The key steps for a successful B2B event
Organising a B2B event is an effective strategy for building customer loyalty: It brings people together, facilitates exchanges and fosters a special relationship with your target audience. Getting out of the everyday work context makes a lasting impression, as long as youare careful to avoid certain mistakes. We've listed four best practices you can apply to make sure your project is a success.
1. Planning and preparing your event
Whatever the event(trade fair, conference, seminar, etc.), one of the golden rules is planning ahead. The further ahead you plan, the easier it is to avoid unpleasant surprises, plan Bs and last-minute problems. To help you do this, there's nothing quite like writing out a timeline. You'll see just how useful this tool can be when it comes to dealing with unforeseen events related to a lack of time. How? It lets you list all the steps to be completed before the day of the event, clearly laid out, with a fixed deadline for each step. To make this schedule even more effective, we recommend that you include the name of the person responsible next to each assignment. Each member of theteam will know at a glance what they need to do and how long it will take. Practical, right? This planning method will give you a clear overview of the whole organisation and make it easy to make adjustments if necessary. One last point: don't hesitate to add a few extra weeks to your schedule - it's better to have too much time than not enough.
What's more, planning ahead will increase the number of customers available on the day of your event. So, how do you choose them? To be relevant, it’s essential that your guest list matches your objectives. If you want to build customer loyalty, start by identifying your key customers: with whom do you want to establish a long-term, loyal relationship? Which customers generate the most revenue for your company? Who has the greatest growth potential? Offer an invitation first and foremost to customers who have a real positive influence on your business and who will have an even greater impact as loyal, regular clients.
Beyond planning ahead, preparation is crucial to ensure that your event goes off without a hitch. In this context, preparing means thinking of everything! Booking the venue, the caterer and sending out invitations are the first things we think of, but the reality is that you need to be more specific. The different means of transport, the signage, the technical equipment, the completeprogramme with timings...To make sure you don't forget anything, visualise the whole event step by step and, when in doubt, brainstorming will be your best friend.
2. Managing your budget
The budgeting stage is essential for your project to become a reality. The aim is not to have the biggest budget possible, but to be realistic and consistent with your financial resources, your objectives and the service you wish to offer.
Your budget will determine the type of venue, services, catering, entertainment, etc...Essentially, everything related to your event. To be as realistic as possible, don't hesitate to ask for quotes and use forecasts based on your company's previous events. Even though prices may have changed, you can use them as a basis. Careful! It's important to remember that a global budget is not enough. You need to go into as much detail as possible. This will allow you to visualise the proportions of spending, prioritise if necessary and monitor it more easily. A little tip: there are tools to help you build and manage your budget as effectively as possible.
Following the same logic as the schedule, we recommend that you allow for a safety margin by inflating your forecast budget slightly (by around 5%) to avoid unpleasant surprises.
3. Pay attention to the communication and marketing of your event
When you organise this type of event, you need to succeed in getting your customers interested by implementing a well thought-out and effective communications strategy. Your target audience will miss out on the event if it lacks visibility. And if you don’t take a careful approach, your company's image could suffer.
The best practice is to adapt your strategy according to your objective. Do you want to reach as many people as possible? In that case, make as much noise as possible and make yourself seen. On the contrary, you know exactly which customers you want to invite? If that’s your strategy, personalise your messages. Your target will feel involved and will give you their full attention.
Don't forget that an event is more than just the big day: it begins with the first contact with your guests, whether it's via social media, an e-mail or an invitation in the post. You need to make a good impression; your communications are a reflection of the event you are organising.
4. Taking into account participant feedback
Once your event is over, remember to gather feedback from your guests, whether positive or negative. To do this, you can choose between several approaches:
- For immediate feedback: at the end of the event, provide printed questionnaires for your guests to fill in and leave in a dedicated box before they leave
- For spontaneous feedback: a few days after the event, call your customers to talk to them and ask them questions about their satisfaction. They will respond instinctively with what they consider to be the most important points
- For prepared opinions: send an e-mail to all your participants with a link to an online questionnaire. They'll have more time to think about it, and will no doubt come back to you with more detailed and complete answers. Our tip: use this e-mail to thank them and send them a few photos of the highlights of your event or team building activity.
Once you have collected enough data to be meaningful, take the time to analyse it and make a simple report. Your conclusions will enable you to highlight your successes and avoid repeating any mistakes at future events.
One thing's for sure: if you take feedback on board, your next experience as an organiser will be even better!
