Every decent event planner must have a whole array of skills. Got to be good at sales, be very marketing minded, brand aware, very organised, store lots of information for quick retrieval from the mental database, calm under pressure, problem solving and the list goes on. Multitasking mayhem, and not to be taken lightly, definitely not a job for a man, some of my female colleagues would say.
So what is this hidden secret? The best event planners use all of these skills AFTER the event. Suppose you could call it “Post-Event Planning” which is a paradox and a half. Just because the event is over, the job hasn’t quite finished.
So how does a good event planner get better? Here’s how...they carry out post event feedback, simple! Not just comment cards or asking for the odd anecdotal quip, but measuring the performance of the event thoroughly. A real valuable insight as to how every facet of the event was perceived by the customer.
Here are the things to consider when doing post event research:
Do it online! – which is easier? Piles of paper or cards, or a easy to configure excel chart? Easier time-wise and skills wise. No brainer. All data is there for you instantly, and already aggregated, and it can be passed quickly to stakeholders and clients with ease. It does away with manual intervention, someone has to collect the comments (who might well have a bonus based on those very scores) and someone has to plough through them. There are plenty of online survey tools available to make this happen for you.
Do it as soon as possible – The largest hotel chain in the UK instigated a group wide guest satisfaction program across over 450 hotel sites in 2006. Three months into year the long program they had started to instigate a number of changes, some small details, some major undertakings. As part of the team that worked on this, the biggest most significant factor in gaining business intelligence from this was the timing of the survey, with the survey arriving in the customers inbox the day after the stay. The surveys answered the day after the hotel stay were more insightful and detailed, with cleaner data than those answered 2-3 days later. Be quick with this, while the event is fresh in their minds, you get the richest data this way.
Learn something new – Most companies allocate their marketing budget once a year. Marketing managers spend this budget in their heads within 3 mins of learning the amount they have (made-up statistic!). That's it, they know where its going. By doing post-event feedback, a happy side effect is that if you get to profile your customer base to a greater degree. You might find that the most satisfied customer to one of your events might be the ageing hippy regaling you with tales from Woodstock, as opposed to the SATC generation. What were the key drivers for you getting the business in the first place? This is where research makes your head spin. Have you already used 3 minutes spending your whole marketing budget targeting the wrong demographic, uh-oh!
Make the changes – So you know who to target, how to target them and where they hang out (virtually). Take the learnings from your customers, listen to them, treat them like your advisers, and accommodate them next time. Always keep one eye on the long term!
So that's the secret to going from a good event planner to an excellent one, just the fact that the planning for the next event starts when the last person leaves your current event. One merges into the other and makes it easier for your business to evolve.
Crunch
p.s. there is another secret, post event research the most underused sales and marketing tool in the toolbox, more on that in a another blog.
