Corporate events are great for networking, generating new leads, boosting employee morale, and rewarding team members for all their hard work. All great corporate events have a couple of basic things in common—food and fun. Beyond this, your business event should be engaging, memorable, and valuable to everyone involved. Make sure each guest will have something to take away from your event! Here are some tips to help you plan a corporate event that everyone will enjoy.
Work with a Professional
If you’re new to event planning, consider hiring a professional to help coordinate everything. Planning and hosting a corporate event can be surprisingly time-consuming! You’ll have to settle on a date, find a venue, establish a budget, define your event goals, decide on a venue, hire entertainment, and more. Meant2Be Events will help you navigate this process and make effective decisions to ensure your guests enjoy themselves.
Brand Your Event
Whether you’re planning a trade show, team building event, product launch, seminar, or staff appreciation day, be sure to incorporate branding elements into your decor and messaging. Branding your event is a great way to ensure your guests remember your company when they leave at the end of the day. Branding can also help your employees connect with your company culture.
If you’re on a tight budget, you can use free online tools to create branded graphics and banners for your event. For example, infographic design can be quick with a template. All you have to do is add your own text and customize your design with your business fonts, colors, and design elements.
Consider Your Goals
Before going too far with your event planning, take some time to establish your goals. What do you hope to accomplish with this event? Do you want to encourage your team to collaborate more effectively? Generate new leads? Build brand awareness with the general public? Network with other entrepreneurs? Your goals will help you determine what type of corporate event you need to plan as well as the activities and entertainment you will need to provide.
Schedule Entertainment
Keeping your attendees entertained is key to a successful corporate event. Try to focus on immersive, engaging entertainment experiences to offer extra value to your guests. Keep your event goals in mind here. Your entertainment should fit into your event’s overall messaging, so don’t schedule a performance or activity just because it sounds trendy or fun. Bizzabo offers several entertainment ideas to get you started, including cooking classes, contests, stand-up comedy shows, photo booths, and live band karaoke.
Decide on a Menu
Food is just as important as entertainment when it comes to corporate event planning. Be sure to provide food options for various dietary needs. On top of this, make sure you know your guests and their general preferences. Consider the demographic of your attendees and try to choose food options accordingly. Everwall suggests incorporating seasonal, fresh foods into your spread to compliment the time of year. For example, hearty comfort foods are great for holiday celebrations while fresh fruit and light salads are ideal for summer events.
Choose a Location
Choosing a venue is one of the most important parts of planning a corporate event. Ideally, you would start looking for a venue at least 8 months in advance so you have enough time to get everything else in order. Look for a venue close to your place of work to make it easy for employees to attend. If the venue doesn’t have a parking lot, look for nearby parking options or consider offering valet parking for the event. Remember to also consider the venue capacity as well as the services and amenities that are available to support your event before, during, and afterward when it’s time to clean up.
Planning a corporate event is a lot of work. Make sure you start early! Take your time finding a venue, creating a menu, booking entertainment, and branding your event. Remember, you can always hire professional help to ensure your event goes off without a hitch!
Looking for help planning your event? Meant2Be Events offers social and corporate event planning for business owners like you! Contact us today at hello@meant2beevents.com so we can discuss your plans.
Guest Writer: Alice Robertson http://tidyhome.info/
Home organization expert and writer.