4 essential steps to create an effective event strategy

Making an event “worth it” should be every event strategist’s top priority. Events can ask a lot of participants’ time, but when done well they have several benefits. Creating a strong event strategy is the best way to ensure attendees arrive excited and leave feeling enriched.

Creating an event strategy

With your wide range of event responsibilities, it’s hard to know where to start. You already have to balance business objectives, partner goals, attendee expectations, budget, site sustainability and justifying the investment to decision-makers. It’s a lot. That’s why I’ve gathered the four essential steps you need to build an event strategy.

1. Use collective input to define the “why”

Event design starts with purposeful conversations that gives you information on how to make your event stronger. Proactively seek perspectives from across the organization (including leadership, sales, marketing, HR and event sponsors) to outline the business purpose for holding the event. Working from a shared understanding of goals, outcomes and success metrics from the beginning simplifies evaluation down the road. Because everyone’s been brought into and bought into the process, there’s shared accountability for the event’s success. 

Tap into attendee motivations, too. Meet their expectations by identifying your audiences, understanding what they value and how they connect to your brand. Your event “why” should incorporate what you want them to think, feel and do as attendees and the key messages you want them to walk away with.

Your event strategy should align every aspect of the experience with your business, brand and audience. This vision guides all decisions toward the agreed-upon goals.  

2. Map the attendee journey to impact moments 

When you translate the event vision into a road map of attendee milestones, you can tie opportunities with outcomes. Let’s imagine, for instance, you’re hosting a conference to create a network of brand advocates. If you want attendees to leave with more knowledge and resources to increase sales, develop a journey that promotes the idea “knowledge is power.”

• Incorporate hands-on collaborative experiences
• Supercharge engagement through immersive breakout sessions, like a trivia activation
• Host networking sessions for top performers to cross-share strategies
  

Every choice, from the theme to location, format, evening events, food and beverage, activations and speakers, is part of a series of strategic decisions to advance your goal. 

For another example, let’s say an organization recently finalized a merger. The focus should be on helping attendees feel on board with changes and confident in the company’s future. In that case, your road map could reinforce the power of change. Feature a speaker with a compelling story about how changing their perspective helped them succeed. Add a give-back opportunity to the agenda so attendees can enjoy team building while making a positive impact on the community.

Related: Collect the right data to design the ideal attendee journey  

3. Connect communications to touchpoints 

Layering personalized communications on top of your attendee journey sends a strong message. Take an omnichannel approach with an optimized event website, teaser communication and gifts, video highlight reels, and more. Don’t forget a social strategy that engages speakers and sponsors—especially before registration starts. They can amplify your message and inspire early-bird registration.  

Timely communications that share value and build excitement set the tone. Fostering pre-event attendee engagement with an event app is a great way to encourage user-generated content that extends your reach with the right audiences. Think about providing promotional toolkits to sponsors and sending post-event recaps highlighting points you want to drive home. The more shareable, the better.

Related: How to hook attendees early with event registration incentives

4. Plan meaningful event measurement

Early on, seek agreement on how you’ll measure success. Refer to the event objectives and road map. Attendance numbers are a common metric, but strategic KPIs tie more closely to what you want your attendees to think, feel and do.

Let’s return to the example where you’re building a network of brand advocates through a conference experience.

Are you using AI to track real-time sentiment during the event?

• How many hits, shares, impressions and/or mentions do you want to achieve from this group?
  • If you give them access to tools to create great on-site content, could you grow this number?
• What about tracking post-event sales ties to partner referral codes or conference-related growth in your online user community?
  

A strategic approach lets you effectively measure desired outcomes through attendee behavior changes. This informs other program elements, elevating the attendee experience and course-correcting content to meet attendees’ specific needs.

Related: Prove your event ROI: 8 overlooked metrics to improve event measurement

Embrace your role as an event strategist

Take time to set event strategy and you won’t have to wonder if your event was “worth it.” You’ll have the attendee feedback on what topics and breakouts resonated most, and hard data that proves bottom-line business results.

Learn how to make the most impact possible. Download our comprehensive guide to event strategy.