Friday 1st January
Hosting the right corporate events can make an immense difference to your business’s fortunes, powerfully spreading the word about what your organisation and its products and services are about and making the most positive impression on existing clients, future business prospects and other attendees.
Most importantly of all, corporate events can really drive your firm’s revenues. They are certainly one of the UK’s unsung success stories – 1.3 million business events are typically held here each year, with conferences and meetings generating £19.9 billion of direct expenditure by event delegates, attendees and organisers in 2014.
But there’s also a lot to think about when the time comes for you to host a corporate event, from deciding on the most appropriate type of event and its objectives, to hiring the right event staff and accomplishing everything that you need to within your budget.
Determining the appropriate objectives for an event
Every corporate event that your firm holds is ultimately about the people that attend and the effect or influence that you want to have on them to the benefit of your company’s bottom line.
However, the exact goals and desired outcomes for a given event differ from one to the next. Are you seeking an increased number of client referrals, or is the main emphasis on generating a different kind of awareness and interest, with ticket sales being the principal source of income?
Will you be using the event to showcase a new product, service or experience, or will it be more about recognising the achievements of staff within your organisation, as with awards nights? Or perhaps the event has more to do with your firm’s charitable work or role in the local community?
Holding the right type of event
The term ‘corporate event’ is a very general one covering an extremely wide range of corporate event types – from conventions, conferences and fundraising galas to business breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Corporate events can also take the form of workshops, awards nights and other, more business-oriented meetings.
Getting the right staff on board
A corporate event simply would not be possible without the people who staff it, undertaking such incredibly wide-ranging tasks as catering, handling cash, managing guests and arranging seating.
Are your event hosts engaging, professional and presentable? Do your corporate event staff possess extensive experience of VIP events, government meetings and seminars? Are your brand ambassadors strong communicators who understand your wider objectives and know how to deliver results for your campaign?
Whether your need is for friendly, experienced and reliable hospitality staff, stunning models and actors or any of a wide range of other suitably qualified staff types, it pays to use the right professional staffing agency to source them, so that you never feel like you are having to handle every task by yourself.
Keeping to a budget
This is an especially important aspect of corporate event planning and execution – an event will never be made more successful simply by having more money thrown at it, and you may be able to make a big impact on your event guests for less than you think.
From hiring and booking rooms to inviting prominent industry figures to speak and entertaining guests with food, drinks and nibbles, there’s much that you will need to do within what may be a tight budget. Although more money may enable you to take a more elaborate approach, whatever you do, you should never neglect your duty to your attendees to provide them with the most interesting, useful and relevant event experience.
Remember that you don’t get a second chance to make a great first impression when organising a corporate event under your company’s name – every aspect of the event needs to be perfectly executed from the off, which is just one reason why so many organisations planning corporate events make KruLive their choice of international promotional staffing agency.
