because theyre used to it. including sales and how much youve made from each ticket type, promotional code usage, attendee geography (by IP address), and merchandise sales. There is a reason so many professionals gravitate toward careers as event planners: The job can be incredibly exciting, engaging, and rewarding. Well start with the steps to setting goals for an event, and then well give you a few examples of great event goals for a bit of inspiration. You want to set performance goals based on relevant deliverables with clear deadlines while keeping in mind Hofstadters Law. Its simply a case of being organised and systematic in your approach, listening (at least) as much as you talk, and always looking for ways to improve. 5. Copyright 2022 Cvent Inc.All rights reserved. Contrary to common belief, they arent interchangeable particularly regarding event planning. This will include the caterers, decorators, keynote speakers, and anybody else of relevance.. S: This goal is specific: to increase breaks between various activities from 10 to 15 minutes to encourage more networking, relaxation, and socialization time. Top-performing organizations constantly focus on the future and train or hire to ensure they have the right people to execute the strategy of tomorrow. Heres how you should go about setting those SMART goals: Be as clear as possible when defining what you want to do by thinking about the aims and objectives of an event. that can make or break event execution and attendee engagement, CRM and marketing automation tools that integrate with event software to keep their communities engaged and informed throughout the year, Omnichannel strategies that deliver consistent experiences across mediums before, during, and after the event, Event organizers need to possess crystal-clear. Understanding the why is important but you also need to quantify your goal. Avoid openly criticizing team members, provide feedback privately. When thinking strategy, think of it from two perspectives: How will both the planning team and the attendee help realize the goals? T: This goal is timely, as it implements an RSVP system for your next event. Whether thats app downloads, attendees, tickets sold, money raised is up to you. each day. Performance Goals for Event Planners Here are a few examples of the types of areas you could build your performance goals around. Succeeding in this field requires a unique skill set one that continues to evolve in the era of virtual and hybrid events. Participate in the implementation of diversity initiatives. Set the right tone for the year ahead with goals that drive business results and enable employees to be successful. S: This goal is specific: to increase staff by 20% to ensure you have at least one staff member for every 50 guests and have 5 additional staff on call if more people show up than expected. Remember that if all else fails, technology often has your back. Because they are one of the few industry events of its kind, networking is the #1 priority for most attendees. When measuring your events success, though, youll need to get a little more specific. Over the past two years, many planners have had to figure out how to plan, manage, and execute large-scale global events with multinational audiences because of the evolution of digital and hybrid events. I will also have an extra 5 staff on call to account for 250 unforeseen attendees. Create a course of action for projects without supervision. By measuring the KPIs of your event, you can check how high your return on investment (ROI) is and to what extent your previously defined goals have been achieved . For example, if 100 people visited your sales page and 10 of them bought your product. Avoid team tension by maintaining a positive attitude. R: This goal is relevant to the success of an event: You need to know how many people are coming to accurately plan for an event. With so many different responsibilities to juggle, event planners must be able to tackle the smallest of details while never losing sight of the big picture or the budget. Consider setting additional performance goals that include other relevant metrics, such as open and click-through rates, to balance the incentives. S: This goal is specific: to ensure optimal communication and organization so that the event goes to plan. At the end of each event, they analyze post-event reporting to assess what worked and what didnt and use those learnings to guide future planning. To stay ahead, its vital to keep your finger on the pulse of industry trends. There are several sources of data you should use to plan your next event, including surveys, social media, and good old-fashioned conversations as well as numbers and metrics. As part of their performance measurement, great event planners ask for feedback from their attendees, participants, and stakeholders utilising specialist tools. Why are you inviting attendees to your event? Get the FREE documents now. Listen to and acknowledge customer feedback. Goals shouldnt be binary but should allow a range of outcomes. Self-management skills are skills that empower people to manage their feelings, thoughts, time, and actions. Dont forget about your suppliers, too a great relationship with them will give you extra bargaining power. Write down lots of ideas for the goal first. Use these performance review phrases to give feedback: Editors Note: Helping your employees write strong performance goals is extremely helpful when it comes time to sit down for performance reviews. An event goal is a specific and measurable result from an event. However, they each have distinct meanings: When determining the goals behind the event, you are simply documenting the purpose of the event. And they succeeded. Email marketing goals are typically based on the target number of subscribers you want to reach. The goals will help guide the appraisal and give you specific employee responsibilities and metrics to evaluate during the performance meeting. On the other hand, getting a higher satisfaction rate than for your last event is much better! Something went wrong. My SMART objective is for my next event to generate 30% more revenue than the previous one from virtual and in-person ticket sales in the next six months. When setting goals, work with SMART goals, which are: For instance, saying you want to host the best marketing conference ever is not very specific or measurable. My goal is to run a series of increasingly profitable events. Social Media Goal Example: Increase Twitter engagement rate by 10% by the end of the year.. What are the key things you want an attendee to walk away with? With this in mind, event planners wanted to find a unique way to enhance attendee experience that was both on brand and enjoyable for attendees. Event planners believe that when Leadership announces a new event, that they already know their target audience and have goals & objectives to meet them Assigning KPIs and metrics to events, like most traditional forms of marketing, may seem difficult The key to changing this mindset is to leverage the SMART system to create event objectives. Think about what you expect to happen and when. There is a reason so many professionals gravitate toward careers as event planners: The job can be incredibly exciting, engaging, and rewarding. But determining clear objectives for your event isnt always straightforward. All rights reserved. While not all of these goals may apply to you, the methodology is how you should create all your objectives. But you can assess the number of sales made before, during, and after the conference. Event planners book venues, communicate with vendors and manage budgets and logistics to host successful events. Organization can be a key to improving the skills and performance of any event planner. Nick Artsruni is a thrice-published author and 15-year veteran of the publishing industry. Escalate complex customer issues when necessary. To promote better listening: Show by asking open-ended questions that you are engaged in conversations.. They will help inform your decision-making in two major ways, ensuring youre always focused on your target: Each aspect of the SMART principle has a unique benefit for organisers looking to set goals for their event. Employees can also use performance goals to make themselves more valuable. Event attendance Mobile event app engagement Sponsorship spend Leads captured Social media engagement Registrations Session attendance Submitted feedback surveys Overall satisfaction score Let's look at an example of SMART goals in action: . Keep reading to learn more about the event planning skills you need in order to deliver event experiences that attendees wont forget anytime soon. These performance goal phrases may help poor planner improve: Listening is key to any successful relationship including those at work. Instead, theyre focused on learning what they can to make sure the next event is even better. Leadership qualities are needed at all levels of an organization. Given the past year, it may have even moved up a few spots. By clicking 'Sign Up', you consent to allow Social Tables to store and process the personal information submitted above to provide you the content requested. Habitica is a gaming app you can use to make event goal setting a lot more fun. Theyre also keenly aware of schedules and ensure that crucial communications are never delayed. The next step is thinking through your event strategy. Let us know at @socialtables. R: Increasing ticket sales is directly related to overcoming challenges as an event manager, particularly in turning a profit. What do you hope to accomplish in hosting an event? It depends on the job role in question. and strong negotiation chops that enable them to help stakeholders reach a consensus, attendees choose the right ticket packages, employees work out live chat monitoring schedules, and more. To encourage event engagement and more engagement in future events, the planners decided to focus on bringing people together both on and offline. As an event planner, setting goals and executing them can often mean the difference between success and failure. Learn how to adapt to stressful situations. Discourage harassment, bullying, and poor behavior. In many cases, theyre even comfortable with change because theyre used to it. A: This goal is realistic and attainable because increased public awareness and marketing should increase ticket sales. To foster a better attitude: Ensure that your tone, body language, and other nonverbal cues convey the proper respect and attitude toward others.. Moreover, its also about ways to measure how close you are to your goal, especially to a particular timeline. To improve planning: Begin projects by identifying all the resources required, including staff, funding, materials, and other support.. Why is the event taking place? The concept was pioneered in 1981 by consultant George T. Doran in a paper for the business periodical Management Review. Goal: Stronger social media presence Let's start with an area we know you're familiar with - social media! T: This goal is time-bound, as the point is to implement this strategy by your next event. Sounds like a common (and generic) goal but they turned it into something much more strategic. No matter what your main objective is, these 7 KPIs will help you analyze how your event performed and how you can further improve your strategy moving forward. 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