In the era of virtual communication where live messengers such as Skype, Viber, Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter rule the world, live events, seminars or conferences seem old-fashioned. Why should we go to the effort and expense of hosting an event or conference?
Conferences can provide a powerful and effective way to improve customer relationships, build loyalty, strengthen your reputation, and create a buzz around your products or services.
But planning a conference and with a fabulous execution making it a smashing hit takes a lot of planning and can be exhausting at times. Here we have broken down the process of organising a successful conference in a few easy-to-follow steps.
Planning and Executing
A successful conference takes time, effort, and good project management skills to be planned and organised. Following are the steps that you should consider to plan and execute a successful conference or customer event.
- Setting up a goal or agenda
- Choosing the right theme
- Planning a fixed budget
- Making a guest list
Choosing the Conference Venue
The conference time and function venue will have a big impact on how many people attend.
When you choose a function venue, look at the options from your guests’ perspective. Make sure that the venue is safe and well-lit, with plenty of parking, good accessibility and have comfortable rooms to be in for a long time. To encourage attendance, hold the conference in a popular, easy-to-travel-to function venue, near public transportation hubs. Select a suitable time, avoid national and regional holidays.
Remember, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to attend your event.
Food Selection
It’s a personal choice and obviously it affects the cost, but food is important in events because it makes it easier to mingle, and it takes the stress out of having to find a restaurant and people to eat with. If you do want to provide food, just find a good caterer and let them do what they do best. Many function venues have a dedicated caterer or a shortlist that they work with. Figure out in advance the cost per person, the type of food you want to provide and any special requests. Then, just meet the caterer and they’ll try to meet your requirements.
Potent Speakers & Smiling Stuffs
It’s easy to feel a little lost during a very large conferences, a team of friendly smiling efficient conference staffs can make the guests feel well cared for, in those situations. You have to decide whether you want to take stuffs from your office or will hire the well trained stuffs that the function venues provide to help you out pre, during, and post- conference.
Now the most important thing that can make your conference a miss or a hit! The speakers.
A successful conference will need a good number of excellent presenters. We recommend hand-picking the speakers. Reach out to your network to identify the speakers who will best help you achieve the conference’s objectives and are within your budget. Arrange an interview with the speakers beforehand if possible. Review demo videos and talk with people who have heard this speaker before to identify if they have the skills to be a good speaker. When communicating with a speaker, provide them with ample details so that they can customize their remarks to your audience.
Collect Feedback from the Participants
After the event is finished, send out a survey with a prize for a random entry. Give people an incentive to tell you what they think. Find out what you can do better with the next one. This will create chances to improve.
There you go! With these few steps your will entertain your guests, achieve the goals you were planning to achieve through the conference, all in all you will be making most out of your conference.
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