Events are a great way to celebrate loyal clients, get your brand in front of potential new customers and generate leads both within and outside of your existing network. If you want to make sure that your event is successful, regardless of the occasion, engagement is key! In this blog post, we will discuss five steps that will help you engage your audience and ensure that your event is a roaring success.
Why is Engagement Important at Events?
There are three key stages of any event - pre, during and post-event. These are when you have the greatest opportunities to engage your attendees.
- Pre-event engagement: This is when you can create interest and ‘buzz’ around your event. By engaging with your target audience during this time will be critical in ensuring they actually attend.
- Engagement during the event: For your event to be considered a success you must strongly consider guest experience. Guest interaction and contribution is what can take your event to the next level and ensure your objectives are met.
- Post-event engagement: This stage is often overlooked but actually plays a major role in event success. Reaching out to attendees after an event to express thanks or gather feedback can provide insight into the efficacy of your planning and marketing. Guest input also has the added benefit of increasing loyalty and increasing the lifetime value of each event attendee, making them more likely to show up to future events you plan.
5 Steps to Ensure Event Engagement
First and foremost, you need to make sure that your event’s purpose is clear. Why are you hosting this event? What do you hope to achieve? Once you have a clear understanding of purpose, you can start to determine how best to engage your target audience.
Next, it is important to choose the right venue. The event venue should be spacious enough to accommodate your expected number of guests, but not so large that it feels empty if there are no-shows. It is also important to consider the location of the event and whether or not it is easily accessible for your guests as this may impact whether they choose to attend or not.
Another important step in ensuring event engagement is to create a strong marketing campaign. You need to let people know about your event and why they should attend. Utilise all of your marketing channels, including social media, email, and print advertisements. It is also a good idea to have attendees of previous events (if you have access to this) to spread the word as they can attest to the level of usefulness and enjoyability.
The fourth step is to create an event schedule that is packed with activities and things for your guests to do. There should be a good mix of interactive activities, entertainment, and educational opportunities. Guest speakers can be a great way to fill in time slots and ensure your quests don’t get bored.
Finally, as mentioned above, it is important to follow up with your guests after the event. Thank them for attending and invite them to provide feedback on their experience. This will help you improve your event engagement for future events!
FAQs
How Do You Engage an Audience?
There's no one answer to this question, as it depends on your topic, audience, and presentation. However, some tips to engage an audience include using personal stories and examples, being interactive (i.e. asking questions), keeping your talk moving at a brisk pace, and using visuals or humour to break up the monotony.
One of the most important things is to connect with your audience on a personal level. Be sure to do your research ahead of time so you know who your audience is and what they're interested in. And always be prepared for questions and audience input - these can often be some of the best moments of a talk or speech!
How Do I Start Planning an Event?
It's always a good idea to start by acquiring a sense of what you want the event to be like. What is the purpose or theme of the event? What kind of atmosphere do you want to create? Who will be attending? From there, you can begin to develop a list of specific goals and objectives for the event.
Once you have a general idea of what you're aiming for, start thinking about logistics such as date, time, location, and budget. You'll also need to come up with a plan for marketing and promoting the event. And finally, don't forget to create an event planning checklist! This may seem silly and irrelevant but will absolutely ensure that nothing gets overlooked!
How Do I Find a Venue For My Event?
There are a few things to consider when looking for a venue for your event. The first is size – you'll want to make sure the venue can accommodate all of your guests. The second is location – you'll want to find a venue that's easy for your guests to get to. And finally, you'll want to consider price and availability. There are plenty of venues out there, so take your time and do your research to find the perfect one for your event.
How much should I budget for my event?
It really depends on the kind of event you're planning. A birthday party will obviously cost less than a wedding, for example. And a corporate event will have a larger budget than a private event. There are lots of variables to consider when it comes to budgeting for an event, but here are some general tips
- Think about what your priorities are for the event. What's most important to you? Is it the food? The decor? The entertainment? Once you've decided on your priorities, you can start allocating your budget accordingly.
- Know your audience. Are you planning an event for investors? VIPs? Employees? Families? Each group will have different expectations and you must therefore plan according to who you will be inviting.
Remember, you can throw a fantastic and memorable event even on a small budget so don’t be discouraged!
What Tools Help Improve Event Engagement?
There are a ton of great online tools that can help improve event engagement. Here are a few of our favourites:
- Live polling tools: live polling during an event can help engage participants by giving them the opportunity to ask questions and participate in real-time. This creates a more interactive experience for attendees, and can help keep them engaged throughout the event.
- Social media wall: a social media wall can help aggregate all of the social media posts about your event in one place. This makes it easy for attendees to follow the conversation and see what others are saying about the event. It also helps create a more engaging experience for attendees who love using social media to stay up to date with things in their daily lives.
- Hashtags: a unique and event specific hashtag can help create a sense of community and connection among attendees. Live-tweeting or Instagramming key moments using this tag can be a great way to share what's happening with people who couldn't make it and even act as a means for those who did attend to easily recall and refer back to the event.
Final Thoughts
Thank you for reading! We hope that you found this information helpful and are now better equipped to plan your next event. Here at cinch Stadium at Franklin's Gardens, we pride ourselves on providing excellent customer service and top-notch event planning services. Contact us today to get started!
