Hosting a conference in today’s modern times can seem daunting, but with ample planning and attention to simple details, you can succeed in organizing, marketing and executing your event.
While your main form of promotion for the conference may be brochures, mailers and social media, consider creating a standalone website, which allows you to tailor the site to the event theme and thus strengthen branding. If it is a recurring event, keep the site active year round and post updates and news. A standalone event website can also increase your SEO, especially if you provide a banner or links to the event site on your main web page.
For registration, use an online registration tool such as Eventbrite, which provides easy ticket and event management. The built-in analytics allow you to track which promotional efforts are directing the most traffic to the registration site. For day-of registration, use a tool such as Square, which can be connected to any smartphone or tablet to take credit card payments. Have an attendee list ready, which can be provided by Eventbrite, and make name badges using Eventbrite’s name badge tool. Bring a label maker so you can print name tags on the spot for those who register at the door (and so they don’t have to use handwritten name tags).
One crucial aspect of both the promotion and execution stages of your conference is creating a hashtag to represent your conference – something easy to remember and type. This will allow attendees as well as people not at the conference to follow along and virtually connect with one another. It will also help your event to be searchable and visible on social media platforms, creating a simple way to share updates and track feedback and opinions on the conference. Throughout the conference, remind people through signage and slides to use the conference’s hashtag with their tweets, Facebook posts and other social media updates. Set up a scrolling screen to display tweets with the conference hashtag.
At the conference, make sure you have free (and fast!) Wi-Fi. Your Wi-Fi should be designed to accommodate the maximum device load at any given time; plan for each attendee to bring at least two devices (laptop and smartphone). With this number in mind, you may want to set up more than one network depending on the number of attendees. Think one high-quality network for every 150-200 attendees. You also need to make sure you have plenty of power strips – line them up at every table and have extras ready for the attendees who need to charge up their devices during sessions or workshops. This may seem like a small detail, but the convenience of charging will make a huge difference to attendees.
One final thing to keep in mind is a follow-up survey or evaluation. Platforms such as Survey Monkey allow users to easily set up and send out an email survey to lists or groups of people. Use these surveys to get feedback from your attendees on what they liked or didn’t like, what they learned and things they would change. Listening to feedback and implementing changes can add to your success for your next conference.