No matter how successful your event is, there’s always room for improvement.
Whether it’s adding new features or optimising your event planning processes, there are lots of ways you can improve your event.
And by striving to get better each time, you can become more effective as an event planner, proactively analysing your performance and learning from your mistakes.
We spoke to eight event creators who’ve taken this approach, to discover the key ways they’ve improved what they do, increasing both customer satisfaction and profits.
Improved content marketing
Paul MacKenzie-Cummins, Clearly PR
“The recruitment sector is awash with media, but none talked about how recruitment companies can use PR and Content Marketing to build their brands and grow revenues. There was a gap in the market for a publication to do just that, so we launched our own magazine – Recruiter imPRint.
“From first launch in 2016, this 30-page full-colour magazine is sent to our existing database of recruitment business owners and marketers, and promoted across Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Published every three months, Recruiter imPRint is editorially-led which means that the focus is on sharing valuable insights rather than promoting ourselves. By taking this approach, we can subtly introduce different elements of our service including the events we run.
“Attendees ‘buy into’ event organisers who can demonstrate they truly understand their audience, their pain points and the challenges they face. By positioning the advertising alongside editorial content that addresses these points, this, by default, generates interest in the event being run – as their interest has already been piqued, attending the event seems a natural follow on.
“As the targeted audience reach for the magazine continues to rise, 3,000 at last count, so has interest in the events we run. It has proven to be one of the most powerful elements in our promotional toolbox and has not only boosted attendances, it has also driven new revenues as prospects see us sharing best practice rather than attempting to sell ourselves at every given opportunity.”
Credit: Clearly PR
Improved reach
Ash Phillips, Yena
“Yena is a subscription platform that helps people start and grow businesses. It started as a single meetup in the Bristol and adopting Eventbrite as our registration platform has helped us scale to more than 120 events in 17 cities globally.
“It’s a core part of our marketing strategy for current and new events and helps bring in a good percentage of attendees before any considerations of other platforms or marketing. As we’ve grown, we’ve adapted our messaging using different event titles, descriptions and images on the platform, which has attracted a more specific demographic.
“Eventbrite helps us access a diverse audience, which shows in the diversity of the community we’ve built. On more than one occasion, people have asked where we got our stock images from because of how balanced the audience at our events tends to be.”
Credit: Yena
Improved relationships
Jenny Haynes, City Dance Parties
“The single most important thing I’ve learnt since founding City Dance Parties is the importance of building and maintaining positive relationships with clients, staff and suppliers.
“Rather than a brief, corporate approach, I always come in with a personable, fun and detailed tone, and really try to listen to what it is the client wants, whilst tailoring each booking to their needs. A thorough, tailored response is much more likely to instil confidence than a brief email with a quote!
“I make sure I’m super clear with clients about what it is we offer and really clear with staff about what is required with each booking; if I’m muddy at all about either of these things, it can lead to expectations not being met purely because of a breakdown in communication.
“Empathy is something that’s really important – rather than getting frustrated in stressful situations, I take a step back and try to empathise with how the other person is feeling, and focus on how we can resolve things together.
“I believe cultivating these relationships is why our hen party dance classes currently have more positive reviews than our competitors, and why our events have got stronger over the past year!”
Credit: City Dance Parties
Improved processes
Claire Fulton Ray, LauFest
“I run a three-day music festival in Plymouth called LauFest, which is organised in aid of breast cancer awareness charity CoppaFeel!. I have found that speaking to other festival organisers has been invaluable – we are relatively new to the festival circuit so having a more knowledgeable festival organiser point out some of the things we could do to help streamline processes has been brilliant.
“Little things like finding sponsors to help with the strain of cash flow, and being put in touch with drink providers etc. has been a massive help. Being introduced to providers and other industry folks personally by a seasoned festival organiser they already know and trust is a great big foot in the door.
“One person who provided us with absolutely invaluable assistance was the organiser of The Great Estate Festival. I was so grateful for his help that I wrote a blog for him to share and use on the website – I’m aware that a good turn deserves a good turn.
“I think that the nature of our festival (charity-led and in honour of a great lady) inspires people and we seem to attract so many people who want to help and get involved. LauFest-ers all tend to be awesomely kind-spirited legends!”
Credit: LauFest
Improved audience understanding
John Fisher, FMI
“Since 2009, we have organised events for a range of leading mobile phone manufacturers, including their contact centres based overseas in India. So – with an audience based some 5,000 miles away – the key objective for us was to learn what makes them tick.
“Over the past ten years, we have delivered a huge range of successful trade engagement programmes for audiences in India including training roadshows, product launch events and group travel trips to Bali, South Africa and Thailand.
“To help us shape and evolve the programmes, we’ve taken the time to visit Mumbai and Pune and speak first-hand to the sales staff that work there and understand their culture and work environment. And so, over time, we’ve built up a genuine understanding of our audience, from their favourite foods to their ideal rewards, which has allowed our events and engagement team to completely tailor the delivery of these events and programmes.
“During our work together over the last ten years, our relationship and engagement with this audience has allowed us to be incredibly creative over time and expand our specific event offering so much so that we now manage always-on website, quarterly sales incentives and offer an industry-leading international rewards catalogue for our audiences in India.”
Credit: FMI
Improved collaboration
Rory Bourke, Mid Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce
“I organise a range of B2B events for the Mid Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, based in the Halifax, Huddersfield and Wakefield districts of West Yorkshire. Our mission is to connect, support and represent businesses within our region, furthering their business interests.
“By collaborating with local marketing agencies we’ve been able to broaden our capabilities for our promotional campaigns. We deliver our core marketing strategy whilst applying new and innovative techniques with support from these agencies.
“We’ve been able to modernise and refresh our in-house event branding, produce video content that we couldn’t have afforded to otherwise, and write informative and persuasive copy for email and social media. These agencies have also assisted us to create marketing schedules; strategising when to release key messages across our channels and promotional partner channels.
“In return, the marketing agency will become an Event Partner. This enables them to raise their profile in a unique way by not only increasing their brand awareness via their partner listing, but also by showcasing what they specialise in whether that be video production, web design, digital marketing, social media or PR.
“Our Event Partners are equally as motivated in promoting our region as a place to do business and this shared goal is the key foundation to our collaborations.”
Credit: Mid Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce
Improved attendee response
Leila Willingham, Liz Lean PR
“From our experience of event planning over the past 20 years, we can’t stress enough the importance of the invite. Making your invite memorable is one of the secrets to a successful event.
“I guess one big learning curve was the internet and how that’s impacted how we invite. One thing we have learnt when sending invites on an email is to be careful of putting images into the body of the email as this often sends the email into junk, so it’s always better to attach a beautiful looking PDF.
“We also use an events-only email address when asking for RSVPs via email, as this gives people one place to respond to and helps on the organisation side of things. Whether it’s an email link, Eventbrite page, Facebook event, directions of how to respond need to be clear.
“Aside from this, giving clear and concise directions on how to register for the event is a must. Perhaps presenting this differently to other elements of the invite to make it stand out is the best way to go. Different fonts, colours and designs can work effectively to draw attention to this area. Include clear and simple instructions on how to register and what details are required.
“Finally, sending the invite out at least 4-6 weeks in advance will ensure that there is plenty of time for people to get the date in their diaries. This could even be extended to eight weeks for larger events.”
Credit: Liz Lean PR
Improved audience participation
Mathilde Leo, JAM
“JAM is a leading product conference to share the stories behind great products. Every year, it brings together hundreds of product managers and designers eager to hear lessons from some of the biggest brands around, including Uber, Netflix and Google.
“We wanted to create an environment where the participants could learn from world-class speakers facing the same challenges as them. With this goal in mind, we built in Q&A sessions using the Slido platform that offered enough space for such interaction.
“To involve everyone in the discussion, we swapped the usual microphones for Slido. As a result, we managed to engage a whopping 70% of our audience in the conversation.
“Slido helped our audience of 600 people feel heard throughout the conference by having a say in what questions were asked during the Q&A sessions. It was a big improvement for our event.”
Credit: JAM
Conclusion
Never stop learning. Review every element of your event each time you run it and identify areas for improvement. Send out a post-event survey to attendees to gain their feedback and use data from your ticketing and registration platform to measure your KPIs. Putting metrics in place will help you benchmark your success, ensuring you continually get better at what you do.
