How to Create a Winning Event Plan (Plus Free Template)

Does your company have strategy documents or a written event plan? If you do, when was the last time you actually looked at them?

Chances are that a week after they were written, these 20+ page documents start gathering digital dust in some unloved folder on your desktop.

Unfortunately, a strategy that isn’t regularly checked on, understood, shared and acted on by the whole team is pretty useless, because everyone will start to forget the original priorities as urgent matters approach and new opportunities come up.

So, how do you keep everyone reading from the same page, and ensure your original strategy stays on track?

The answer: A simple to follow, single page document that outlines your event plan. This is your framework for a more successful year!

It can be printed out by every single team member and pinned to the closest place next to your computer. You can even save it is a screen saver if it helps keep you focused on your most important goals!

To get your one page event plan, just click here (no email required).

If you want a guide to filling out the document, keep reading below.

The essentials

Name: The name of your event. Simple, right? Well, not quite. Before you name your event, think through these questions:

Is your event name unique? Memorable? Clear and descriptive so it’s easy for people to know what your event is about?

Date: Again this sounds simple, but have you thought about the following?

Have you checked to ensure there are no big direct or indirect competitive events on or close to your event date?
Have you ensured there are no big bank holidays, religious holidays or other large events?
Are you sure the venue is free and at least on hold for those dates?

Location: This could be your specific venue, or if you haven’t booked it yet, the intended city or destination for your event. Before you make a decision, consider these factors:

If you’ve run this event before, have you checked your Eventbrite dashboard to see if you’ve picked the best location based on where your attendees come from?
Are there good transport links to the venue?
Does it fit with your budget, brand, preferred dates and anything else materially important to the experience of your attendees?

Purpose: People run events for lots of reasons, what is the purpose of yours? Some options include:

Profit, fundraising, brand awareness, lead generation, networking, education, community engagement, product launch…and many more. Be sure you know what the essential outcome for your event is!

Need

Getting into the meat of the document now, let’s start off by identifying to core need of your attendees. Why are they doing to pick your event over everything else they could spend their time or money on? What do you give them? Here are some examples:

A professional conference organiser: Our attendees need to learn about the latest trends and opportunities taking place in their industry.
A festival director: Our fans need a fun weekend with their friends where they can see all of the hottest bands in Indie music in one convenient place.
A charity: Our supporters need an event that lets them get involved with our cause, show their commitment and help raise money at the same time.
A small business: Our customers need a place where they can meet their peers, learn about our latest product updates and how to implement them.

Solution

This is the place to describe some of the key features or benefits of your event, which directly meets the needs of your attendees. For example:

Conference: We have the best speakers in the industry, who will share their uniques insights to help our attendees leave with a plan for the future.
Festival: We have the best bands – established and emerging – in Indie music, with an amazing array of fun features to keep everyone energised for a full weekend.
Charity: We have an inspiring 5k walk, making it accessible for everyone, with all entry fees being dedicated to our cause.
SMB: We’ve our Product Director to explain all the key new features of our latest released, followed free drinks and food so everyone can enjoy a fun networking evening after.

Unfair advantage

This is typically an internal resource (or resources) or processes that would make it very hard for a competitor to replicated your solution. Some examples:

Conference: Our producer has the best relationships in the business, meaning we can secure better and more senior speakers than any other conference.
Festival: We have exclusive contracts with our top 3 headliners, meaning they won’t be seen anywhere else this summer.
Charity: We have a unique site secured exclusively for our walk, making it a uniquely beautiful experience for our supporters.
SMB: This will be the first time anyone has heard of our product updates, making it an exclusive event for only our top customers.

Unique Value Proposition

We covered how to create a compelling Unique Value Proposition in a previous post, so this is the space where you pull the key elements of your event together into a simple, memorable tagline. For example:

Conference: The only place you can hear all 10 of the Top 10 Fast Tack 100 CEO’s speak in one place.
Festival: The only place you can see XXX, YYY, ZZZ play this summer and enjoy 50+ incredible gourmet food trucks catering every cuisine you can imagine.
Charity: Join hands with your community and show your support for XXX in the unique grounds of YYY this Spring.
SMB: Be the very first to hear about our first major product update in 2016ßΩ, then catch up with your peers as we serve up drinks and food all evening.

Audience

Arguably your audience comes first of all, but as you start thinking about promotion, it is a great place to document exactly who you think should be at your event. For the strategy document, you may just put the essential demographics down, such as:

Conference: Mid-to-Senior Management at fast-growing companies with annual revenues between £1m-10m.
Festival: Millenials (aged 21-40) with disposable income, active on social networks, typically single.
Charity: Anyone who has been touched by the same issue as our members (e.g. cancer survivors, relatives of crime victims, orphans and their adoptive families.)
SMB: Our 100 most valuable customers and our business development teams top 50 priority list.

Channels

This is where you detail the most important marketing channels for your event. Try to stick with 3-5 so you don’t spread you team and budget too thin. In our examples they may look this:

Conference: The marketing channels we will focus on are: Email, Direct Mail, Paid Social Media
Festival: Sponsors, Social Media, Display Ads
Charity: PR, Word of Mouth, Partnerships, Blog
SMB: Influencer Relations, Webinars, Email, Social Media

Key Metrics

The key metrics you should document in this segment should tie back directly to your events’ purpose, or support it in the some way. Again, try to limit these to between 1 and 3, for example:

Conference: 1. Profit; 2. Average ticket price; 3. Growth
Festival: 1. Revenue; 2. Number of attendees; 3. Cost per acquisition
Charity: 1. Funds raised; 2. Number of participants; 3. Press mentions
SMB: 1. Attendance

Costs

This is the place to details your headline costs or expected budget, so everyone is on the same page as to what they can and can’t spend, and where they will need to make savings. To illustrate:

Conference: 1. Venue Hire; 2. Food & Beverage; 3. Marketing; 4. AV & Equipment
Festival: 1. Artists; 2. Insurance; 3. Venue Hire
Charity: 1. Insurance; 2. Promotion; 3. Branding/Printing
SMB: 1. F&B; 2. Onsite Branding; 3. Marketing; Venue – free (internal space).

Revenue

Last but certainly not least, you need to document how you’ll be balancing the books and getting some money in the bank! For example:

Conference: 50% Delegate Tickets (early bird, standard, onsite); 50% Sponsorship.
Festival: 30% Sponsorship; 20% Concessions; 50% Ticket Sales.
Charity: 60% Entrance Fees; 30% Onsite Donations & Concessions; 10% Sponsorships.
SMB: 100% Internal Investment.

Ready to complete your event plan?

Download it here!