Looking to run corporate events? Event planning isn’t for everyone, but with a well-considered plan and your trusty event planning checklist, you’ll find it’s easier than you’d think to organise a corporate event.
We’ve put together some simple steps you can follow for your next corporate event:
Clear objectives
You know you need to hold an event, but first of all, you need to understand what you want your event to achieve. You might be looking to raise a brand’s profile, raise money for a particular cause, or get like-minded people together though a simple networking function.
Get your first corporate event planning meeting started by understanding what you want from the event – it will then help you plan the bigger details from there, like who to invite and where to hold the event.
Agree a budget
Agreeing a budget can be a difficult topic to broach – the budget for a corporate event has the chance to be as long as a piece of string! Once you know where you’ll want to hold your event, the number of guests, decorations, entertainment and guest speakers, you can put together a proposed budget.
Top tip for your event planning checklist: assign an overflow budget! As much as you plan, your event won’t always stick to budget. By planning for a contingency spend will help you out of any tricky spots you might find yourself in!
Plan…and delegate
Laying out every step of your corporate event is crucial – setting up a master schedule will help keep you on track. This should include:
- Where you’ll be holding your event, the capacity, the details of your contact for the venue and a checklist (venue booked, final numbers confirmed etc)
- Who you invite, the type of entertainment (depending on your event objective), how you advertise to them
- Catering for your guests, menu choices, who’ll help serve food and wait at your event
Once you’ve created a master schedule, it’s then worth looking at your resources and how you’ll delegate each task. Having people around to help, and understanding you can’t do everything on your own, will help your corporate event run smoothly!
Be practical…
Your corporate event isn’t all fun and games – you’ll need to cover the practical things, including:
- Health and safety procedure
- First aid provisions
- Access for wheelchairs and the less able
- Public liability insurance (if it’s not included with your venue hire)
Having these practical elements sorted ahead of time will ensure a smooth running on the event day.
…and get creative!
There is of course the chance to get creative! Depending on your event type, you may have tables to dress, venues to decorate and menus to choose! It’s all part of making a corporate event successful and stand out in people’s minds.
Chances are, this won’t be your guest’s first corporate event – it’s worth having special touches that make yours stand out. That could be a famous guest speaker or an expert in their field presenting the evening, ice breakers or activities to make your guests comfortable. Your guests are more likely to remember and share their experiences on their social media, all enhancing your profile as a corporate event planner!
Publicity
Understanding your event’s objective will help you understand who your guests will be. Knowing that allows you to start publicising your event to the right people. Some corporations may have a set guest list they want you to use, but if you’re building brand publicity you may need to publicise to an audience you’ve never spoken to before.
Attracting your audience to the event through online adverts or personal invites can be supported by using social media. You can send out reminders, updates, share photos before and after, and build excitement!
Travel
Knowing how your guests will get to your event is useful – make sure your adverts and publicity tell people how to reach you, with helpful travel information like public transport and parking. It might be useful to place signs in the surrounding area to help guide your guests, particularly if your venue isn’t easy to find!
After the event
If the purpose of your corporate event was to raise money, count takings from each stall separately to gauge success. If you’re focussed on building brand reputation, check metrics like website stats to see whether you’ve had more traffic as a result of running your event.
Measuring your event based on qualitative and quantitative stats all help to build a picture of the event’s success. Speak to people after the event via social media to get their feedback too!
If you're looking to hold your first event, read our guide below:
your guide to running an event yourself
Want to learn the skills and knowledge needed to become an Events Manager?
Learn more about our Events management course here