Setting targets for your event

Posted by writer | Building reputation and credibility »

Set your targets first

I see a lot of people make the mistake of planning their launches or events without looking at the end goal first. I’d say, reverse the cycle. It’s important to set your event’s goals and targets before diving into the sea of planning and promoting it. Every such activity has to benefit your business in some way or another; whether in terms of increase in bottom-line, increase in brand value, greater outreach, more hype, more profits or more sales. All of these are good business objectives, but you need to narrow them down to one or two objectives. These goals set the stage for everything that follows. So always make sure that you get this right.

Measure the end-results - were the targets achieved?

Measuring increases in sales or profits is relatively easy to calculate, so I won’t get into that detail right now.

However, some targets are qualitative in nature and cannot be directly calculated. For example, if the purpose of your event is to build brand recognition; then measuring the success of the event goes through a different process. You may want to hold on-site surveys to gauge how your audience feels about the activity and brand. The survey will help you decide whether you planned the right activity to meet your branding objectives and whether the event is affecting the audience’s affinity.

A few tips for online surveys are to approach the people in a friendly manner without bribing them with gifts - lest you want skewed results. Start with simple ice-breaking questions (e.g. about parking) before moving on to the actual survey. Make sure that you place the open ended questions at the end and ask for their names and contact info for follow-up surveys.

These surveys should help give you a better understanding of the impact your event had and how you can plan other subsequent activities accordingly.

Summary:

Everything that you do is business. If your activities are not helping your business grow, then there is some missing element in your planning. Setting your targets and goals from these activities helps put your team on the same page. You should never deviate from the target and should use it as a baseline touch-point for all decisions. This is important for making the most out of your events. Your events should be followed by ROI calculations to see if those targets were met. So the next time you are planning, put on your business cap and think objectively.


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| Pre-launch


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