Three Important Things to Remember When Event Planning

Making marketing initiatives come to life can require an event to ensure targeted audiences best experience a particular message, brand or product. Here at Identity, we have used events in a variety of ways and under many circumstances to ensure that our clients’ target audiences get to do just that in a creative and compelling way. Whether it’s hosting a wrap party to celebrate a special initiative or program, one thing is constant – Events must be in alignment with all other messaging and branding initiatives.

Companies can’t afford to muddy the communications waters by hosting any sort of event without putting thoughtful consideration into it. Before planning your next event, you must address two questions–why are we doing this and what does this mean for our overall brand strategy? Ever get an invite that seemed pointless or gave no insight to what the event was about? This is what you want to avoid.

Our Identity team chatted about how companies can leverage events to further deliver their key messages. Here were some of our key takeaways we wanted to share with you.

• An event is just another way for a client to present its brand to its core/target audiences. It can be tempting to pass off event planning as a ‘to-do’ to an office manager or someone else within an organization who can easily check event items off their list. However, it is important in today’s competitive environment that any event is executed as a collaborative effort between decision makers and marketing counsel to ensure messaging remains clear and in alignment with all other initiatives.

• Think beyond a paper invite. Recently, we worked with a client who wanted to make a splash with their new office open house. To accomplish this, we worked with the client to create branded cloth bags filled with a fresh baguette, their own branded bottle of olive oil and chocolate bars to invite their guests to an interactive French cooking demonstration. With a custom logo and a themed presentation, guests knew what experience to expect. Spending a few hours outside of the office away from family can be much easier for busy professionals to commit to when they know a worthwhile experience is in store. Setting the stage through a unique invite can be the reason attendees know they should RSVP.

• Events can breathe new life into media coverage. While it can be difficult to garner media coverage for ribbon cutting ceremonies and open houses, the right event will elicit interest from the media. Think of creative ways to tie your event to something innovative or benefiting social good. It’s sometimes the story outside of the actual event that will make a company more interesting and more compelling to a media audience.

Tell us, what is the best event you’ve been to? And what are your event planning tips?