Are you thinking about hosting your own live event, workshop or seminar sometime in the future? If so, there are a wide variety of factors to consider before you can even be sure an event is the right move for your business right now.
Here are just a few of the questions you should ask yourself and consider before you decide for sure you want to host your own event:
What is the size of your client list (not including those on social media)?
How many attendees do you want at your event?
What kind of relationship do you have with your client list?
Have you ever hosted any kind of your own live event before?
What’s the main purpose of hosting this event?
Are you going to bring in outside speakers or will you be the only speaker?
How many days will your event last?
What days of the week, or weekend, will your event be held on?
What’s the price point you are planning on charging for your event?
Will you be selling anything at your event, and if so what and at what price point?
Do you have a multi-step, sequential, marketing campaign in place that includes multiple media to fill your event?
Will you look for JV partners to help you fill your event or will you fill it only from your house list?
How much are you willing to invest to put an attendee in the seat at your event?
What city will your event take place in?
How many events do you want to do this year?
Does your event have a theme you want to use throughout the marketing and at the live event?
What is your budget for the event?
Are you going to provide any food and beverage for the attendees at your event and if so, how much and what?
Are you going to have any breakout sessions or do you just need one ballroom?
Can you market, manage and run your event on your own, with your in house staff, or would you be better off hiring a professional event marketing and planning company to help you avoid costly mistakes and remove some of the stress of putting on events?
These are just a few of the factors involved when marketing, planning and running an event. As a matter of fact, this is a short list of the critically important decisions you must make prior to hosting live events of any kind.
If you find yourself unsure of the answers to any of these questions or even just a little uneasy as you read through them…surprised by the amount of details involved before you have even started, then you’ll greatly benefit from talking to us before you do even one more thing, make another move toward planning your event, or give one more thought to hosting your own live event.
At this point you may be thinking that hosting your own event will be easy and worry free. After all, you’ve attended numerous events in the past and it all looks so easy and the first thought you often have when you see 200 people in a room and know that you spent $1,000 to attend, is “Wow, this guy or gal is raking in the money.”
The reality of the situation is entirely different from what you see looking at it from the outside. You see $200,000 in the promoter’s pocket when you walk into the full meeting room.
What is more likely is that the event promoter or host is at zero or maybe has even lost some money at this point due to the marketing, hotel, audio/visual, staff, and other costs associated with putting on a great event.
The point of all this isn’t to scare you or make you decide not to host your own event or events. Just the opposite, it’s to help you make good and better decisions so your events are exactly what you expect and you aren’t caught off guard or unpleasantly surprised (pleasant surprises are always welcome, of course) by anything that happens at any point along the way.
Who Is Diane Conklin And Why Do You Want To Talk To Her And Complete Marketing Systems About Your Event Needs
This is certainly a great question, as you always want to know you’re getting advice from a seasoned professional who is in the field doing what you want to do and has experience that is current so you know they fully understand the issues that are applicable now.
We market, plan and manage an average of 10 events each and every year, sometimes more, and have for the past 12 years or so. In addition, we host our own events…that’s one of the things that sets us apart from many “event planners” out there – we not only use these strategies for our clients, but we use them for ourselves as well.
It’s also important to note that we are first and foremost marketers, so we understand what it takes to put buns in seats, and more importantly, how to gets those buns in seats without you losing yours!
If you’d like to have the most successful event possible (and who wouldn’t?) without the fear or worry of making unnecessary mistakes, you just need a sanity check on whether you should be hosting your own event at this point in your business or not, or have any other live event, workshop or seminar question, then you want to spend 45 minutes with us letting us guide you and help you along this process.
By the way, even if you are an experienced event promoter, who has been hosting successful events for a while, there are probably things you can tighten up and do better so you make more money at each of your events, decrease your liability, or just ways to make your event hosting life easier, and we can find those for you as well.
