About Us
FAME Events is not your ordinary event planning agency. Don’t get me wrong, we plan events, but we’re about so much more than just making events look pretty.
We’re a strategic planning event agency. We’re about understanding the business problem you’re looking to solve and tailoring an event solution to the problem.
In this document, you will see the process we go through when we start with our clients. You will see that event planning doesn’t even begin until the fourth step. The more understanding we can get of what you’re trying to achieve, the more we can ensure the event becomes an invest and provides a return on this investment.
What is an event strategy?
The first step to every event strategy, is never with the actual event itself. This is the FAME secret sauce, it’s stepping back to understand the business problem that we are trying to solve with the event.
We hear all too often when we ask the questions: why are we doing the event, and what are we trying to achieve? ‘We have always done it’, ‘seems like something we should do’, ‘a competitor has done it’.
Whilst these are great conditions to get the conversation started, they should never be the reason to continue/start doing an event.
Step 1: Identify the Business Problem
The first step is to understand what business problem we are trying to solve.
2 of the biggest business problems we see that events work well to improve are;
Employee retention: in an incredibly competitive employment market, it’s no longer enough to pay well and have a great job offer. Employers need to find new and exciting ways to keep the employees they have and get them more engaged in the company culture.
Brand awareness: With more and more brands vying for customers’ attention on multiple platforms, brands need to stand out in new ways. Consumers are 98% more likely to buy a product after attending an in-person activation.
Once you have identified the business problem you are trying to solve, the next step is to break down some goals that fall into these categories. The reason for the event is brand awareness, but we can get a lot more specific on the goals.
Step 2: Identify Goals of the Event
Your goals fall underneath the overarching reason for the event and will help to shape the style of the event. At this point, you still should not have even thought about the style of the event.
Some common goals that we see for employee retention are;
Educate your employees: for those wanting to retain employees, an event is a great way to educate them on what you’re doing in the business. The best company practices and initiatives in the world mean nothing if your employees don’t know about them.
Company Culture: events are a great way to set, pivot and understand your company culture. Getting everyone in a room will quickly highlight where your company culture sits. Having run many corporate events, as the Event Planner, I can always see the company culture just by watching and observing.
Feedback: events are incredible for feedback, and I don’t just mean a survey on the event after the fact. The best new ideas my clients have come across have been whilst they walk with employees to the early morning yoga session on a retreat, or wind down with a drink after the conference day.
Once you take away the formal environment of an office and the clear delineation of roles, you’ll be amazed at the golden nuggets you’ll pick up. As a CEO, you feel a lot more approachable in your activewear at 6am side by side doing yoga than you do in a boardroom.
Some common goals that we see for brand awareness are;
User-generated content: as the saying goes, content is king these days. If you don’t have new, exciting and dynamic content, you may as well not be posting. The best form of content, though, comes from your own audience, using and raving about your product. Events are a perfect time to get lots and lots of this content to be repurposed, reused and recycled for many months to come.
Break the internet: with the viral trends breaking the internet everday, what brand doens’t want more brand exposure and to break the internet. As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad press. The goal of an external facing event, should always be to get your brand in front of more people.
Establish new key brand ambassadors/ influencers; the world of influencers is ever-changing, and if you’re not in it, you can’t win it. However, knowing what individuals to align with can be difficult. Events can be great to test-run potential collaborations and partnerships to see if they’re going to be the right fit for your brand.
Step 3: Who is in the room
Knowing who you plan to attend your event is imperative to start building out a profile or avatar for them. Like when we start a marketing campaign or launch a new product, we need to know who we are targeting to make sure that the event delivers what they are looking for.
Events are only as successful as how well you align your strategy and content to your attendees. If these don’t align, your attendance rate will be lower, your guests will be less engaged, and achieving your goals is going to be that much harder.
Let’s look at some key decisions that need to be made when it comes to planning your event. These decisions should be determined by who’s in the room, not by a show of hands around the planning table.
Time of day;
- Are your guests always at school pickup at 3 pm?
- Are they at school sports on the weekends?
- Are they usually night owls or early risers?
- What has or has not worked in the past?
- What are other events in your niche dong?
Location;
- Where do your guests live?
- Where do they work from if they’re coming from work?
- Will your guests be driving? Do you need to consider car parking?
- What style of venues do your guests love?
- Do you need to consider accessibility?
Dress Code;
- What will your guests be coming from/ wearing before the event?
- Do you want your guests to make an effort and feel glamorous actively?
- Do you want the event to be accessible to everyone?
Make sure you build you your guest profile or avatar, and really understand who you’re pitching this event at. This will help to understand
Step 4: Create your event plan
Once you’ve thought about why you’re doing the event, what you hope to achieve from the event and who we need to tailor the event to, it’s finally time to start planning the event!
This you can see is the FAME difference, most event planners start here, which for us is step 4! They wait for the client to figure out the rest, not us. We want to figure out the previous steps together.
This is where we start to look at all the little elements involved in an event! The following steps will help you create an event plan. Remember to use the answers above to answer these questions. Think about your guest avatar and your goals at each stage.
Set a budget
In events, we often work backwards from the budget. Once we know how much we have to spend, we can think about what elements are priorities and where we can allocate that budget. The budget will massively depend on where you are hosting the event (e.g., in what city), and how many people are in attendance.
Pick your venue
Venue is one of the most important elements when it comes to a gala. It determines so many things, such as the date of availability, the style of the event, and its accessibility. It may also limit the number of tickets you can book depending on the capacity of the venue.
Setup your guest management
Find a platform to sell your tickets and manage your RSVP process through. An online ticketing platform is always helpful but not essential in this process. Think about who you will be inviting, and make sure you send them the details to begin your RSVP task.
Entertainment, speakers and styling
These are all of your nice-to-have elements and will be heavily dependent on the budget, goals of the event and your criteria. For example, if you are running a charity event, you want to keep your costs low so as to raise as much money as possible. If you are honouring a key person in the organisation, major budget cuts and skips on elements may appear like corners have been cut.
Marketing your event
Without guests, there is no event! It’s imperative that you are clear on your marketing plan and execute early and quickly in order to sell tickets and get people in the door. Don’t forget you’re working off clear deadlines with the venue and other suppliers for final numbers.
Logistics and coordination
This is where your event will make it or break it. Get clear on your running order of the night, who needs to be where, and at what times. This will make sure that your team and guests have an enjoyable and stress-free evening.
Step 5: Review your event
Just like with any campaign, you need to ensure you are reviewing the event, what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what we absolutely need to do next time.
Your event plan should be forever evolving as you understand what works best for your business and as your business goals inevitably adapt and change.
Planning an event is easy; planning an event that focuses on your goals, becomes an asset for the business, and solves a problem is hard.
How we can help
We know not everyone has the time or resources to commit to this process though and that’s where FAME comes in. We can offer a one off strategy session to help you nail down your goals, or help take care of the entire process.
