13 Tips for Organizing the Perfect Online Small Business Event
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As with any project you undertake, the key to being successful is detail-oriented. While you don’t want to get stuck in the planning process, you also don’t want a poor outcome.
Businesses worldwide are preparing to come back to planning in-person events that help the industry grow and reactivate. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that online events are out of the picture for good.
The good news is that, while specific details separate the two, the process of planning an event is pretty similar regardless of whether it’s in-person or digital.
Up ahead, we’ll share the steps we like to take when planning an event and will aim to be as detailed as possible.
Table Of Contents
- Event Planning Steps for Vape Stores
- Determine Your Target Audience & the Purpose of Your Event
- Plan Out a Budget
- Plan Your Timing & Location Wisely
- Be As Detailed As Necessary
- Define/Confirm Suppliers & Speakers
- Reach Out to Potential Sponsors
- Safety Procedures & Code of Conduct
- Explore Promotion Opportunities
- Ticketing
- Reminders
- Be Flexible
- Plan for Post-Event Activities
- Measure Event Success
- Conclusion
Event Planning Steps for Vape Stores
Organizing the perfect business event needs to be approached as a project of its own. Meaning you’ll need project management event planning to do it the right way.
Somebody who is in charge of the whole event and can dedicate their full attention to it is a vital part of a successful event. Perhaps even more than one person, depending on how significant your event will be.
If you’re planning on a virtual event, you’ll have to learn how to plan and host a virtual event. Hosting a virtual event is much different than a physical event. You can forget about details like social distancing requirements and other safety measures, but you’ll have to place special attention on virtual-minded features like hosting.
An event planning software could be a good idea when drawing up an event master plan. But it’s not entirely necessary if you are detail-oriented and organized. This is something you’ll be doing if you follow the following steps.
Determine Your Target Audience & the Purpose of Your Event
You’re planning an event for a reason. Nobody plans an event just because they want the extra work on their plates or the sleepless nights thinking about the details you might have missed with one week to go before the event.
Companies like your vape store are also not prepared to invest in an event if it’s not going to add value to your brand. Whatever “value” might mean for you; additional profit, increased brand recognition, etc.
Before planning your event, make sure you understand what your event objectives and goals are. That way, you’ll be able to plan with that final goal in mind, rather than risk wasting a bunch of time on activities that will not bring you one step closer to it.
Once you define your event goals, you’ll need to think of how to achieve them. A huge part of doing that is your target audience. Depending on who this group of people is, you’ll need to approach event planning differently.
Plan Out a Budget
Each decision you make when planning an event will have a monetary value attached to it. Having certain speakers will cost more than others. The same goes for venues, caterers, and other variables.
Planning out a budget before you decide on your shortlist of suppliers will allow you to pick and choose between the suppliers you can afford and those you cannot.
A bright idea would be to draw up an event budget template. With a template you can fill out as you go, you’ll know exactly how much you’re spending and how it compares to your target budget. An event budget template can be quickly done on an Excel spreadsheet if you’re planning to go the leaner way or with an event planning software if you have less time but more money on your hands.
The fact of the matter is that you’ll need to plan out a budget and follow it if you want to meet your monetary goals.
Plan Your Timing & Location Wisely
Once again, knowing who your audience is will allow you to determine what the perfect timing and location for your event look like.
For instance:
You might not want to plan an event for local school teachers during the summertime because they’re probably off on vacation and not thinking about work at all. The same thing goes if you’re planning on a morning event, but most of your event attendees are located in Asia.
Time zones and stakeholder schedules are essential variables to consider before giving the green light on a venue and time.
A time that works for most people is the weekends because it doesn’t interfere with work appointments, and if your event offers value, they won’t think twice about dedicating a few hours of their weekend towards it. Value-driven events also provide a nice change of pace from the usual work schedule for most people.
However, this may only be determined by you, the one and the only person who knows the audience well enough to make that decision. Nevertheless, you could always take the survey approach and ask the potential attendees when an event like yours would be best.
Other variables to consider include the season and attendee budget (what time of the month they get paid), among many other factors.
Be As Detailed As Necessary
My mother always said, “Perfection is the enemy of good.”
If you spend too much time planning and not executing, you’ll never achieve. But this doesn’t mean you don’t have time to plan well. Being thorough will be the turning point between a good and a bad event. A few things you should work through are:
- Don’t be afraid to make a list for everything. Making lists for things like suppliers, keynote speakers, catering items, etc., will help you ensure that everything is taken care of on the day of the event.
- Determine the content and schedule of your event. Every event is filled with activities and sub-events. Some of these may include presentations, speakers, and even concerts. Deciding when and where these activities are taking place will allow you to keep the attendees entertained at the correct times. Determining which activities make the cut is also essential.
- Double-check on “the little things” on the day of the event. Things like banners, music, signs offering directions, maps, and brochures are details that often escape the amateur event planner’s memory but could make a massive difference in terms of quality.
Define/Confirm Suppliers & Speakers
Drafting out a shortlist of potential speakers and other suppliers will allow you to act quickly and in an orderly fashion. Calling only those who fit your budget and not wasting time on those that don’t.
Once you’ve defined which suppliers and speakers from your shortlist have been hired, you’ll need to draft out a second list with those confirmed. This might seem a bit redundant at first, but it won’t once you are one or two weeks out from the date of the event, and you need to start calling for confirmations.
It will also be beneficial to keep a shortlist of contingency suppliers that can take a confirmed supplier who backs out at the last minute.
Reach Out to Potential Sponsors
Like the shortlist of suppliers discussed in the item above, you’ll want to draft out a list of potential sponsors. Remember, you don’t have to carry all the economic load of the event on your own.
Even if you run a small vape shop, other businesses could be interested in expanding their brand exposure to your market. This only amplifies the importance of knowing who your audience is because being clear on who is attending your event will make it that much easier to sell a spot to sponsors.
Safety Procedures & Code of Conduct
An in-person meeting requires safety preparations, Covid-related and otherwise. If it’s a big enough event, you might even need to provide onsite medical attention if an accident occurs.
In Covid-19, it could be a good idea to provide protective equipment like protective face masks or hand sanitizer.
Another great tip you should follow, if not already required by law, is sending a list of rules and a code of conduct before the event to all attendees. The code of conduct should go through what can and cannot be done if attending the event.
A list of rules applies in both virtual and in-person settings. While virtual codes of conduct will not talk about social distancing, they will talk about things like talking or asking questions during a presentation.
Explore Promotion Opportunities
Promoting the event is just as important as planning it. If you don’t do enough promotion or the proper promotion, you won’t have the exposure necessary to reach your attendee goals.
It could be a tad trickier to promote a vape shop event than other company events because of the nature of the industry. Not to mention the rules and regulations that govern vaping advertising.
Do some research in advance and understand what will put you at risk of being fined and what won’t. Once you know what you can and cannot do, make sure to promote your event as much as you can.
A key thing to bear in mind when promoting an event is remembering that the event is a part of your brand strategy. Everything you do at and for the event will bear the name of your vape shop, so you’ll want to make sure that everything you do to promote it follows your brand guidelines. This includes colors, language, etc.
It might even be a good idea to design a marketing plan for the event. But if you don’t know how to write a marketing plan for an event, be sure to re-visit your marketing strategy and promote the event following it.
Ticketing
Ticketing has never been as versatile as it is today. You can decide to go with traditional printed tickets that you email to attendees or have them pick these up at specific locations, but these are no longer the most convenient options there are, not for you and not for your attendees.
Other ticketing options like QR codes, e-tickets, and printables are more convenient for the attendee and less expensive for you. Don’t be afraid to be creative and push the envelope where there’s room for it.
It may also be a good idea to include a few different ticket pricing tiers. Not everyone will commit to the same price, which means that offering different prices could allow you to reach potential new markets. It also allows you to make more money on the event with tickets that cost more for those who can benefit from additional perks.
Reminders
As briefly discussed above, sending reminders to all stakeholders will ensure you don’t end up with an empty room because nobody remembered to come.
Suppliers, speakers, and attendees will all need reminders that should be sent at least a week prior. You might even want to send different reminders at different moments leading up to the date.
Be Flexible
Being flexible prepares you for every possible outcome. For instance, you might not be able to get the keynote speakers you dream of, which could put your entire keynote strategy at risk.
If so, you might need to shift away from how you first envisioned the event. So don’t be afraid to pivot and think of new ways to approach the event if the situation demands it.
On top of being flexible, you’ll also want to think of every possible outcome before it happens, and part of this has contingency plans. If a speaker fails to confirm or backs out at the last minute, you’ll want to have a ‘plan B’ in place. Preparing for the unexpected is a huge part of successful event planning.
You might even need to create an event contingency plan template. This could be as simple as a spreadsheet with a column for ‘confirmed suppliers’ and a second column for ‘Plan B Suppliers.’
Plan for Post-Event Activities
After the event is set and done with, you can do various post-event activities to add additional value to all stakeholders. These could even be the first steps to improve your next event based on what you learned from this one. These are some tips you could follow:
- Reach out to stakeholders to take their input. Attendees, suppliers, and speakers will provide valuable insights you can use to improve for your next event.
- Post pictures of the event on social media. Posting pictures, videos, and other media could help raise event awareness and recruit new attendees for the next event. These could also be valuable assets when it comes to brand advertising.
- Use what you learned and what you did well in this event to promote your next event.
Measure Event Success
When committing to an event, attendees want to know what they will get out of the event. This could be networking, brand promotion, and sales, among many others.
It is essential to measure all these things so you can use them as a pitch to sell tickets for the next event you host. Things like profit made by attendees, attendance numbers, and social media engagement for the event are all statistics that could help you sell tickets next time around.
