Set Clear Goals

The first thing on your mind – to have clear goals for your event planning ideas. Depending upon the kind of goals you want to achieve with this event, you can proceed to decide what kind of event would be suitable. Later, you also have to take into account the attributes of your target audience, the impression you want to create on them, and what can you attendees gain from your event.

Team Up

For small business owners, events can be a little heavy on your pockets. Collaborate with similar businesses to share the workload, expenses, and of course, the benefits. You could even hire a professional event organizer to make sure your event is remembered by all your attendees. Also, ensure that the marketing needs of each of the businesses are met during the event.

Help Is Given To Who Ask For It 

And if this is your first time organizing an event, you need to ask for it. Most people think – “How much effort is it going to take me to put up an event that’s only going to last a few hours?” and the answer is A LOT. Setting a date, finding a venue, organizing a team and allotting tasks, finding caterers, putting up decorations, sending invites – it’s a seemingly endless list. Don’t panic; ask event organizers or those who have done it before to help you out. In such cases, collaborations can be highly beneficial.

The Right Kind Of Promotion 

More than what you say or how you say it, the right kind of promotion relies on where you say it. Once you know who your target audience is, you’ll be able to find out their online and offline hangouts and carry out promotional activities there. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are regulars when it comes to social media marketing. Apart from these, you could go up to your customers and clients and get the word out about your event face-to-face, encouraging your team members to do the same, too.

Incentivize Event Attendees

Even after the right kind of promotion, you might want to be on the safer side and ensure attendance by offering the right kind of incentives. A remarkable guest speaker, a quirky theme or venue, interesting interactive sessions, all pose as points that intrigue attendees and make them register for events. In fact, they might even recommend your event to their friends, boosting people to buy tickets for your event and filling up your venue.

Return Gifts

Who doesn’t like gifts, now? All kinds of freebies make event attendees happy. You don’t have to necessarily provide them with expensive ones. Promotional goodies, product samples, information packets, all are real charmers. They create brand recall after your corporate events are done.

Get Feedback

Where there is scope of being better, there is scope for growth. Getting feedback from your attendees is extremely important so that you can figure out your flaws and correct them, and polish the things you did right. Yapsody lets you have a personalized FAQ section on your online ticket platform, and you can even mail your attendees a short questionnaire. Apart from that, publish blog posts and update your Facebook and Twitter with the highlights of your event, so that your attendees have access to the wonderful moments they spent at your event.

The post What Makes A Corporate Event Successful? appeared first on Yapsody.

1. Focus on quality. You have to keep your press release to-the-point, undoubtedly, but that shouldn’t disturb the essence of your article. Normal people are going to read your press release, and it might be the first impression you create in front of them. So, make sure the language you use is publish-worthy and appealing to the readers.
2. Find the sweet spot. Every event has a highlight, a sweet spot, which is responsible for roping in 70-80% of the target audience. Make use of this when you’re writing the headline for the press release. This may be an exclusive speaker, an exquisite venue, or a scrumptious cuisine – you ask around and see what interests people the most about your event.
3. Use bylines. A byline comes right under the headline and is not more than 15 words. The function of a byline is to enhance your press release and bring out a key factor of your event. For example, if your press release is titled “Wildhorse: Next Stop For The Tenors”, your byline could be a little elaboration of the title and could be something like: “The Tenors to continue their Under One Sky tour and perform live at Wildhorse Resort”
4. Cover the 5 W’s. As mentioned earlier, journalists are busy folks and definitely not big fans of long-form. Cut your press release short by addressing the 5 W’s – what, where, when, who, and why – in a nutshell.
5. Back up your body with quotes. Quotes are pretty impressive in press releases, so go ahead and put in words of your guest speakers, past attendees, or other mentions that your event has received elsewhere. This will boost up your event’s identity in front of your readers.
6. In conclusion. The last paragraph of your press release should be very crisp, where you wrap up the story and include contact information about your client and maybe your team as well. Also, put in a few details of what exactly your client does in this paragraph.

If you really want to excel in the art of writing press releases, you can adopt these habits:

1. Read plenty of good newspapers.
2. Refrain from using hyperbolic adjectives.
3. The press release should be written in the third-person format (no ‘I’, ‘We’, ‘You’ etc. unless it’s a quote).
4. Don’t exceed 300 words.
5. You can add a pitch letter along with the highlights of the story.
6. Place three “#”s at the end of the press release, center aligned.

The post 6 Tips To Write An Effective Press Release For Your Event appeared first on Yapsody.

PERSONALIZED DIGITAL MARKETING

After you’ve spent the past few hours browsing evening gowns on online stores, all websites you visit next will have advertisements showcasing discounts on evening gowns at various websites. Co-incidence? Nah! Personalized digital marketing.

As an event presenter, you could also segment your customers based on their past experiences with you or their preferences. Simple things like including their names in the subject lines of email newsletters, or greeting them with a “Welcome Back!” if they’re visiting your page for the second time, these things create a lasting impression and you’re bound to get higher conversion rates.

SIMPLIFIED METRICS

Event presenters practically breathe data and analytics to measure their progress, and to ensure their ways are working. The budget, revenue generated from selling event ticket, attendee reports, and engagement analytics are some of the many figures that are always buzzing at the back of your head. Data collection is not a big task, analyzing and utilizing it is. If you have an event at Yapsody, you can use YapStats to get all the numbers related to your event integrated into a single app, so that analyzing it in a single glance doesn’t sound like an overstatement.

SEEING BEYOND “ASL”

Ever logged on to a stranger chatting website and talked to someone? There are very few people who’d actually be interested in your name or your hobbies, or even greeting you for that matter. The first question they ask you would be – ASL? (short for age, sex, location). It is obviously very cold and unwelcoming, and makes you want to disconnect the very next moment.

This is a common mistake that event organizers need to accept and move on from. Grouping customers based on demographics is NOT in trend now. Every attendee wants to be acknowledged by his identity, his personal interests and goals, and not just a number. Add some personal touch to the way you invite your potential attendees, the way you communicate with them and consider their ideals. This will add definite value to your event as well as your organization.

BEING ‘RESPONSIVE’

While it definitely implies responding to your attendees in as little time as possible, the tech-savvy generation is familiar with the pun attached to the term. Your online content is supposed to be responsive, i.e. it should look good on any device that your attendees may use. Event websites, emails, networking platform, speaker profiles – all should be optimized for viewing on the big as well as small screens. Because the world today is way smarter, ensure that online content pertaining to your event is optimized for smartphones and tabs of all kinds.

USING WORD-OF-MOUTH SERIOUSLY

“But… I’ve always been serious about that!”

Of course, you have. But, there’s always scope for betterment, isn’t it?

Word-of-mouth is the BEST (no amount of bolding, italicizing, or underlining could stress on just how important it is) marketing tool. It is organic, and cannot be faked, but you have to roll out referral programs to actually get it going. When attendees are given the opportunity to earn rewards for simply referring the event to their friends or colleagues, you’re turning them into brand ambassadors. The more brand ambassadors you successfully enable, the more you’re going to be promoted.

DEVOUR TECHNOLOGY

Yes, eat it up till you’re satiated! Almost every task can be automated to save time and increase efficiency. Event managers who are too far ahead in the technical marathon even use drones to capture images that professional photographers are unable to. Further, there are innumerable apps that do most of the updating and calculating business for you without you putting in anything except your login details. Find out technological developments in the event industry and make complete use of them.

SKIP THE SPREADSHEETS

Spreadsheets are huge necessities, and give just as huge headaches when they are color-coded, complex, and multi-tabbed. Maybe you can never entirely get rid of them, but you can definitely skip the part where you have to manually edit them. There are apps that automatically update your list of registrations and separate out attendees based on whether they’ve paid or no, or are returning customers, and many other filters.

OUTSOURCING

Now that we’re talking about getting everything done ‘automatically’, let’s talk about the humans who fill in for these robots that you fancy – freelancers. Often, deadlines aren’t met because a few things were left hanging and weren’t achieved on time, be it a promotional video, or a logo for the event, or a simple blog post. With websites like Fiverr and Taskrabbit, you can get a list of people who’d do these little jobs for you for as less as $5, hence relieving you of the stress that these little pesky pests bring with them.

In conclusion, all the above points focus on one primary thing – personalization. The event organizers who look into the depths of the needs and requirements of their target audience, and try to relate with them on a personal level often find the best solutions and strategies to make things work in their favor. Your ultimate goal should be to create an unforgettable experience that touches the lives of your attendees. Anything that distracts you from this goal can be outsourced.

The post Innovative Event Organizing Measures appeared first on Yapsody.

Neither Yours, Nor Mine

Negotiation skills are the primary traits of a good manager, be it sales, finance, or marketing. You don’t just have to keep the ball in your court; you also have to make sure the person on the other side is happy with the ball being in your court. Though it sounds tough, just keep this in mind – as long as you know how to keep the other person happy, you can have as many balls in your court. Don’t play the game, play the man.

Just a few Dollars Here and There

Unless this is the last event of your life, you have to keep an eye focused on the budget. Of course, cost cutting is important, but it has to be done in the right way. If you mention a platypus and give a duck, it’s acceptable. But, a chicken would be too much.

Do NOT forget about The Price Tag

Quite contrary to what Jessie J might feel, you have to decide upon just the right pricing strategy to sell your event tickets, which can indeed be very tricky. Go through the strategies of some of the previous successful events, and look at how much you’re offering to the attendees. A lot for a little will make you look greedy, and a little for a lot will make your event underrated.

Where is it?

This is something people are going to base their decisions on. Just walking into a venue and deciding upon it because of ‘weird positive vibes’ would be foolishness, even if it’s a place related to your childhood and has priceless memories attached to it (gee, it’s not your wedding! Even if it is, that’s not the best idea). Create a checklist with all your requirements for the venue before you start hunting, and choose the one the scores the most! Also, read the venue contracts carefully before investing (I give the credits to this post-script to the multiple insurance advertisements. Thank you, guys!).

Free Food? I’m in!

Except, it’s not going to be free, right? You’re going to charge your attendees for every service you’re providing at the event, so you’ll have to make sure the services are worth paying for. A happy stomach leads to a happy heart, so if your caterers can’t deliver that, you’re putting a great deal at stake.

This is when You come to Us

Finding the right event ticketing software can be a big pain, because most of the time the ones that are easy-to-use aren’t professional, and the ones that are professional are too complicated. Have no fear, Yapsody is here (alright, that sucks, but you get the point)! Our UI is easy, reliable, packed with features and downright professional. Plus, General Admission events are absolutely FREE! If you wish to get the best of both worlds, Yapsody is your thing.

Because Memories are Priceless

The future of your company depends upon the memories your event gives not just to the attendees, but also to everyone else involved – the sponsors, the speakers, the organizers, the partners – everyone! Their positive feedback is going to reflect on your status in the market, so make sure you’re giving them good reasons to ensure a positive feedback. Right from the beginning to the end, and even after that, you have to keep working to make sure your event was memorable.

The post Event Planning And Management Tips for Events and Startups appeared first on Yapsody.

The post Best Things That Happened in 2015 At Yapsody appeared first on Yapsody.

What kind of Christmas?

As preposterous it sounds, you have to briefly chalk out the kind of Christmas event you want to organize. It could be a small dinner party in a pub or a restaurant, or a shared party night, all depending on the kind of guests you’ll be having, your budget, and of course, your organizing capabilities. If you have a small team, it won’t make sense to join a big party. And if your guests have family commitments, they won’t prefer dancing till the sun comes up, so a lunch would be a great option. Even teaming up for events like a concert event, or ice skating, pose as good ideas. Be sure about the event timings, though, whether it’ll be during daytime, evening, or night.

It’s a Date!

Choosing the right date is extremely important, because a wide range of factors have to be considered – availability of your key clients and team members, availability of venues, the nature of your event, etcetera. At the same time, it has to be as close to Christmas as possible. Select a few potential dates and send them around in your office to see which ones are preferred the most. Weekends aren’t popular for corporate parties, but you can make sure everyone ends up having fun. A weekday would be good, but if the event is going to result in hangovers, you could probably allow your team members to come to work a little later than expected.

Where, exactly?

After choosing a date and setting the per head budget, your next stop is selecting the venue. Again, a wide range of factors have to be considered. If you’re not providing transport, choose a venue that’s close to train or bus stations, and onsite or nearby accommodation would be an added bonus if your guests are planning to stay the night. Find out the catering packages offered by the venues and seal the best deal, but always remember – the best option need not be the cheapest one. To avoid extra decorations, you could replace a conference suite with a quirky venue, like a castle or a boat. Do visit the site and talk to the venue manager to obtain all necessary details so that you get a fair idea of what you’re getting already, and what more is required. Lastly, don’t forget to read the terms of the contract and the charges thoroughly before signing.

A little bit of Sparkle

Because, it’s Christmas! No party can be complete without entertainment (and booze, of course). You could have a costume party, or one with a color theme, to make it interesting for your guests. To get them in the mood, start with some festive arrival drinks like Christmas cocktails or hot mulled wine. Having small gigs to start the party, you could have a wine tasting quiz, or a magician, to get people from different teams to talk to each other. There are plenty of ways to add entertainment to your party – circus acts, bingo, karaoke, murder mystery, comedians – you just need to choose some depending on your budget and time constraints.

Those small little things…

Finally, take care of the finer details. Send out the party invites to all your guests and make sure you’re requesting them for details regarding dietary or other requirements. Using Yapsody, you can have a dedicated page for displaying details of your event and managing your registrations.

Once you receive the RSVPs, work the table plan. Devote some time to figure out who should be seated next to whom, and you could plan a seat swap after every course so that there’s scope for mingling.

Next, draft a full itinerary of your event to make sure nothing goes awry. Include all the little details, the timings, locations, and contact details for everyone who’s involved. Ensure that every supplier has a copy of the itinerary. You can sit back and hope for everything to fall in place, but just in case something goes amiss, make sure the suppliers know whom to contact in case of an emergency.

Lastly, hire a photographer to capture the memories. You can put these pictures up on the Facebook page, company blog and website, and other channels so that everyone has access to the fun moments they were a part of.

Oh, and the bit after the last one, but definitely not the least one – Yapsody wishes you a very Merry Christmas!

The post How To Plan The Perfect Christmas Event appeared first on Yapsody.

Before we move on to the tips, you need to have a clear idea about the key goals of your event. Why exactly are you having this event? Who are your potential attendees? How do you aim to organize the show? What all are you going to bring under the roof of the event? Once you are sure about the answers to these, choose a ticketing service that will fit all your needs. (Forgive me if my sales pitch is too high, but Yapsody, yeah, right over here, offers the most professional ticketing system with free features clubbed with an easy-to-use interface. We’re practically yelling “CHOOSE US!” and believe me, that’s what you should do.)

SELL YOUR EVENT

To answer that question mark on your face, um, no, that’s not exactly what you’re doing. Landing on black and white registration forms is like going up to register for an event and being greeted by a bored, old lady who keeps yawning and has a voice like a drone. Make your landing page exciting and cool, fill it up with the finer details and descriptions of tidbits of your event to get people pumped up for it. Put up content that people will love sharing and talking about, hence spreading the word about your event. Now, that’s how you sell your event, exactly.

IS IT ONLY WORDS?

No, it’s not. The attention span of an average human is close to 8 seconds, and the same average human can’t read more than 2 lines in that much time. So, if you really want to make an impression, use pictures that have the vibes of your event. Don’t try to explain it to them, show them instead.

BEFRIEND THE MOBILE

For if your event pages are not mobile friendly, all your promotional act might just flush down the drain because you’ll get people interested alright, but the moment they’ll try to buy event tickets instantly using their smartphones, the desktop version full of horizontal scrolling and zooming and aiming and choosing the right tab will discourage them. Also, Google favors pages that are optimized for mobile usage, hence giving you a chance to move up in the search results, too!

SOCIAL MEDIA SHARING

It’s while proofreading that I realized this point should’ve been the first one (like it always is in all the blogs). Social media is the place where nobody ever shuts up. So, if you want to get the word out about your event, do it on social media and watch it get viral. And if that’s not enough, there is all sort of cool stuff that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and all these cousins of the Social Media family offer to promote your event for free (mostly).

THE CODE RED

All it translates into is – no coding, web developing, java, php, html, and all that jargon needed. If you use Yapsody to sell your tickets, we provide you with a customized URL for your online ticket store that you can personalize to fit your needs. You don’t have to be a geek to nail that perfect landing page, just find the right people. (Looks like the right people found you, though. *wink*)

The post The Best Ways To Sell Event Tickets Online appeared first on Yapsody.