Business events often get overlooked in the age of digital marketing but they’re still a great way to promote your company and make valuable new contacts. It’s pretty difficult to pull off a good business event but if you get it right, you should come away with some new customers and some potential business partners that can help you to grow your company in future.

However, a lot of people spend all of their time planning and executing the event but forget about the follow up.

If you don’t follow up properly after the event, a lot of the work that you did making contacts is going to be wasted. You also won’t be able to see what you did wrong at this event so you can make improvements and have an even more successful next time around. If you’re putting on a business event soon, make sure that you do these things afterward.

Thank Everybody

A lot of work goes into a business event and lots of different people have been working tirelessly to make it a success. There are also a lot of people that bought tickets and took the time to come along and see what you have to offer. It’s important that you thank all of the people involved for all of their hard work and dedication. It’s not always feasible to send a personal thank you to every single one of your guests but you can put out a post on social media or send a blanket email. You can also include links to your website and any details on upcoming product launches or promotions that you’re running, so your thank you message serves as a good marketing opportunity as well.

When it comes to speakers, caterers, the venue, and anybody else that helped with the setting up and running of the event, it is important that you thank them personally. If the event went well, these people played a big part in that and you’ll want to work with them again when you put your next event on. That’s why it’s important that you show your appreciation and start building a good relationship with them.

Ask For Feedback

Feedback from your guests is the best way to find out how to improve on your event next time around. You can combine this with your thank you messages if you just attach a short survey about the event. Ask them whether they thought the price was reasonable, if there were enough good speakers, how the amenities (food and drink, toilets etc.) were, and most importantly, would they come to another event if you held one? You can look through this feedback to identify what you can improve on next time so your events continue to be a big success.

Document On Social Media

If you’re planning to do more events in the future, you can use this event as a promotional opportunity. You should hire a professional company like Christophe Viseux Photography to take some good photos on the day which you can share on social media afterward. Give people a taste of what they missed out on so they make sure to get a ticket to your next event. It’s also a good opportunity to get some professional photos of your products if you’re showcasing them at the event.

Have A Debrief With Your Team

Getting feedback from the guests is important, but it’s also important that you have a debrief with your team to see how they feel the event went. You should keep your goals in mind when you’re trying to gauge the success of a business event. For example, were you hoping to get some new customers or maybe meet other business leaders that you could potentially partner with on marketing campaigns in the future? Go through your goals one by one and see if people feel that you managed to meet them or not. If you did make a lot of contacts in the business world but you didn’t get much interest from potential customers, you know that you need to focus on that next time around.

Follow Up On Contacts

This is very important because you can spend all of the time and money putting together this event but it’s all for nothing if you don’t follow up on the contacts that you’ve made. In some cases, they might get in touch with you but they’re going to be busy as well so it’s up to you to take the initiative. The day after the event, fire off an email thanking them for attending and asking whether they’re available to meet sometime in the near future.

If you don’t follow this checklist after your event has finished, you won’t see the benefits and your investment will be wasted.

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