There are many reasons to organize a conference. You might want to find new buyers or strengthen ties with your existing customers. Perhaps you want to improve your company or industry’s profile with the government or other influential parties. Whatever the reason, there are some key steps you can follow to make your conference or meeting more successful.
Define Your Conference Goals
What is it you want to achieve exactly? Do you want to educate, train, sell, or launch a new venture? The better you define your goals the more chance of holding a successful event.
Your aims and objectives will guide every decision you make. They can dictate your audience, your speakers, the choice of venue, the time of year, and just about every other decision you will make.
Establish metrics to determine the success of your event.
Define Your Audience
Once you have your objectives, you will have gone a long way to determining who your audience is. A conference held for accountants or attorneys will have different themes, content, and speakers than one held for your sales team, or the general public.
Choose a Venue
You need to select the correct venue for your event. You need the venue to be large enough to accommodate your attendees. Ease of access, parking, public transportation, and on-site and off-site dining and entertainment options, are only of the few options you have to take into account.
When it comes to conference venues in Sydney CBD offer a choice of facilities you can consider.
Select the Right Date
Choose a date far enough out. You need time to properly plan and organize the event. Your audience needs enough advance notice to put it on their calendars. This is particularly true if you are asking people to travel to your event. Your audience will need time to make travel arrangements
You also want to schedule to avoid conflicting events, holidays, and blackout periods.
Take advantage of the natural beauty of Australia and encourage your attendees to visit local fairs or festivals, as an additional draw. Coordinate your event date to coincide with other activities your attendees might want to visit.
A good resource for additional attractions that might appeal to your audience is this calendar year.
Announce Your Event and Invite Your Audience
Once you have your goals, presenters, date, and location pinned down, you can think about inviting people to attend your event.
Timing of invitations is important. Too early, and they will likely be ignored. Too late and you miss out as your audience already has other commitments. Realize that you are going to be hitting the promotion of your event multiple times.
You can get a broad announcement out early and then do repeated follow-ups, as your event draws closer.
Follow Up
Follow up with your attendees. Sales lead and contacts can go wasted without a proper follow-up plan and process. This is a key point and is often fumbled by event organizers and planners.
Go back to the metrics you set as one of your first steps. Review and determine how well you met your objectives
A well-done event can be a great boost for your business or organization.
