With a background in event management, I would like to say that the organising and planning of events comes easily, but the truth is, it still comes with its challenges.

Although each event can vary from one to the next, the fundamentals remain the same and so once you have a process in place to follow, it should help to make the planning process and execution run seamlessly. Whether we are talking about your next open evening, a trade show that you’re exhibiting at, or even your team Christmas party, here are some helpful tips to take the stress out of the process.

1. Planning

First things first, you need to identify what event you’re looking to host, and what its key purpose is. Without these ironed out from the beginning, you could find yourself going round in circles, not knowing what needs to be done, because you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve.

My top tip would be to start a Google Sheets document to help you kick things off. This should detail:

• What is the event? What will it be called?
• Who will be invited to attend? What numbers are you looking to achieve?
• When and where will it be held?
• Who is in charge of the planning responsibilities?

With these details in place it gives you the foundations to get the planning off the ground and enables you to start taking action.

I would always recommend a digital document, over a notebook or spare piece of paper, as it means there is a template to follow for any other events that you have to organise in the future, and there is minimal risk of losing all of your hard work. It’s useful if it can be shareable too so you can collaborate when needed.

2. Taking action

This is where your master plan starts coming together and you begin pinpointing the individual tasks needed to contribute towards the execution of your event. For this step, I suggest adding a tick sheet to an additional tab in your Google Sheets document. I am personally a big lover of tick lists as it clearly shows what has been done, and what is yet to be completed, so there is no room for misinterpretation.

Spend some time listing all of the possible tasks needed for this specific event. Then ensure that the right amount of time is dedicated to completing the tasks to the correct standard.

On this list, you should start looking at:

• Is the venue booked and secured for the time and date needed? (E.g. are appointment slots closed out in the practice diary, to prevent appointments and your opening evening from conflicting?)
• Confirm the attendance of those who will need to be working the event (dentists/ hygienists to run consultations, reception staff, etc.)
• Marketing plan (when will marketing commence? What marketing channels will be used?)
• Is there anything that needs to be ordered? (E.g. goodie bags, food and drink)
• Finalise the content of the event with the team working the event, so that they are fully aware and can communicate these details with the attendees.
• Create an event schedule and send it to attendees leading up to the event to remind them of what time to arrive, and what to expect.

3. Communicating

When holding an event, it often involves more than one person in the planning process and execution. As a result of this, it is extremely important that all people involved are kept informed throughout the planning process to ensure that the event’s success is optimised.

I highly recommend that in the lead up to the event you schedule regular meetings with those involved. In these you can use your ‘taking action list’ as your meeting agenda to update people on those tasks completed and yet to be completed. By running through this list, it sets dedicated time to think about the event and gives others the opportunity to suggest tasks that you hadn’t yet thought of. The advantage of having everyone involved in these regular meetings is that it reduces the chances of key tasks being forgotten about, and you can also utilise the time to get any decisions agreed in a timely manner.

Then, when your event is just around the corner and you hold the final preparation meeting with the dedicated team involved, nothing comes as a surprise to them, they all know what to expect on the day and what their key responsibilities are. In this meeting you can do one final run through to make sure that everything is as it needs to be and everyone is on the same page.

4. Event tidy up

Your event has taken place, all went well, and it’s deemed a great success. But it can’t end there. You may be thinking ‘yes, of course we will tidy the practice waiting area and get rid of any leftover food’, but that’s not it.

The ‘tidy up’ process is equally as important as the preparation process as this is the make or break as to whether it was worth doing at all, and whether it’s something that you should consider doing again. The two key parts in the event tidy up are:

Number one: following up with your leads.
For argument’s sake, let’s say you have 30 people attend your opening evening, with a handful of those booking a further consultation on the evening, and a few others expressing loose interest in booking one when they have their diary in front of them. If you let them all head out of the door and you don’t follow up with them in the days after the event, you are more than likely not going to see any of them again. Those who had appointments will probably forget and those who were interested in getting something booked in will forget to check their diary and continue with day to day life.

By simply sending those with scheduled appointments an email confirmation, and reminders of their upcoming appointment, you significantly improve that percentage of them attending the consultation and will likely see a further sale as a result.

By emailing and calling the other attendees (be those ones who expressed interest, or not as much) you are also going to significantly increase your chances of getting more consultations attended and therefore increase your sales. After all, wasn’t that the point in hosting the event in the first place?

Number two: the reflection.
Before moving onto the next event, it is really important to reflect on the successes and failures of the event as a whole. To do this, I recommend holding a meeting as soon after the event as possible. Here, the dedicated event team can provide their views of how they felt the planning and execution of the event went, and what they feel could be improved for next time around.

This feedback should not only be recognised, but also implemented so that the next time around your event has even bigger and better success.

Your reflection should also include reporting on the data, as this will aid your decision as to whether it was an event worth doing again in the future. This report should include:

• Number of leads that attended
• Number of consultations booked as a result
• Sales figure made
• Cost to run the event

Once you have the figures in front of you, it should be clear to see if your event was an overriding success to be done again, or if you need to re-evaluate if or how you look to do it again in the future.

It goes without saying, you are likely going to be looking at these figures for a few months following as the conversion time isn’t always going to be immediate and so you may need to leave it a few months before you can come to a final conclusion.

If you need any guidance organising your next open evening, or even how to evaluate the success of an event you’ve held, then please do get in touch.