Why An Event Management Blog Is Definitely Worth Your Time

Let’s have a little chat about content creation. I’ve briefly touched on its importance in the past; how it’s a cornerstone of the modern web and how it plays into successful event marketing.  Today, I’d like to explore the topic with a little more depth – I’d like to explain why, in my opinion, every event management firm should at least dabble in blogging. I’m sure you’ve heard at least whisperings of the notion before – the idea that every business online should blog. Truth be told, I’d be a little surprised if the idea was a new one to…

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Everything Your LinkedIn Should Have

No all event planners operate independent. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say the vast majority of event management professionals either work for a management firm or in a specialized department of an enterprise organization.  In truth, I’d actually recommend this as the starting point for novice event planners, as it helps them to learn the skills and experience they might eventually use to set off on their own. Unfortunately, searching for a job carries its own pitfalls, particularly in the current market. In order to land yourself a spot anywhere noteworthy, you’re going to have to use…

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How The Marketing Shift Has Changed Event Management

It should be clear to anyone who’s been paying even the least amount of attention that the world of marketing has changed. With the birth of social media, consumers demand more than a sizzling sales pitch or clever advertisement. The drastic shift in communication brought about by social networks such as Facebook has altered how consumers look at their brands. To be involved in marketing today isn’t just about telling customers why they should value a brand; it’s about establishing a relationship with those consumers. Not surprisingly, this shift has also resulted in a significant change to the events industry.  Events…

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The Role Of SEO In Event Management

As an event management professional, you might consider search engine optimization to be outside the scope of what you do. You might believe it’s something you need not concern yourself with. You’d be wrong. Search Engine Optimization actually plays a fairly vital role in event visibility, something which is directly correlated to both registration and ticket sales. If people can’t find your event website or portfolio through Google, you’re going to get less traffic. Less traffic in turn means fewer attendees and potential clients. See where I’m going with this? The problem, of course, is that SEO isn’t exactly a…

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Perfecting The Art Of Gift Giving For Event Marketing

Everyone appreciates a good gift. So long as it’s something they’re actually interested in receiving, you’d be pretty hard-pressed to find someone who won’t willingly accept something for free. Not surprisingly, this means that gifting is actually among the most formidable strategies in any marketer’s arsenal. “When you look at the process of giving, it’s easy to see why it works as a form of marketing,” explains Cvent’s Jenise Fryatt. “A gift is offered that meets the needs of the receiver. The person receiving it uses it for his or her betterment, and is grateful to the giver. The receiver…

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Foolish Marketing Tactics You Need To Avoid

Believe it or not, the most challenging thing about running an event isn’t often the logistical side of things – that’s something most event planners live and breathe. It’s marketing. Executing a successful campaign requires a deep knowledge of the event in question along with its guests. Not only that, it requires considerable marketing knowhow. The second bit is where a lot of event management professionals – novices in particular – tend to get tripped up. See, marketing isn’t exactly easy. Even one tiny mistake can render an entire marketing campaign useless. Factor in how much misinformation is currently floating…

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Event Marketing FAQ

Planning an event is one thing. Implementing a sound marketing strategy is another thing entirely. When it comes to event marketing, there are sure to be many questions on your mind. Your goal is simple: to settle on a plan that will boost attendance and help ensure the overall success of the event. Here is a group of frequently asked questions related to event marketing. Once you answer these questions, it becomes much easier to move forward in a confident and concise manner. Which marketing tactics will generate the best results? There is no easy way of answering this question,…

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Five Mediums You Can Use To Market An Event

So, you’ve got this great idea for a conference, and you know exactly who you want on staff. Your brand has a clear end goal regarding what they want to achieve here, and you’ve given yourself more than enough time to adequately prepare yourself. There’s just one problem…no one actually knows about your event yet. I’ve said in the past that event management is a vital element in any marketer’s toolkit, but the inverse is true, as well: marketing skills are invaluable for any event management professional worth their salt. Knowing how to get the word out about a conference…

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How Much of Your Budget to Save for Marketing

As an event management professional, budgeting can be one of the most difficult tasks you’ll ever do. Sadly, it’s also the most important – failure to set a proper budget for an event makes it infinitely more likely that you’re going to end up with a catastrophe on your hands further down the line. For that reason, it’s imperative that you get your budget figured out before launching into the planning phase. Now, every event is different; no two events will have a budget that looks entirely identical. There are still some rules and guidelines you can follow to ensure…

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Getting Your Attendees More Invested In Your Events

It sort of goes without saying that you want people to remember the events you put on.  You want them to talk about your firm and your brand for months afterwards; to wait with bated breath for your next convention. Naturally, the best way to do that is to give them exactly what they want. Now, here’s where things get a little complicated – information and entertainment are only part of the equation. These days, it’s not necessarily enough for people to go to a conference and passively absorb information, or attend a convention where they wander aimlessly around the…

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Marketing: Everything An Event Planner Needs To Know

In our last series we focused on tips & tricks for an event planner; ways for you to be more successful and make your job easier. The next few weeks we are going to switch our focus to marketing. This week we will focus on marketing your events. After that, the next two weeks will focus on personally using social media to advance your personal brand as well as that of your firm’s. Each day we will present you with a new post diving deeper into how you can be more successful all around, often by just doing little things that…

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How To Handle A Client Who Cancels On You

No matter how good an event manager you are, you’re probably going to have a client bail out on you at some point. Mishandling this unfortunate event could be absolutely catastrophic for your reputation as an event management professional, and as such it’s imperative that you know what to do. Today, we’re going to discuss a few general guidelines and rules of conduct that every event management professional should follow when dealing with a client cancellation. Make Sure You Have A Good Cancellation Policy This is more of a pre-emptive step, but make sure that before taking on any clients, you’ve plotted…

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What’s Involved In Starting Your Own Event Management Firm?

So you want to start an event management firm, do you? That’s an admirable undertaking, for sure – but also an incredibly difficult one. You’re combining the difficulties commonly associated with event planning with the challenge of starting your own business venture. What that means is that if you don’t go in prepared, you could very easily find yourself completely overwhelmed. Don’t worry. As an event management professional, you’re actually uniquely equipped to be a business owner. You’ve already got all the people skills you’ll need to manage a team; all you need now is a bit of knowledge to…

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Five Promising Emerging Markets in the Event Industry

If you’re looking to spice up your events, why not consider hosting it internationally? The thing about major, well-established markets is that everyone tends to flock to them. Instead, if you’re really looking to give your event a unique touch, it might be worthwhile to have a look at a few emerging markets and economies. Today, we’re going to have a look at some of the most promising up-and-coming markets for event planners. Though most of these regions aren’t terribly well-established on the global stage, they’ve all got great facilities at competitive rates. If you’re looking for something a little…

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Tips For Fixing Your Firm’s Bad Reputation

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how you can nurture a good relationship between your event firm and its clients. We’ve examined marketing techniques, methods for handling any event management catastrophe that gets thrown at you, and how you should approach the matter of social media. Amongst all that talk, there’s one thing we haven’t really addressed to any satisfactory degree – negative publicity. What can you do if – in spite if your best efforts – your event management firm’s managed to foster a bad reputation? Poor publicity’s sort of like a nasty cold. No one actually…

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How To Deal With Equipment Theft

It’s an inconvenient fact about the world we live in – some people are no good, and will always try to get something for nothing. In the world of event management, that translates to theft of some pretty valuable equipment. See, that’s the problem with event planning: whenever enough people collect in a single area, there’s almost guaranteed to be a few bad eggs. As an event management professional, it falls to you to make sure those bad eggs can do as little damage to you and your guests as possible. Today, we’re going to go over some of the…

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How Many Events Per Year Should You Run?

I’ve mentioned before that the ability to plan out a successful event has become an integral skill for any marketing professional worth their salt. With the birth of social media and new methods of communication, consumers are demanding that brands interact with them in entirely new and personal ways. Events and conferences are an ideal means of accomplishing this.  Organizations are able to connect with both other personalities in the industry as well as their consumers; a good event can do almost as much for a brand as a successful viral campaign. But is there such a thing as going…

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Five Client-Related Event Management Woes

Not every event management pitfall you’ll encounter is the result of a bad vendor, a shifty partner, failing equipment, or a lazy volunteer. Sometimes, the problem isn’t with you or the event at all – it’s with the person who’s hired you. Everyone is going to deal with a difficult client at some point in their career, and it’s important that you be prepared for some of the issues you may encounter. Here are a few of the biggest client-side problems you’ll run into in the event management field, and how you can deal with them. Make sure you familiarize…

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Everything You Need To Know About Legal Liability At Your Event: Part Two

If something goes wrong at one of your events – which will happen eventually, no matter how skilled a planner you are – you need to make sure that you’ve got your legal bases covered. The first step in doing so is putting together an expansive, exhaustive contract which leaves no doubts as to liability.  That’s only going to take you so far, however. In order to truly protect yourself (and whoever you’ve partnered with for an event), you’re going to have to fully account for both statute liability (the law as written) and tort liability (responsibility in the event…

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Everything You Need To Know About Legal Liability At Your Event: Part One

One of the more irksome sides of event planning involves the sorting out of legal details. If someone gets injured, who foots the bill? If the venue ends up being damaged, who’s responsible for repairing it? None of this stuff is particularly exciting or pleasant, but it needs to be done. Liability – particularly in the case of accident or injury – is something that should be a concern of every event management professional and supplier in the industry. With any event, there are three types of liability with which you’ll have to be concerned. The first of these is…

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