Designing events - its all about the creativity

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Planning events is just like designing. That is why whenever I have to pick someone for my team I look for those that have a good mental balance. Let me explain: The most ideal team members so far have been people who are meticulous planners (left brained) and highly creative (right brained) at the same time. This may sound a little too idealistic but its not. You can even get intelligent people and train them with mental exercises or activities to use both sides of their brains.

Planning events or businesses requires creativity. You need to find new ways of targeting customers, new ways of promoting events, new ways of building communities, new ways of planning themes. Everything works at a fast pace these days, which puts the customer expectation bars high. You can only expect to meet those bars if you can differentiate your services and products significantly and manage to stand out from the crowd.

So, instead of looking for best practices or easy way outs, take time out to design your events as if they were a painting. Paint out new ways of blending all of the different elements together to make picturesque memories.

Each event is a brand - Part II

Posted by writer

This post is a sequel to my previous rant on the importance of building your event’s brand story. This topic is so important that I can’t stress it enough. A lot of people still don’t ‘get it’, so I thought I’d discuss it in a little more detail.

I see this mistake over and over again: People think that when they’re doing a launch the story is about them. They are WRONG! The story is always about their PROSPECTS.

This is something you have to get right. I’m going to walk you through the process of getting to your prospect’s story and tying it with your launch story.

I’m sure that this probably sounds all hippy-groovy granola right? Trust me it’s not - this is critical stuff and it’s all about creating a crushing event launch for you. In fact, this could even be the single leverage point that changes everything.

The first step is to truly understand the value of your product or service. This will involve answering questions like… “is it really useful?”, “who can benefit from it most?”, “how is it different from other options that already exist?”.

Next, based on the value, imagine the ideal prospect that can benefit most from your product or service. Marketing folks also call this step “brand personification” - but the idea is simple. If the brand of your product or service was a person, what would he/she look like and how would he/she feel. Understanding your market is key to being able to communicate with them effectively. Put yourself in their shoes.

Once you understand your ideal prospect’s story, link that story to your brand’s story so that its a perfect fit and see the magic happen.