Excellent Ways Your Organization Can Benefit from Holding Events
Every day, people worldwide are busy organizing special events that they believe will provide them with several benefits. Whether it’s a birthday party for yourself or your child, an anniversary celebration with friends and family, a corporate awards ceremony, or even a company retreat – there are many reasons to host an event.
Ways Your Organization Can Benefit From Holding Events
Build brand recognition
When you plan and stage special events for your organization or business, you increase the overall awareness of your brand within the community in which you operate.
A combination of the specific event itself and graphics displayed on materials related to that event can help raise interest in what you do on behalf of others while increasing your name recognition through word-of-mouth advertising by attendees who see how you do things differently.
Showcase your venue
If you are an event planner, wedding coordinator, or meeting planner in charge of organizing events for others, then staging your event is a great way to show off the venue where you are planning special occasions.
Whether it’s a restaurant, hotel, auditorium, convention hall, etc., hosting an event that showcases the beauty and versatility of your place of business can attract even more potential customers who will be excited about what they see when they attend the next scheduled event in your facility.
This added exposure can lead to increased revenue in future bookings at your location.
Make face-to-face connections
When you put on special events for others, you have the opportunity to meet and connect directly with the people who will be attending those events. This allows you to build relationships that may lead to sales of future services or products, as well as referrals to others within your network of contacts.
Strengthen your community
Hosting special events for others can not only help build your business brand, but it can also serve as a valuable contribution toward doing other businesses in your community better known among potential customers. This means raising awareness about other local venues beyond what they offer on their websites and other marketing efforts.
It’s all about connecting dots among people/venues whose interests are aligned together for mutual support, resulting in stronger communities overall.
Build trust
One of the main benefits of hosting special events for others is instantly increasing trust and credibility with those who attend your events. This means if they like what they see, whether it’s a presentation, seminar, or any other type of event – then they will be more likely to trust you again by doing business with you in the future.
Generate revenue
Depending upon how your organization chooses to structure its overall business model, hosting special events for others can directly generate revenue into your company that enables you to pay bills and continue meeting your operational costs.
You may even earn a profit that could eventually expand and grow within both customer outreach and employee hiring.
Fundraise
If your organization is a non-profit or charitable entity, you can use special events to raise money for the overall good of your organization. As a result, even if there are no direct contributions from those who attend your events directly going toward your cause – they will still remember what they saw at the event.
They will be more likely to make donations in future years and refer new contributors that may become interested in taking advantage of potential tax deductions.
Establish thought leadership
One of the most valuable benefits of hosting special events for others is that it puts you front and center as someone with knowledge, expertise, and insight into particular subjects that matter to attendees and organizers alike.
This establishes thought leadership because those who attend your events see you as an expert in what you do and whom they contact to hire for future needs.
Have fun!
One of the essential benefits of hosting special events for others is the personal satisfaction it brings. You enjoy sharing your expertise with others whose lives may be impacted by what they learn from attending your event.
It’s also satisfying to see how attendees appreciate your event’s value and share their gratitude later by doing business with you or referring new customers and clients.
How to Organize an Event Successfully
It’s never too early to start organizing for your event. At least, not if you want it to be successful! Here are some steps you can take now.
1. Decide on the scope of activities you expect at the event and set realistic goals regarding attendance numbers and financial returns. This will help you formulate a workable plan.
Be sure to estimate costs, like venue rental fees or catering expenses, which may come up in planning your event. If possible, look into grant programs that could finance part or all of your event’s budget. This way, you’ll have more leeway for more ambitious plans.
2. Contact potential speakers, exhibitors, and other participants to get their feedback on your event. By soliciting opinions from specialists in the field, you’ll significantly increase the quality of your final product. They may also have suggestions about how you can improve your event’s chances of success.
Many people are willing to contribute to events that they find interesting or valuable, so don’t be afraid to ask! You never know who might say yes!
3. If you’re planning an open forum-style panel discussion, decide on a format that will allow you to manage it effectively.
- Will there be moderators?
- Who will choose them?
- How will questions be collected and distributed?
As much as possible, try to minimize the amount of time spent on logistics so that you won’t waste valuable panel time.
4. If your audience is composed mainly of laypeople, try to find ways to present complex ideas in simple terms. Assumptions about audience knowledge may lead you into explaining certain concepts too much or too little, which can affect comprehension and enjoyment of the event as a whole.
5. When scheduling presentations, keep in mind that audiences usually don’t like it if they’re presented with more than one speaker at a time (or two speakers talking simultaneously). You can avoid this by ensuring all presentations are scheduled back-to-back, or at least aside from one another. This way, attendees can enjoy each talk uninterrupted.
6. While it’s essential to strike a balance between presentations and socializing, bear in mind that an event lacking personal interaction may be perceived as uninteresting or “lacking heart.”
Another benefit of integrating site visits is increasing the overall attendance numbers without requiring more people. Just ask everyone to bring their significant others, kids, or friends along!
7. If your event includes networking activities, remember to keep them professionally oriented. Singing happy birthday for the sake of doing so will do nothing but embarrass both parties involved. It’s better to set rules about how strictly business should be conducted.
If you’re concerned about people taking advantage of this policy, make attendees aware before the event that they shouldn’t assume anything based on other people’s and their generosity and that they should always feel free to ask whether it’s okay to discuss business.
8. If you’re having dinner, consider how far the venue is from where your guests will be staying. It’s not good if no one attends because they live too far away! Keep this in mind when booking venues for large-scale events.
Also, bear in mind that some hotels may charge an additional fee for room service orders placed before midnight. This courtesy can attract more customers, so why not give it a try?
9. When assessing the value of potential sponsors, keep in mind that events and sponsorship aren’t mutually exclusive and that both sides stand to gain something from working together. By approaching potential sponsors and informing them about your event, you can secure additional funding and establish new, mutually-beneficial relationships.
Of course, don’t forget to offer some incentive in return for sponsorship! This might be product placement at the event or a special mention during presentations.
10. Finally, as you’re nearing the end of your preparations, try to identify any areas that could use improvement. You’ll also want to set aside time to prepare an after-event report that summarizes what went well, what didn’t go so well, and how things could have been improved.
Even if it’s just a few paragraphs long, publishing this document can help you make better decisions when planning future events and demonstrate due diligence to funders and sponsors.
If your event is a success, you’ll have the opportunity to host another one! I hope these tips will help you to do so.
Conclusion
Hosting special events for others can provide many benefits. Some immediate, while others emerge over time as you become better known locally among potential customers or referral sources looking for someone capable of providing services or products that you offer.
It all begins with hosting an event for others to build trust, establish thought leadership, show your expertise, earn revenue, raise funds for cause-related organizations, or any combination of the above.