Get Started on 2017 With Our Event Strategy Template

As the year winds down, there’s a good chance that the only event you want to think about right now is the staff Christmas party. However, whether you’re running events through Summer or getting ready for a much-needed break, December/January are great months to conduct a full audit of 2016 to start next year on the front foot.

To help, we’ve created a free, one-page event strategy template for starting your 2017 event plan. Fill out the form on the right to download.

Taking the time out to meet with the whole team will help you to reconnect, set goals and plan your tactical execution for the year ahead. This is essential for any event professional wanting to build on successes, avoid repeating mistakes, and ensure your whole team is on the same page when making decisions.

5 steps to the perfect year-end review for event professionals

1. Conduct a review of 2016

Was 2016 a successful year? The first thing you should do is look back on the year and consider what was a success. Whether it’s reaching attendee numbers, saving money on a venue, or providing stellar customer service, make sure everyone in the team finds at least one achievement they’re proud of. Celebrate achievements as a team and see how they can be catalogued as best practice, to be repeated and improved upon next year.

Of course, no event is perfect. After celebrating successes, consider what could be improved. This should focus on processes, rather than people/performance. How can mistakes be avoided, processes improved and which tactics simply didn’t work as well as you had hoped?

The third item to focus on is your return on investment. Think about efficiency – of time and resources. Has something produced good results, but taken an inordinate amount of effort to achieve? Is it really worth doing again? This is where looking at ROI can really help you prioritise better, above looking only at absolute results.

2. Reconnect with your event mission and attendee demographics

The next stage of the review moves up from tactics and processes to one of values and strategy. Here you should look at two critical components:

Mission: Take the time to remind yourself and your team about why you do what you do. Having a clear mission or purpose invigorates everyone, makes the day-to-day grind worthwhile, and helps get us through tough spots.

Attendees: Who is your customer and why do they come to your events? Now is a great time to really think about your target market and how well you know them. If you have been collecting demographic data through 2016, review your results based on the audience you have been targeting. Has it shifted? Re-evaluate your ideal customers for the year ahead.

If you haven’t been collecting data to date, now is the time to start! Consider what data will be most useful to you. It could be age and location data, or if your event is information-based you could look at what their biggest challenges are or what they hope to learn from your event.

3. Develop an event strategy for 2017

Now you’ve looked back, it’s time to take those reflections and start looking forward to 2017. This time we start at the top: your strategy. Let’s break it into four parts.

Customer Needs: All good strategy needs to start with the attendee and how your event meets their needs. What does your event provide they can’t get elsewhere? If you overheard your customer trying to describe your event(s) to a friend, what would you want to hear them say about you or that event? Your strategy should then be to create a company and event that would match their description.

Company Needs: While it’s top priority to cater to your customer, you can’t forget about your own needs either! What do you care about? Is it growth and profit, brand awareness, connecting your community or support for a cause?

Metrics: Once you’ve answered the above two questions, you need to put in place metrics that keep everyone focused on your agreed strategy. For example if you care about growth, maybe you’ll focus on month-on-month ticket sales and not talk much about cost. If you care about profit, cost-per-acquisition may be much more important.

Further reading: Operation: High Growth — an action plan for scaling your event

4. Establish goals

Everyone needs something to aim for! So it’s time to agree on some goals.

When setting goals, it’s a good idea to break ideas down into small chunks or set milestones, so you can see incremental progress or correct the course if progress isn’t there, before it’s too late.

You’ve probably heard of SMART goals before: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound. All goals (even big, ambitious stretch goals) should be SMART, so you don’t chase the wrong things, or set everyone up to fail.

For example “attract more attendees” or “increase profits” is not specific or measurable. “Increase attendance by 25%” or setting revenue targets however, are.

Further reading: How to make realistic financial projections for your event

5. Create an actionable plan

Last but certainly not least, you need to turn all of your brainstorming and ideas into an actionable plan. How will you execute your strategy and achieve your goals? What processes and workflows are to be put in place?

Now is also the time to consider if you have the right resources to be successful, to determine whether it’s time to hire assistance/upskill staff or implement new technology.

Got all that? Great — You’re probably all set for the best year yet! Time to crack open the champagne and celebrate…

To help get all of this information on a single page that everyone can refer to, download Eventbrite’s One Page Event Plan, which helps everyone in the team stay on the same page (literally!) when they’re at their desk.