When planning a corporate event, you want to provide an unforgettable experience for your guests and leave a lasting impression. Whether it’s launching or promoting a product or service, or simply celebrating a significant milestone, ultimately, you want your event to be something people won’t stop talking about long after it ends. But what are the keys to planning such an event? Here’s a guide to help you plan your corporate event.
What is the Core of Corporate Event Planning?
At its core, corporate event planning simply involves handling all the aspects of an event in order to help the client achieve their set goals for the event. Your role as an event planner would be to essentially bring the event to life! Whether it be a conference, product launch, team-building event, or celebration.
You would be responsible for everything related to how the event goes on the day, ensuring that the “vibe” matches the event’s goal, as well as handling everything leading up to the event.
Types of Corporate Events
Businesses could want you to plan various events, so you might need to organise something tailored to the specific needs of each business. Here’s a breakdown of the typical types of corporate events you may be expected to plan:
- Team building events. These events are simple and fun. Essentially, the goal of these events is to boost camaraderie with staff, helping them develop a better rapport with each other and ultimately benefit from how they work together
- Product launches. These events are organised to promote and celebrate the launch of a new product. Often, these events will be for showcasing and promoting a product or service, in an effort to get more people “in the know” about it
- Networking events. These popular events simply provide space for business people to connect, collaborate, and build relationships
- Conferences. These are large-scale events that typically make use of keynote speakers and incorporate workshops, and will provide networking opportunities — essentially, they have a bit of everything
- Trade shows. These are also bigger events with multiple attractions that bring people together to showcase products, encourage them to share their ideas, and provide networking opportunities
What Should you Have on Your Corporate Event Planning Checklist?
Regardless of the type of event you’re planning, there will be some fundamental things you’ll need to do for it to succeed. Here’s a checklist that we like to use when planning corporate events. Use it as a framework to provide you with a foundation to build a frame. You can add or take away from it as you feel led to. Here’s a corporate planning checklist:
- Define goals
First things first, we need to start with the end in mind. Think about what the best outcome would be for your event. How do you want it to look, how do you want people to feel, what should it achieve, and how does it align with your business goals? Once you’ve answered these types of questions, you can move on to the next step.
- Set a date, format, and location
Consider the type of event you want to run, who you want to attend it, any scheduling conflicts it may have, its date, venue, and other practical concerns that you would need to lock in before moving on to other aspects of the planning. Try to lock in the big three if possible, date, type of event, and location.
- Choose a solid theme
How do you want people to feel as they walk through the doors to the event? Do you want them to feel relaxed, calm, or does your event require more energy? Well, the best way to create the right vibe for an event is to pick the right theme. Your themes need to align with the goals of the event in order to provide a memorable experience for those in attendance.
- Define your budget
When it comes down to it, events are only as good as the budget you have to work with. While there’s a lot you can do to work with a tight budget, you will be limited in one way or another. So, before you even dive into planning the activities, decor, etc, consider your budget and whether or not you’ll need vendors at the event.
- Decide on keynotes, sessions, and entertainment
Once your budget is locked in, you can start organising the entertainment for the evening, including activities, your speakers, entertainment, and other aspects of the event.
- Create a marketing plan
Attracting guests to your event is also an important part of the process. Create a marketing strategy that will help you not only inform potential attendees about your event but also convert their engagement into booking a ticket or attending.
- Invite guests
Following that last point, you may also want to send out a list of invites to people who you feel the event would benefit from and who would benefit from your event. An example of this could be to look for LinkedIn profiles that link to your industry and send them an invite on the app.
- Plan a decent menu
You can have the best itinerary, but one thing that will definitely have attendees talking is the food, regardless of whether it was good. So never downplay the effect that having a decent menu can have on the success of an event.
- Always have backup plans
Realistically, when it comes to organising a corporate event, you should always assume that something will go wrong. It could be anything from technical difficulties during a presentation to the caterers ordering the wrong amount of food. The best thing you can do is always to have a contingency plan for everything. At the end of the day, regardless of whether something fell through the cracks due to someone else not playing their part, everything to do with the event is your responsibility.
- Do a final walkthrough
Once you feel your event plan is set and ready, go through it a few times and consider the potential risks and issues that may occur with it. Then, try to fine-tune areas that need it and can realistically all be fine-tuned.
- Evaluate the success of your event
While the event is happening, keep a keen eye on how your guests are enjoying themselves. Go to influential people who have a say in your company and ask for their opinions regarding how they felt the event went. Assess how successful the event was and pinpoint any areas that may need improvement for the next time you have this event.
Where can you Hire a Corporate Entertainer?
Keeping your guests entertained should be one of your biggest priorities with large events, and a good way to do this is to hire a corporate entertainer. If you plan on hiring a corporate entertainer, here is a helpful page from Token.
Token has connections with some of the best corporate entertainers in Australia, and can guarantee that they will keep your guests entertained and invested in the evening for its duration.
Final Thoughts
Having a plan always helps! Now that you have a checklist to go through, you’ll find that sorting out everything you need for your event to be a hit with your guests will be a lot easier. Sure, you’ll still need to put in the hard work to get everything organised, but you at least have direction now. Enjoy!
