Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Planning a marketing event is a great way to boost your business, but it’s also an incredibly stressful endeavor. Even if you’re experienced in running this type of event, there are many moving parts to keep track of. This can get overwhelming very quickly; it’s important to stay organized to curtail any potential issues. Utilizing a mobile event app can help streamline these processes, ensuring everything runs smoothly.
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Today’s checklist will help you better grasp what you are setting up and how to do it most effectively. Work through it to make sure that you are as prepared as possible for your upcoming marketing event.
Pre-Planning Your Event
Pre-event planning is easily the most important part of planning. During this stage, you’ll be planning every stage of the event.
Before you even start setting up the actual event space or online portals, you want to ensure that you have done all the necessary prep work.
For most events, pre-planning will start at least six months before the event. Events can be planned more quickly, but that’s not always going to be easy to do. Consider this as you’re thinking about events.
In-Person Events
If you’re going to be hosting an in-person marketing event, there are specific needs that you will need to fill in order to make sure that your event is safe, orderly, and fun.
The event type will determine what precise items you need, but this checklist will help you to make your plan so that you don’t forget anything important.
- Staff: What type of staff will be needed to run the event, and do you have them scheduled?
- Decorations: How do you plan to theme the event, and what will you do to set this up?
- Crowd Control: Do you have what you need to direct the flow of traffic, keep people in specific areas, and ensure that no one will be in danger?
- Refreshments And Seating: Are you having a meal, and are things planned for a seated event if necessary?
Online Events
These days, online marketing events are often more popular than in-person events. Planning an online event might appear to be less stressful at first, but different types of considerations need to be made when setting things up.
Planning an online event requires a lot of technical knowledge and a certain level of testing that can be difficult to accomplish without help. Make sure you have a reliable hybrid event platform and the right team available to support you during the night of the event so that you can troubleshoot on the fly if anything goes wrong.
Overall Event Checklist
Now that we’ve learned a bit more about event planning, let’s run through a broad checklist of everything that you should consider along the way during your event planning.
Remember: every event is different. This means that no singular checklist is going to be a perfect match for your planning. Instead, treat a checklist as a template for creating a better one for you and your team.
- Idea Formation
- Establish event goals and parameters for how you will analyze the event’s effectiveness.
- Set a budget.
- Plan your event theme.
- Plan the schedule for each day of the event; be as specific as possible.
- Event Location Planning
- Research event venues, pricing, and availability; book location.
- Get proper contracts and licensing in order for the event location.
- Plan event decorations.
- Determine if you need more event industry support, such as videographers or photographers.
- Sponsors, Guests, and Entertainers
- Consider inviting speakers or entertainers; research and invite the best fit.
- Determine any potential sponsors and how you will handle them; send out sponsor proposals.
- Set up contracts with all invited guests, entertainers, and sponsors.
- Team Organization
- Plan your team, establishing who is responsible for what.
- Determine if you want to hire an event management company.
- Consider what type of staffing you will need for the event.
- Plan backups in case anyone falls through.
- Publicity And Marketing
- Determine where to advertise and set it up.
- Decide if paid advertising will be beneficial for your event.
- Determine where to publicize (i.e., local news states and culture groups).
- Set up a section on your website for the event or create an event-specific website.
- Decide which social media platforms to use for information sharing and how those platforms will be managed.
- Create graphics, logos, and all necessary copies for the event; review with project leads.
- Print all signage needed for the event.
- Promote your event.
- Event Registration Or Invitations
- Set up a registration site for any visitors to the event, if applicable.
- Send out invitations to customers and other individuals that you are inviting to attend the event, if applicable.
- Send out reminders to all guests leading up to the events, as needed.
- Make sure to have a specific way for registered or invited guests to contact you with questions.
