Corporate conferences are a valuable opportunity to grow brand awareness, find new partnerships, and grow your customer base. Planning corporate conferences requires attention to detail and excellent time management skills. The conference reflects on the company hosting it, so it’s important to give yourself enough time to plan a great and effective event.
Timeline and Budget
Before you start brainstorming ideas for your corporate conference, it’s essential to understand your timeline and budget. You need to have enough time to not only plan the event, but also promote and market it. You don’t want to be scrambling at the last second to put materials together and forget important items. Many planning details, like choosing a venue, are dependent on the budget.
What’s the Goal?
When planning a corporate conference, knowing the company’s overall goal for the event is helpful. Are you trying to assert your company as an industry leader? Attract new clients? Form new partnerships? The company’s overall objective will tell you what kind of event you want to have.
Marketing Your Event
Your corporate conference should be memorable, having a theme to help organize the objective. Depending on how large your conference will be, you can develop a special marketing campaign for the conference with a designated hashtag, such as #MyConference2020. Advertise and promote your corporate conference about two to three months in advance to give your attendees plenty of notice.
Entertaining Attendees
A corporate conference should be informative and fun. Will you have guest speakers, product demos, or relevant sponsors? Will there be any activities the attendees can participate in? Consider what type of food or drinks you will offer if your event is around mealtime. You want attendees to leave your event feeling excited and interested in your brand. Your product offering does not limit you. Some of the most sought-after corporate conferences are hosted by companies with seemingly “boring” products.
Promotional and Print Materials
Promotional and print materials spread brand and product awareness and keep your company on your audience’s mind. There are many different types of custom products to choose from and you want yours to stand out. Today, just getting pens or t-shirts isn’t going to make your company stand out because of the endless promotional item options. You want your swag to be something everyone can use on a daily basis, like small tech items. Remember, the goal is to maximize promotional product ROI. The material should be useful and relevant to your brand and to your audience. Depending on your audience, it could be custom swag for a gift bag or a more high-end executive gift. Print and promotional materials should be customized, which requires print time. You don’t want to miss out because you didn’t give the printer enough time.
Event planning is a detail-oriented job, especially at the corporate level. The planning for corporate conferences starts months before the event date. There are many different aspects to planning corporate conferences, from budgeting and marketing to deciding on what promotional materials you want to give to attendees. A successful corporate conference builds the brand, increases product sales, and forms new business relationships. If you’re looking for assistance with your conference preparation, Ironmark is here to help. Contact our team today to get help with your print and promotional materials to start preparing for the big day.
