Women's Network February 2019 | Page 58

YOU CAN HAVE YOUR event AND E vent planning is one of those things that can polarise a community. You either think it’s easy, fun and sociable, and totally within anyone’s skill set – or just the thought of trying to put something like that together fills you with dread and you can’t even fathom trying to plan something so complex. This year, says Sally Porteous, she’s going to show how ‘you can have your event and plan it too’. Through a series of articles and blogs, she is going to share lots of ideas, processes and techniques that will take people from whichever end of the spectrum they sit, and give them the skills to personally get it together again. 58 Women’s Network Magazine plan it too The benefits of including events as part of a marketing mix, is that ultimately in business development and sales, getting a meeting with the decision maker is key, so they can make a decision on the product or service. People buy from people they like and as people love attending events, these events are a great opportunity for your customers to get to know a person and the team. The aim is to ultimately have them like you and therefore buy from you. This leads her to encourage you to ensure that you have thought very carefully about the purpose of your event. You must articulate this in a succinct message. This will help you keep on track, particularly if you are working with a committee or board and someone wants to bring in activities that don’t enhance the guest experience, and moves the audience away from what you are trying to achieve. This can actually put your event at risk. An Event Brief is the ultimate measuring stick. Let’s say you want to produce a fundraising gala dinner and obviously, the purpose is to raise funds. But you’re an introvert and are finding it difficult to be heard on the committee. So far someone has railroaded the committee into an expensive venue, a paid social media campaign on the wrong platform, an expensive high profile MC and now they want to engage an auction house to run the