Canceled events. Slashed budgets. Lower attendance. These are the issues that event planners are facing as they look forward to 2009.
The economic problems are real, but there are solutions for meeting planners. We took some time this month to look around the industry to see what top event planners are doing to cope with the economic crunch, and what we found was surprisingly optimistic.
“It really comes down to keeping smart business practices and having great customer service,” said Carol Wilke, owner of Global Meeting Planners.
A survey from the Religious Management Association mirrors Wilke’s sentiments, showing that 58% of meeting planners are pumping up their marketing efforts to attract more attendees. Another 27% said they would downgrade their catering options. Meanwhile, only 32% said they are cutting events or programs.
Still, major corporations are canceling events. In fact, AIG recently announced that it was cutting hundreds of events in December. The events that are going on as planned are reporting up to 60% less attendance.
As a meeting planner, you’re faced with two challenges: Increasing attendance and reducing cost.
The question is where do you start?
We asked other event planners what they were doing, and here are the results…
Two Great Ways to Attract More Attendees.
Send Email: Many meeting planners are turning to email marketing to boost attendance at their events. If done right, email can perform better than direct mail – for a fraction of the cost. Most successful marketers send a series of emails leading up to an event. The frequency that you send emails should be based on the response of your audience, but in general, an email every week for four weeks is a good approach. Try to keep emails personal and relevant. One way to accomplish this is to send different emails to different segments of your audience. For example, you might want to send your members a different version than your non-members, tying the message into something they feel is personal to their member status.
Get Social: The best way to attract people to your events is through word-of-mouth. People are much more likely to respond to someone they know and trust than an advertisement. Plus, word-of-mouth advertising is free. If you want to spread the word for your events look into the event functions on social networking sites like Facebook.com or LinkedIn.com. These sites allow you to connect with thousands of people through networks of people you already know. You can even create a fan page for your event on Facebook to increase your exposure, and it’s all free.
Three Great Ways to Cut Costs
Meet Online: Many event organizers are taking internal meetings to the internet, using web conferencing software to bring people together for virtual events. Not only do web-based meetings save you time and money on things like travel, catering and room rentals, but these virtual events make life easier for your attendees as well. Most event technology companies tie in to virtual meeting providers like ReadyTalk and WebEx so you can register and manage your attendees the same way you do today while still holding your event online for a fraction of the cost.
Know What You Eat: Many event planners think cutting the catering budget means cutting quality. That’s not always true. Take a deeper look at your catering options. Sometimes things like bulk condiments and buffet food can save you important cash. While most event planners will quickly point out that going with “cheap” food is not a good option, they will tell you that there is wiggle room in every catering budget and small changes can yield big results.
Go Automatic: One of the biggest expenses in any event is the labor hours it takes to register, coordinate and communicate to your attendees. Most event planners spend too much time on things like collecting payments, sending event reminders and conducting registration updates. By fully utilizing an attendee management system, like RegOnline, you can reduce workload on these tasks by up to 75%. That reduced workload allows you to take on more projects with less people, dramatically improving performance while slashing a big cost center.
With the economy on the decline, event planners will continue to experience business challenges. That just means your role is more important than ever. Take the initiative now to do things that will make you look like a hero in 2009.
Feeling the economic crunch?
Tell us what you’re doing to react to the changing economy by sending us an email: jrussell@regonline.com