How to Use Event Planning Tools to Create a Memorable Experience
An event is something that leaves a long-lasting impression on the attendee’s mind. For example, if there is a birthday party, everyone remembers that it was an occasion of celebration and that they had a fun time. This happens only if everything went smoothly and the event was actually memorable.
The key to making an event memorable is ensuring high-level management. Everything needs to be done at the specified time, and all the processes should take place as planned. Now, an event doesn’t necessarily mean a large-scale function. It can even mean something as insignificant as a meeting.
In this post, we will discuss events in the context of business. For example, if you have to plan an interview, what can you do? Our main focus will be some innovative tools that can help you make events memorable because of flawless management.
Setting the Foundation: Understanding the Event’s Objective
Before we introduce you to different strategies or steps to plan events, let us talk about a pre-requisite. So, before you begin the event-planning process, you have to set a goal or an objective that you want to achieve.
Every event has a specific purpose that needs to be achieved. In order to get to this goal, you have to have a clear vision of what is in your mind—only that way can you expect to achieve the objective. So, as a first step, you should understand your goals and objectives.
Once you have a clear understanding of this, you can start devising strategies on how to handle different things. Now, we will first show you some relevant tools for event planning. After that, we will show you various techniques to apply.
Overview of Popular Event Planning Tools
There are different aspects of an event that require managing. Here, we have created a list that covers all such major aspects. We won’t just show you the tools but also show you how to perform all these tasks in the upcoming sections of the article.
- Event management software: Eventbrite, Cvent, etc.
- Collaboration tools: Trello, Slack, Asana, etc.
- Design tools: Canva, Adobe Suite, Imagetotext, etc.
- Feedback and survey tools: SurveyMonkey, Typeform, etc.
These are all the steps that you will have to take when planning important events, regardless of whether they are business-related or other events.
How to Plan Events to Create a Memorable Experience
In the following headings, we will cover all types of tools that are given in the section above. Let’s dive in.
- Budgeting and Financial Planning
Almost every type of event requires financial planning. For example, if you are hosting a corporate dinner, you will have to calculate the cost of food, venue, and other things beforehand. This will give you an estimate of how much finance you require.
Based on this information, you can understand whether you are short on money or can spend a bit more. That aside, managing these finances can be a bit tricky. Using a pen and paper for managing expenses is not a viable option anymore.
You need to use certain tools and technologies to simplify this process for you. Online tools such as Eventbrite can be a useful option in this regard. It does not only help you finance your event but also assists in various other things as well.
- Selecting the Perfect Venue
We mentioned that the venue is one of the things for which you have to calculate the costs. This means that the venue is an important part of an event. The thing is that every event requires a different type of venue. For example, if it’s a professional meeting, then a room with neutral colors and minimal decor would be appropriate.
However, if the event under discussion is something like a casual get-together, then a hall with vibrant theme and decorations would be a better pick. Even in this process of choosing a venue for your event, you can use various online tools.
For example, Cvent is a platform that aids its users in finding the perfect venue for their audience. And not just that, you can also market and manage your event through this. So, this tool is sort of a jack of all trades but is particularly useful in venue search and selection.
- Designing and Engaging the Invitations or Promotions
Events are of two types. One is where you invite specific people. Another is where you promote the event so that random people come and attend it. In both cases, proper marketing is important.
When crafting invitations or promotions for an event, it’s crucial to strike the right balance between design and engagement. A modern tool that has emerged to enhance this process is the Image to text converter. This technology can be seamlessly incorporated into the design phase for various benefits:
- Personalized Content: Planners can extract memorable quotes or comments by converting images from previous events into Text. This data can then be infused into new invitations, giving them a touch of nostalgia and personalization.
- Enhanced Accessibility: Invitations can be made more inclusive. Image to Text ensures any textual content within graphics or designs is accessible to all, especially those with visual impairments.
- Innovative Engagement: Organizers can introduce interactive elements. For example, attendees could be prompted to share an image, and the extracted text might reveal a special code or message for the event.
- Scheduling and Time Management
Time management is a highly important factor to consider in any type of event. If you can’t perform certain tasks on the promised time, everyone will greatly dislike your event. So, ensure that everything happens in a timely manner.
Both big-scale and small-scale events usually have a series of sub-events that eventually lead up to something. Because of this, time management becomes a huge issue. That’s the reason you should use time management tools to keep you ahead of your game.
Time management tools are highly effective as most of their processes are automated. This makes the need for human interaction minimal. You can produce maximum output with minimum effort. These tools will keep the schedule of your event according to plan. A good example is Slack.
- Collaborative Planning
As the Japanese author Ryunosuke Sotaro says,
Individually, we are a drop; together, we are an ocean.
This means that if you try to do everything by yourself, you probably won’t be successful. That’s why you should always collaborate with others. This has even more significance in event management. As you can see, we have shown you different planning steps. A single person can’t possibly do all this. So, you have to make teams.
In order to efficiently manage such a team, you have to take assistance from relevant software or tools. For example, Trello is a communication platform that allows you to collaborate with other people on various projects. These types of tools make your teamwork at maximum efficiency.
You can use them to communicate various messages or conduct special meetings.
- Engage Attendee’s During the Event
Since our goal is to make the event memorable for everyone, this step is indispensable. Apart from the parts of your event, you also have to engage with people. This way, they will know that you care about your attendees.
This also contributes to making an event memorable. However, this step is not something you do with the help of technology. You should attend to every participant of the event personally to make them feel comfortable and remember this event for a long time.
- Gathering Feedback and Continuous Improvement
Sometimes, you might think that you did a great job of hosting an event, but that might not be really the case. That’s why you should get reviews from the people present at the event and urge them to be honest. This way, you might get some insight into what you did wrong.
But this step is done by taking in-person reviews. This is not possible for large-scale events. That’s why a more effective approach is to use a review or feedback tool such as Survey Monkey. This is an automatic way of collecting reviews and insightful feedback from your guests and improving your event management for the future.
Conclusion
The requirements for making an event memorable are all explained above. But implementing them is the real deal. You can read as many posts as possible and watch many tutorials, but you won’t actually get the hang of it until you actually do it.
So, study the above-given techniques carefully and apply them to the next event that you have to manage. If you follow our instructions, you can make your event a highly memorable experience for everyone.
About the Author / Ana Almeida
