Event Planning: Don’t Just Show Up—Glow Up

An event—whether virtual or in-person—is a unique opportunity to make a direct connection between a brand and its audience. From trade shows to brand activations to presentations, a sound strategy and thoughtful execution is the difference between showing up and glowing up—complete with an impressive ROI.

Here are our top five tips for creating and executing an event that gets traction and results.

1. Identify Tangible Goals

What is your reason for the event? Is it increasing awareness? Or perhaps, it might be building positive perceptions of your brand. Be specific about what you want. Then, decide what success will look like. This could be a specific number of leads, a number of tickets sold or an uptick in awareness. Understanding the endgame helps you develop the tools and tactics that grow beyond throwing an event for the sake of an event.

2. Know Your Audience

A deep understanding of attendees is critical. What types of experiences will motivate them? What are they willing to do to interact with your brand? What will their frame of mind be when at the event? And, what can you do to have them walk away saying “wow”—in a good way?

3. Align Your Mission With the Mood

We like to create a concise mission statement for every event based on the goals and audience. We then bring that to life with a mood board. It helps us emotionally articulate the experience attendees will have and serves as the launching pad for a creative toolkit that drives environmental pieces, such as displays, banners, signage and so on.

4. Sweat the Details

From the first impression down to the smallest details, think about every possible touchpoint through the lens of your goals. This could be micro activations, macro interactions—even something as simple as bathroom graphics. There’s an opportunity at every turn. And don’t forget pre- and post-event experiences that build anticipation and set the tone for a lasting impression.

5. Learn and Improve

No matter how good and successful an event might be, there are always areas of improvement. In order to become even better the next time around, we have an immediate debrief with key stakeholders while also surveying our audiences to find out what they liked, what they didn’t like and how the event impacted their perceptions.

Are you considering an event and not sure where to start? Do you have a recurring event that you think could be working harder for you?

We’d be happy to have a no-strings-attached chat. Contact us today to get started.

Want to see how these tips look in action?

See how we executed this inaugural festival.