Promotional events can help elevate your business above your competition. Your promotional event's creative theme and the fact that you’re holding an event set your business apart from your competitors, who may publicize a company only by doing the usual press release. Yawn.
With a little creativity, you can come up with an event to publicize your business:
Decide the key message that you want to communicate and whom you want to reach.
Think of a way to demonstrate the message.
Decide how you tie that demonstration method to your product or service.
Although a clever theme and a creative approach can make your event, poor planning can break it. Here are a few tips to help you plan your event:
Determine the number of attendees, the location, and the exact time and day of the event early in the planning process.
Visit the event site as early as possible in the planning stage, both before and during the creative process.
Do a mental walk-through of the event from start to finish. Write down each of the major steps and the tasks involved with each.
Prepare a schedule with deadlines. Double-check timing on everything that must be ordered. Allow time for delays; they happen more often than not.
Communicate regularly with all vendors, participants, and volunteers to make sure that they’re on schedule.
Make a rough floor plan of the event. Keep updating the floor plan as the event proceeds.
Leave out no details, no matter how small. The success or failure of an event is in the organization and the precision of details.
Write down everything. Make detailed checklists. Go over them again and again. The more often you review them, the more details you can add.
Make an agenda or time line for the event itself. Have rehearsals until you get the timing right.
At a pre-event meeting, give all staff and participants an information package about the event.
