in the hottest seat, the event manager is grappling with nightmares waiting to come true! What are these avoidable scenarios and how does he prevent anxiety attacks?
Here are the 10 challenges that he can manage with meticulous event planning and execution:
- Budgets that go haywire
Inability to breakdown the event into its minutest line item -a job best left to professionals, often leads to surprises. Event planners today need to dispense with frills, cut down on paper dependence and seriously look at ways to optimise costs by harnessing technology. Use event apps like myeventgateway that can not only help in providing instant budgeting but also provide the technology to cut down on costs by 30%!
- Venue mismatch
Venue location as well hall layout, ceiling height, availability of pre-function space, size and dimensions of the hall are absolutely basic hygiene features. Their importance is often overlooked in our hurry to get a confirmed blocking well in advance. The result is often that the venue turns out to be at an inconvenient location, possibly far from the city or in an area known for traffic jams! Lack of attention to detail here can lead to issues like a chandelier blocking the screen or the sound of dinner plates being set, disturbing the keynote speaker!
- Choice of speakers
Let’s face it-no serious prospect wants to attend an event only to listen to a sales pitch from a mid-level executive who is desperately seeking fulfillment of his quarterly targets! The draw is the speaker who has a track record. If you cannot afford an external thought leader who has domain knowledge of your industry, get someone from within who has the passion, energy, and conviction as your lead speaker. It’s always a good idea to communicate speaker names and the agenda in advance to your target audience. This also forces the event planner to doubly ensure the pull for the event in advance.
- Chaos during Registration
Most of us have witnessed scenarios where the event has started and attendees are still queuing up waiting to complete registration formalities! Or an attendee who had registered in advance is being made to wait as his name is searched. This in itself can singlehandedly ruin the attendee experience. Avoid such eventualities by using event apps like myeventgateway that will ensure attendees enter the hall by just showing their QR code!
- Questioners who hijack the narrative
We often see an event running beautifully until the Q&A starts and an attendee in love with his voice starts rambling and is too important to be cut short! The solution to that again is the technology that can enable attendees to write in their questions and speakers then filter and manage in order of priority.
- Time Management
Ensure use of teleprompters, proper dry runs and strict discipline from the moment the event starts to avoid a cascading effect of delays. Important attendees do not take kindly to delays and have been known to walk out! Stick to timings is a commandment that must be on top of the event planning checklist!
- Non-Interactive Sessions
Why stick to monologues which are bound to get dull and impact attention spans? Intersperse your event with quizzes -the results of which should be displayed instantly. Myeventgateway provides a range of such interactive features that liven up an event.
- Poor Networking Opportunities
An important by-product for most attendees is networking for professional and social reasons. Most event organisers just provide lanyards and leave it to the more outgoing to introduce themselves. Technology again can help you know who else is attending and ping the ones you would like to connect with.
- Cumbersome Feedback Forms
Imagine a voluminous feedback form holding you back from drinks and dinner as a hostess gently nudges you to complete it? Time to transfer such dinosaurs to apps and make them simple and brief.
- Timeline Crunches
Senior decision makers do not like to be called for events with almost no notice. Besides busy calendars ego also comes into play! Keep realistic timelines from the beginning to prevent empty seats. Realistic timelines also help in ensuring no patchwork by getting substandard speakers or poorly thought out creative.
The corollary is that once such issues are thought through by the event team, a brilliant attendee experience can lead to a return on marketing investment that more than justifies the cost. Click on www.myeventgateway.com for a sure way to ensure the wow factor!