Planning a corporate event can take weeks or even months. The hours you put in preparing for the event need to be worthwhile. Whether it’s a daylong series of educational seminars or weeklong industry conference, your return on investment should be top of mind. However, some of the benefits you realize from hosting a corporate event may not be in the form of revenue.
Here are some qualitative value-adds you may gain by hosting a corporate event:
Being Recognized As A Market Leader Or SME
Leading talent likes to work for market leaders and customers want to do business with market leaders. If you’re hosting an educational event and are marketing it as such, make sure the topic is relevant within the industry. Remember, you want to be known as an innovative company, not one speaking about trite or outdated topics. It’ll help your attendance and ensure your audience is made up of forward-thinking individuals.
Informs Content For Your Distribution Channels
The topic of the event can be a starting point for putting together content for your blog, social media stream – maybe even a report or whitepaper. Consider talking points as blog topics leading up to the event. You can leverage this to help drive greater attendance or buzz. After the event, use quotes and key takeaways from the presentations to further engage with attendees (and potential future attendees).
Provides Continued Education – And Motivation – For Employees
Especially if you’re offering a corporate event with an educational component, invite employees who will benefit from the material being covered. This shows them you care about their continued education, and you’re not just hosting the event to expand your company’s reach. The energy of a conference may even motivate and inspire them to bring further innovation to their role. If there’s a networking opportunity at the event, be sure to have a solid representation from your company as well.
Builds Your Passive Candidate Pool
If the public is invited to the event, your strategy may be to showcase your company as an employer to a group of people who never considered working for you. 46% of people find that traditional networking is the best way to find a job. Therefore, to capitalize on the attention of this audience be sure your company culture, values and EVPs are easily recognized at the event. And capture this group’s contact information so you can reach back out later. Require an email address, social media handles or mailing address from attendees so you can keep in touch.
Opens The Opportunity For Press
Marketing professionals are constantly thinking of ways to put their company in the spotlight – and hosting a hyped-up event is one of them. News outlets will pick up events that bring in big-name speakers (even local ones) and attract big audiences, especially if there’s an educational element and/or the public is invited. Some outlets will help you do the promotion prior, in addition to reporting on it after. Start with local publications and news stations, as well as industry associations to help get the word out. Write official press releases to update interested parties and make sure they get all the facts straight.
Adds New Business Prospects
Business is business and prospective customers know you will use sales tactics to (hopefully) gain their business. But, if you can use a soft-sell approach by first building a relationship with potential customers, these may become your most loyal followers and generous referrers. So, take advantage of networking at the event and be sure you have a way to keep in touch once it’s wrapped up. Start by sharing relevant content, instead of pitching to prospects.
