Event Management

Planning your event should incorporate everything that needs to take place in advance, and on the day itself. There are lots of elements to running an event so it is very important to have a clear plan and great organisational skills!

Firstly decide the purpose of your event and what your goals are, for example, to make sales  or new contacts. You need to do this so that you can work out what actions your attendees need to undertake whilst at the event. This way they won’t turn up and leave with no positive outcome for your business. Maybe have a contact form so that when people turn up they can sign in and leave an email address. Or do you need to make sure there is a demonstration of your product at the event so people are more likely to buy? Do you expect them to take any further actions after the event? Say to visit your website, if so do you need to hand out a business card or a voucher for the site?

Now you know what needs to happen at the event and what elements you need to include. Decide on the event itself, where will it take place, will there be a theme? If so how is it relevant to what you are trying to achieve and how does it represent your brand? Depending on the type of event you decide upon do careful research on local legislation, are there any rules you should be aware of in terms of health and safety or if you plan to serve any alcohol?

Begin to decide on the time frame involved. Decide on a suitable date for your event to take place and begin to create a schedule for all the elements you need to organise.  When will you have to book a venue? Send invites or place an advertisement? Do you need to plan any entertainment or activities?

Remember if it starts to become too complex break it back down to the goal you decided on at the beginning, you really don’t need a lot of bells or whistles! Is it a one off business launch or a little monthly catch up?  Plan the scale of the event accordingly! Make sure you stick to a budget otherwise costs can spiral. Remember sometimes the events that are free to set up are the most fun! As you have to think a little bit more creatively about venues and activities.

It can be a bit daunting arranging an event by yourself, so can you round up any helpers? Do you need any greeters or speakers at your event? Could you get them to carry out some market research for you while they mingle with your guests? Or could you combine your event with some other local businesses?

As for the day itself, plan how long your event will last, will it go on all day and people can come and go as they please or will it only last an hour and guests should be there for the duration? Plan what activities will take place and when. Don’t try to cram too much in, as schedules always slip a little and you don’t want to bombard people!

Most importantly make sure your event will be something to remember. As not only may you gain new custom from attendees. If your event is exciting, interesting and well planned it could increase exposure for your business through word of mouth promotion and this really is the best kind!

Your Business Event Will Create A Buzz

Your first question is probably why host an event? Well there are plenty of reasons! It is great for making sales or getting your business noticed, whether this is launching your business or just a new product. An event is a great promotional activity and way to network with customers, suppliers or even your competitors. An event will make a fabulous PR opportunity and can broaden or create a whole new audience for you.

It can also be a great way to share information whether this is by you giving a talk to your customers or hosting a seminar for businesses that operate within your market. Treat the event as a learning experience, this is a great opportunity to talk first hand to your customers and to see what they do and don’t like. This makes an event the perfect place to not only market your products but conduct valuable market research.

Create a new product range like I have here!



If you are not sure you have a reason to host an event make one! Maybe it’s time your product range was injected with a little bit of excitement. Make sure your event has a specific purpose and that the way you portray your business fits with the message you are conveying to your customers.

Your event should fit well with your company, and attract the correct target audience. For example if you sell cakes, think about hosting a family orientated event, a tea party or traditional village fair for example. You can put a creative twist on it but make sure it is relevant, for example why not make it themed, the mad hatter’s tea party perhaps? If however your business is more about designing couture jewellery, how about an evening event with canapés and your products displayed decoratively or even hire some models (or friends)!

Hosting an event will get your business noticed, give you credibility within your market and help give your company some more history, could this become an annual event for example? It will help consumers identify with your brand and give you more presence especially if you currently operate online.

Plan your event carefully as you want an event that runs smoothly and has a polished and professional feel. Remember the event will reflect on your business and customers want to buy from companies that are reliable and can deliver especially on quality.

Remember to take plenty of photographs at your event and get some customer reviews, these will be great for future promotional material!

Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to update the blog with plenty more advice on hosting your own event. So that you can create an event that maximises the potential benefits that have been outlined and creates a real buzz about your business!

Sell, Sell, Sell - Online

Do you want flexibility, to work at home? To work your own hours? Then the internet has opened up a whole range of opportunities for you. Your business idea: to sell goods online. For these types of business you need to be able to spot a gap in the market a niche, a place in the market you can call your own. You need to have confidence predicting markets and a great eye for figures. You will have to buy stock, the right stock and know that you will be able to sell it on for a profit. Otherwise you risk losing the money you invest. Build an online identity that users can trust, this can be much harder than businesses that sell face to face with consumers. You need to keep in contact with customers, answer their queries, provide a great service and this should help you gain the positive feedback that is crucial in increasing consumer trust and therefore sales. Be as informative and open as possible, in a shop a user can see and try any item, you have to recreate this using only words and photographs. Practice your writing and methods of photographing your goods in an interesting way to get customers hooked. Describe how the product looks, feels smell, how and when the customer will use it. What will it add to their lives, how will purchasing your product make them feel?

Selling platforms-

Ebay- The king of online selling. Most of you will have sold a couple of things on Ebay, but how to do it professionally? Buy in bulk, a great way to do this is at auctions. This will give you the volume to sell your products in a range of sizes and styles. List regularly so your items show up at the top of searches and experiment with titles and descriptions see which one works best then replicate this on your other listings. Decide carefully whether to use the auction, buy now or a combination of settings. Open a shop rather than selling as an individual on the site so once visitors have clicked one of your products they can see a full range. An alternative to Ebay is Price Minister.

Amazon- You don’t just have to sell books, Amazon is now a market leader in a range of products. Listing is easy and quick, but it is easy to get lost in the crowd. Pick a niche of books or product to sell. It is easy to see what competitors are charging for exactly the same product so be prepared to be competitive with your pricing and your feedback ratings will be key. Remember to send out a business card or promo leaflet with orders so shoppers remember to search for your store again.

Etsy/ Folksy/ Deviant Art- For the creative amongst you, sell your own hand made products. These sites are great for setting up a small online store to sell your crafts to a world-wide market. Remember to promote your store on other sites, facebook, twitter, LinkedIn or a book marking site to gain a following. And get involved with the online community built into these sites including the blogs, teams, circles, treasuries, and forums the more you put in the more you will get out of it.

Zazzle/Café Press- Don’t have time to make your own products? But still want to create something unique or never seen before, use one of these sites. As long as you hold the rights to your image or design you can upload it onto one of hundreds of products. Keep strict control of your designs or allow your customers to customize them to their needs, the choice is yours. The best part? These sites handle the order fulfillment, payments, and returns. You just take a commission payment on every sale! You can increase your income by earning a volume bonus on sales or by referring people to your shop or others on the site and taking a percentage of any sale made!

Your Own Website- Want even more control over the type of online store you run? The best option- to set up your own website, you can sell whatever you like and keep all of the profit! Sounds great but remember you may need to pay to have someone design your site, users will have to have confidence that you will fulfill sales, and you need to set up a trusted payment system that customers will be happy to use, paypal for example. But the hardest part? Getting people into your store, it will take a lot of time and dedication to get people to find your site and then even more effort to create interesting content that will make them stay and actually buy something. Consider using google adwords where you can design your advert and a daily budget. The key-EXPERIMENT, find out, which ads work and those that don’t, play with titles and keywords and do your SEO research carefully! But the effort of setting up your own site could definitely pay off in the future!