The Ultimate Guide to Event Strategy

If you’ve planned an event before, you’ll know that there are many different moving parts and people to organise. 

When you get it right, the reward is high. Unlike other marketing activations, which may only reach one or two touchpoints, events allow you to engage at every stage of the marketing funnel, from awareness to conversion. You can tap into new audiences, build trust, generate leads, and make sales, all through just one platform. 

With the value that events hold, event strategy should never be an afterthought. Instead, it should shape and direct the project from the get-go. In this guide, we share everything you need to know about event strategy, including why it matters and how to develop one.

Event strategies are the foundation that underpin any successful event. It is the planning that shapes decisions regarding the budget, event promotion, and staffing made in the event’s build-up and execution.

Whether your business plans to attend a trade fair, attend a conference, or host a fundraiser, an event strategy is vital. This stage of planning allows you to carefully allocate resources and responsibilities as well as define clear parameters for event planning. Without this, there would be no direction to the event.

Event strategies should offer a comprehensive overview of the event, including the who, what, why and where of the planning. Key components include:

• Goals & Objectives
• Target Audience
• Theme & Messaging
• Budget & Resources
• Logistics & Platform
• Marketing & Promotion
• Engagement & Experience
• Measurement & Follow-Up
• Team Alignment

In this stage of the guide, we help you develop your own event strategy.

Often, what you want to achieve through your event will directly inform the strategy. Before forming a plan, think about the following questions:

• What would you like to achieve?
• Who is your audience?
• What do you need to meet your goals?
• How will you measure success?

Here are some of the most popular reasons for incorporating events into marketing strategies.

Events are often used for fundraising, with businesses partnering and rallying together to raise money.

Best Events – Charity Walks, Partner Events, Parties

One important decision to make is whether to participate in an event or host one.

Hosting events gives a blank canvas to curate an experience that suits your goals. However, it usually requires a much greater investment of time and money.

• You are entirely responsible for the event’s success
• Compared to sponsoring, it takes more time, money and manpower
• Often fewer attendees than at sponsored events
• Typically, a narrower audience, as you don’t gain the same cross-pollination as you do in a trade show

Some of the best event calendars employ a combined approach, gaining greater exposure at trade fairs while building more meaningful connections at their own hosted events.

When it comes to budgets, there is a lot of advice online, suggesting 35/40% for your stand, 35% for the venue and on-site services, 5-10% for staff expenses, 5% for promotional materials and a contingency budget for unforeseen costs.  While this can be a useful guideline, your actual costs will very much depend on your goals and strategy.

For example, if you’ve paid to collaborate with Ferrari and you’re promoting via a vehicle, then positioning in the hall and visibility might be a higher priority than the exhibition stand, as it is the vehicle that is primarily responsible for generating interest. In this case, your venue and collaboration costs are likely to be higher than the stand.

As another example, one business might be hunting for a distributor for a range of cards. For this company, on the hunt for a distributor, it might be more important to invest the budget in an impressive stand that strategically showcases all projects, rather than the positioning in the hall.

In essence, what you want to achieve and how you go about doing it will directly influence how you allocate your budget.

Click here for our free budgeting template.

Once you know your budget and goals for what you would like to achieve, then you’re at the perfect point to find someone who can help you to achieve it!

Event promotion is a core part of any event strategy, as your goals, objectives and target audience should directly influence how you go about raising awareness and spreading the word.

For successful event promotion, you should consider your target audience, age demographic and the type of platforms they will use.

For the broadest reach, target a range of different platforms and incorporate various media types. Just make sure that tone and branding are cohesive across all.

Target a range of different platforms and ideally different media types to broaden your reach.

The bit we all love and look forward to – freebies! This part of the event strategy is a common favourite, and there’s no surprise why. It’s an exciting part of expressing your brand and improving recall.

It is easy to spot a good freebie. They’re often that bit cooler, more unique or even more useful than others, and so, people want to hold onto them! If you’re wondering whether to invest in your freebies, consider how long you want people to keep them and the value that you will gain from them doing so.

Strong event strategies are the key to the successful and smooth handling of any event, from the planning before, to the eventual follow-ups afterwards. They define your audience, budgets, goals and objectives so that you can give direction to every part of the event planning process.

If you’re beginning to plan your event and would like to explore exhibition stand options, get in touch with our expert design consultants. Email design@quadrant2design.com or call us on 01202 723 500 for a free, no-obligation design proposal.