Corporate Events South Africa: Considerations & Benefits

Events are a great way to connect with clients and build relationships. They can also be a great way to get your business name out there and give your brand a boost. This post will go over the various benefits of event management and event planning for corporate events and end of year functions.

If you don’t work in the events industry, you might be wondering what organised events have to do with you. What are some of the benefits of a corporate event? If we told you that almost nine out of ten CEOs believe that events will increase their marketing reach and help them generate more sales, what would you make of it?

Corporate events are in fact an excellent way to to promote your business and offer a variety of benefits for your business. From brand promotion to team building, the benefits of corporate events cannot be denied.

Effective corporate event management or planning is vital for a successful event. There are however risks involved especially when effective planning or professional event management is not put in place.

The following article takes a look at the primary benefits and risks associated with corporate events.

1) Corporate events are an excellent way to increase brand awareness. They can be a great way to show off your company’s personality and brand values. Events also give you the chance to get to know your clients and colleagues better.

If you are looking for ways to make your event more successful, here are some tips. Know Your Target Audience One of the most important things you can do before your event is to understand who your target audience is. Who are you trying to attract? If you want to get more people to attend, you need to understand what they want out of your event. For example, if you are planning an information session about a new product, you might want to target existing customers and potential new customers.

2. Events are a great way to build relationships. You’ll be able to spend time with people you may not have known before, and who may be important to your business. We can differentiate between 2 different types of corporate functions.

Internal corporate functions: These are designed to actively promote engagement between members of an organisation. Golfing days, celebrity guest speakers and company dinners with professional entertainment are just some of the different types of activities that can be utilised to promote cohesion and enhance relationships among organisational executives and employees. Brands may choose to invite their clients to showcase the organisation’s products and or services. When a brand launches a new product or specialised service it is often the case that they will organise an event and invite clients to come and learn more in a carefully facilitated environment designed to get clients excited and talking.

Public sponsored corporate events: If an organisation is looking to increase brand awareness then holding or sponsoring a large scale event can be an effective way to build brand awareness and create a talking point around the brand. Often this type of event will include events designed to raise funds such as charity events which offer a great way to promote your brand and at the same time are for a great cause.

Overall both of the categories above hold many benefits for the brand when effective event management is put in place. If you fail to plan then you plan to fail is a saying that holds true for events where an organisation’s name or brand is on the line. Can you imagine the negative impact that a poorly facilitated event incurs upon the company’s overall image and reputation. The truth is that poorly executed corporate events can have a severely negative effect on the businesses credibility.

Key factors to consider when planning a corporate event

It is vital that your company makes use of a reputable event management company to ensure that your corporate function runs as smoothly as possible. As a starting point it is recommended that the organisation has a clear idea of the goals and objectives that they hope to achieve as a result of the event. Some examples of goals or objectives include:

Increase employee satisfaction and motivation

• 
  Promote brand awareness.
• Build customer loyalty
• increased engagement
• To get people talking in a positive light about the brand.
• Increase in purchases of a newly launched product.
• Introduce new services to the public in a way that gets audiences excited.
• Encourage business growth as a result of enhanced brand awareness
• Penetrate into new markets or different market sectors.

These goals and objectives need to be made clear to the event management company. Furthermore, they should be measurable in such a way that the brand is able to determine whether or not the event was a success or failure. This helps to guide the overall strategy and allows for the development of tactics to achieve the strategy in a successful manner.

Key considerations to take into account when choosing an event management company

It is important to employ a credible events management company if you are looking to extract the maximum value from your event. Event management when correctly applied can assist you to meet or exceed your goals and objectives. A professional event management company will understand this and be fully cognisant of your events goals making sure to design your event and plan its execution in such a way that your goals and objectives are always top priority.

Event planning is not a simple process, and should be undertaken by a team of people who understand the requirements of the event and have the experience to ensure that the event is planned in a way that is most suitable to your needs. It is important to ensure that you have a well-defined event plan that includes all of the key elements that are necessary for your event to be successful. The following are some of the key elements that you need to consider when planning your event:

• What’s the purpose of your event?
• The size of the event.
• Timing
• Size of the audience
• Budget and costing
• What’s the theme?
• The primary purpose of the event
• If food will be served and what type of food?
• What are the catering options?
• What kind of entertainment will be provided?
• What will the venue look like?
• What’s the dress code?
• What are the expectations,
• goals and objectives?