Tips for after your Big Event

Image credit: Headway from Unsplash

You have finally got your start-up business running and are gearing up for your first event. In the run-up to the event, you will be in a calm but busy mode. Ensuring that your stage is set, there are no issues with speakers, any leftover tickets are being promoted, and all systems go. 

​The event goes off without a hitch - it’s perfect. You gathered some great industry contracts and contacts, and so did your attendees. You hired a photographer (more info here about commercial photography), and the photos are back - and you can’t wait to use them.

What next? 
The follow-up of the event is one of the most crucial parts of saying your event was a success. 

Emails 
When you were selling tickets, and during the event, you should have collected plenty of email addresses from the attendees. You must make people aware of what they might be used for while collecting these addresses, including newsletters or marketing. 

The purpose of the follow-up emails will depend on what you were hoping to achieve from the event. In all cases, you will be looking to secure the connection between you and the person on the receiving end of the email. 

Within this email, you should be sure to thank all attendees, share the images from the photographer (make sure you purchased the proper license to do this), remind them of sponsors and the products or talks they saw at the event. 

Feedback
If you want to do anything better in life, you have to ask for feedback. It is essential to know what you did and didn’t do well. 

When you know what you did well, you give yourself to capitalise on that success and iterate. Negative feedback is as vital as positive feedback. If you don’t know what didn’t work, you won’t be able to improve your offering. 

Welcome feedback, but use it as a loop. Ask - receive - act -ask - receive - act, and so on.

Social Media 
Use your social media to carefully tag and thank attendees. Highlight the best bits, thank sponsors, and communicate. 

During the early stages of your event planning, you most likely would’ve created a hashtag to make your mentions easy to track and increase visibility. Search through this hashtag and reply - if you didn’t have a team on it live during the event. 

Press Release
Compile all of the coverage on social media, blogs and industry media outlets. You’ll need to ask for permission to use the content, but UGC is some of the most beneficial you will ever get - it is worth acting fast. 

You can do this yourself, or you might want to hire a press release writer to handle it for you. 

Send your press release to all industry websites and magazines, create a page with more information, and offer interview opportunities. 

Don’t Dwell
After the event is over, the content is collected, the press releases are sent - it is time to move on. While it might be tempting to keep eating out on the success of one event - you must keep moving forward within your business. 

Do you need some tips to manage your social media? Read more: A guide to social media marketing! - LEARN DEVELOP LIVE