Getting started with your event strategy might seem overwhelming. This workbook is built to ensure you get off on the right foot on your journey to create a strategy, and well under way to hosting a successful event. 

Get started on your event strategy:

Getting started is the most difficult and most important part of building a strategy. This of course applies to an event strategy. So we always say: It’s better to just start somewhere, than not at all. There is no absolute way to form a strategy, but we have highlighted what we believe is the best way to start with your event strategy. 

Business goals 

Never do an event just to do an event, or because one of your KPI’s is hosting an event. You need to know exactly why you are doing it and ensure that the outcome of your events are contributing to your company’s overall goal. 

Start your event strategy by defining your company’s overall goals: 

• What are your company’s overall goals? 
• How can strategic use of events contribute to reaching those goals? 
• What serves the goal’s purpose? Internal or external events?

Ambitions 

Having ambitions for the event strategy is important. Way too often strategies are made and written down, only to be forgotten. Make sure your event strategy is an important document for both your company and your team by setting your ambitions high and aligning them with the overall ambitions of your company.

• What is your company vision / mission statement?
• How does this translate into events? 
• What serves the goal’s purpose? Internal or external events?

Budgets

Events are an investment. However, gathering your target audience (whether it’s internal or external) is an excellent way to educate and inspire people about your business. In an ever increasing (and global) competition for attention, events allow you your audience’s undivided attention. And you can’t really put a price tag on that. However, no one has unlimited resources, and so setting a budget is absolutely essential. Your budget tells you a lot about how many events, what format, and what scale you have capacity for. 

• How much can you spend on events per year? 
• What is considered a conversion? 
• How do you calculate ROI?

Once this foundation of including events in your growth strategy is built, you are ready to start planning an event. 

Need help? Check out our Radical Growth Playbook: ‘Events as a Tool for Business Growth’ for more tools and resources about event hosting.