How to plan an event well? Just 3 steps!

After reading thousands of cases, why don’t you know how to plan an event ? The author of this article elaborates on this issue based on actual cases. I hope the content of this article will inspire you.

For newcomers who have just entered the workplace, have you always experienced such troubles at work?

• Your USB drive, network drive, or hard drive is filled with all kinds of PPT plans, but you don’t know how to use them?
• You clearly remember the content of a certain case, but cannot put it into practice?
• The leader is not satisfied with the plan and has to revise it dozens of times?

I believe many people feel depressed when this situation occurs! Why don't we use it after reading thousands of examples?

Type 1: I have a hard time remembering the content of the case

The cases we obtained usually have the following characteristics:

• The case itself has limitations, and it is just a simple summary and conclusion.
• The case itself lacks a lot of deduction process
• Case studies often only show part of the activity and are not complete.

In fact, the information these cases bring to you has no relevant connection with your own knowledge system. They are like isolated islands and buoys on the sea, no one is close to each other. If the links between the isolated islands and the buoys are not established in time, these cases will be forgotten over time.

For example: An event planner who has just entered the industry receives a planning task for the first time. However, if your own planning system is not yet sound, looking at a large number of cases is not actually of much help.

Because I don’t even know the basic knowledge of planning, I can only watch the process. Due to certain external constraints, we don’t know the story behind the event case, why we want to hold this event, and often the key elements of the case cannot be understood.

This is also why, even though I have learned a lot of cases before, I still can’t remember them once I apply them to specific work. You still need to go back to the case and continue watching it from the beginning, or find a new reference case.

Type 2: I remember the knowledge in the case, but I can’t apply it

Watching cases can only be called the acquisition of "knowledge", while planning is a skill, and knowledge and skills cannot be discussed in the same breath.

Chen Ming gave an example in "The Debaters" that well explained the relationship between knowledge and skills. He said: Water will freeze at zero degrees. This is a knowledge, which is the induction and conclusion of external objective laws. In the future, when and how will I turn water of a certain flavor into popsicles of a certain flavor and sell them to whom? This is called wisdom and ability, which refers to the processing and application of knowledge.

To transform knowledge into skills, it needs to be internalized, that is, knowledge can help us solve practical problems.

How do we usually look at planning proposals? I believe that many people always watch stories from beginning to end, and then when they finish, they go to watch another case. The misunderstanding brought about by this approach is that we think we have mastered a lot of knowledge.

For example: After looking at so many cases, I know the process of a certain technology industry summit, and I know the characteristics of an internal invitation meeting. But this is just our knowledge of memory in the above cases and cannot solve the practical problems.

There are only two ways to let knowledge help us solve problems.

①Question-based knowledge search

Look at the case with questions in mind. If this plan lacks interactive sessions, you need to refer to the interactive sessions of other meetings. So when we watch the case, we should selectively focus on the interactive part. Look for cases about interactive sessions and screen them.

②The problem of knowledge encounter

Before starting to plan a project, we accidentally saw an interesting interactive part in a certain case. Did we record it in time? Why was it interesting? What's interesting about it? In which meetings can it be used? So, when a problem arises, we already have a solution in our minds and can just call it up. This is the application of knowledge.

Whether it is looking for knowledge through problems or knowledge encountering problems, the key element lies in the thinking process. Our brains are designed for thinking, not for remembering.

The third type: Why is my leader still not satisfied even though I have applied the steps in the case?

We can use the iceberg model to answer this question. A case is like an iceberg in front of us. Most people only see 30% of the content on the iceberg, but not the remaining 70%.

When we look at high-quality cases, what key points do we pay attention to? For example, a large-scale technical training conference attracted tens of thousands of users. Maybe you only paid attention to who their guests are? What promotion methods did they use? What is their check-in process like? What methods of on-site interaction do they use?

But what else do we see besides these obvious processes? Have you analyzed the purpose of their activities and the guests’ achievements in the industry? What is the connection between promotion channels and conferences? Why choose these promotion channels? Can their model be applied to this meeting?

When we use it directly, all we achieve is "similar in appearance" but not "similar in spirit".

Therefore, we need to sort out the following main line in the case we are studying: purpose of the event - target group - theme of the event - benefit inducement - promotion channel - communication - material details - on-site activities.

How should we use cases efficiently to plan existing activities?

1. Establish a correct event planning system

For newcomers, event planning is not scary. What is scary is to proceed blindly without knowing the correct links. However, these blind investigations and inspections will not bring us any fundamental changes and are often just ineffective efforts.

Just like solving a problem, the first step is to know what the problem is? Knowing what the problem is is the way to solve it. Don’t know what event planning is? What should be included? What are the specific operations? Just like a sailboat drifting in the sea, without the guidance of a compass, it will never find its direction.

The correct planning system will systematically tell us what links event planning should include and what the correlation is between the links. When we have established the correct event planning system and learned new information and knowledge points through cases, we can connect them with the existing knowledge system.

2. Clearly define the purpose of the meeting

Different meeting objectives require completely different processes and methods.

Setting goals is a prerequisite for doing anything, and this is especially true for holding conferences and events. Holding a conference and event requires clarifying the specific time, tasks to be performed, and what the final results will be.

For example, when the purpose of our conference is to acquire customers, the promotion channels and conference session settings will be very different from a conference for brand promotion. We will focus on promotion to the target group, for example, using the company's internal resources to make 1v1 invitations to the target group. Use collectors on site to collect information from interested groups, etc.

Once the purpose of the meeting is clear, we will learn from it and refer to it with a critical eye. Do the high-quality methods mentioned in the case conflict with the purpose of the meeting? If so, they should be abandoned.

3. What to learn from? How to learn from it?

There are so many cases, do I need to watch each one? How can I quickly find cases that are useful to me?

①Search for event planning cases in the same field

Searching for planning proposals in the same field allows us to know the status of the entire industry and what people in the industry are keen on at the first time.

For example, our company is in the technology field and wants to hold a technical training meeting. So we should first look at conferences related to the technology field. What conferences have they held in recent years? Which technical experts were invited? What are the prominent issues?

The research process is listed in the following table.

② Refer to the operation mode and operation methods of high-quality cases

Since we are going to hold a training conference in the field of technology, in addition to looking for training conferences in our industry, we also need to find out how training conferences in other industries are conducted? What are some ways to attract users’ attention through integrated analysis? What methods can improve user engagement?

③What are the valuable experiences of segmentation?

Based on the above two methods, we conducted extensive research. Sort the research content horizontally and vertically.

Horizontal combing: sort out the core elements of the meeting

(1) Which topics are popular with users?

(2) Identify attractive experts in the industry

Vertical combing: combing out the external factors that make the meeting successful

(1) Promotion methods

• Ticket type settings: How to attract user participation through ticketing
• Promotion method: fission promotion, advertising
• Promote with KOL

(2) Interactive methods

• Live entertainment experience
• The "Collect Stamps and Get Gifts" event was launched on site
• Live interactive robot
• On-site check-in experience

④Is it possible to carry out micro-innovation?

After sorting out the above content, we can actually roughly find out what kind of content can generally attract users' attention for technical conferences, and what kind of interaction can mobilize users' enthusiasm on site. At this time, we need to divide the above factors that you think can be used according to the purpose and feasibility of our own meeting, and comprehensively judge whether they can be used.

Teacher Wu Bofan once said: "The word 'know' does not mean that you understand the truth once you know it." On his left is the arrow and on his right is the target. “Knowing” means reaching the target. Only when you reach your goal and experience it personally can you truly “know” it. In the words of philosopher Wang Yangming: unity of knowledge and action.

Author: Cheng Bubao

Source: Cheng Bubao