How to Align Your Internal Teams for Successful Event Marketing | Event Marketing Ideas

Today, we're gonna dive deep into event operations and we're gonna walk through a seven week process for making sure that everyone is on the exact same page and that your event has maximum potential for success. Oh man, I remember this like it was yesterday. I was standing outside a big concert at Art Basel in Miami and my technology was powering the check-in process. And I was like, I was nearly on the edge. I couldn't believe that I was in this situation, the whole process had been such a mess

. I'd gotten a call a couple weeks earlier from a PR company who's representing a really desirable brand to work with and they said, "Hey would you get involved and help us plan this?" And I of course said, "Yes, I really want to do it." I didn't ask a lot of questions and I jumped in and before I knew it I was in one of the most challenging team processes of my entire life. You know, it really was the day after that event when I was recapping all of the different challenges that I had gone thro

ugh with all the different personalities that were involved, when I started to develop a framework for how to think about all of the event processes that we'd go through from that point on. And so, what we're gonna do today is, walk through this framework for each stage of an event planning process and how you can make sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that you understand who is doing what and at which stage of the process you're at. So, if this story resonates with you and you've been in this sit

uation, something this challenging where you're just trying to pull together a whole bunch of people to execute an event, I hope you'll listen up. We're gonna walk through about six different stages of the event planning process and we're gonna outline how to think about each of those stages. So, as I started to outline the process of planning an event, there's something pretty surprising that I discovered. And that was that almost every single event planning team follows nearly the exact same p

rocess. Now, some do it to varying degrees of effectiveness and certainly timelines can be extended or contracted based off of the event type that you're planning, but for the most part we all do pretty much the same thing. So, let's walk through each of those steps. So, step one of everyone's process is what we call the ideation phase and during this phase we're setting objectives, were coming up with the idea of the event, we're asking the hard questions, we're setting KPI's, this is just a lo

t of brainstorming, right? Stage two is what we call, creation. And this is the segment where we know what we're going to build and we start to execute against that. We start to create checklists and to do's. We start to line up talent and vendors and venues and at this stage we start to lay the groundwork for the promotional assets such as the invitation or the event website or even the post event collateral. And then we move on to stage three, it's at this point that we start to send out email

s, start collecting RSVP's, start replying with confirmations, and start continuing to ensure that people will actually attend the event. It's during this step three that we look to fill the room. So, then the RSVP's start rolling in and it's right around that point where you start to unleash the fourth stage of this process. You all know it well, it's the engagement phase. This is when you start to engage with attendees, most importantly the VIP attendees and you start to segment out lists and

try to make sure they actually attend the event. The engagement phase actually rolls through the event, this is making sure that you're engaging with the people on site and then making sure that you're engaging with the people after the event with great post event follow up emails. The fifth stage, this is, this is the actual on-site execution phase. This is day zero, D-day. This stage we all know well. It usually starts about a day before the event and ends about a day after the event with load

out. And this includes everything from setting up the tables, to the stage, to the signage of checking people in, engaging with them on-site, doing the entire run of show, and breaking down, that's stage five. Last but not least, is stage six. That's measurement and data. This is when we start tracking and analyzing all the different data points that come through throughout the entire process. So, those are the six stages that we see across almost every single event. Our data shows that most ev

ents take about seven weeks of preparation, planning, and execution. So, you really want to be kind of spreading these events out across that entire seven week timeline. After you've outlined every single step in the process your next step is to figure out who the major players are. Now, this might be someone who's actually at your organization, this might be an agency, this might be a freelancer. You're trying to figure out who's involved. And I find that a really great framework for figuring t

his out and defining it in a very visible and transparent way, it's something called the RACI model. It's a great model that I see some of the top event planners that we work with use. So, very quickly put this is how it works, RACI stands for, responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. So, responsible is the person who ensures that the work gets done. Accountable is the person that actually executes the work, who actually presses play, clicks go, presses send. Consulted is the person wh

o actually gives approval that this work has been completed. And last but not least, inform. Just a person needs an FYI for that stage. So, a quick example, during the promotional stage, the person who is responsible might be your demand gen person. This is somebody who has to make sure that the right people are invited and we get the right RCP's. The person accountable is a person who actually presses send. That might be your marketing ops person or a promoter that's involved in the event. Cons

ulted, that's probably during the promotional stage, your VP marketing or VP sales. Somebody who needs to make sure that the right guest list is being being promoted to. And probably informed for the promotional stage is your CEO or a salesperson who just needs to know that we're sending out invitations or your client just RSVP'd, right? So, that's how you RACI and your job is to RACI each of these different segments. And this process is something that we call "Role"ing up. R-O-L-E, "Role"ing up

. You know, I found that identifying who is involved and what they need to do at early early stages in the process is paramount to having a great event. You really want to understand the players and what they're supposed to do and to communicate that early and often. But, then the next step in this process is the process I call, rolling out, right? And that's identifying when. We know, who and we know what they need to do, now, when do they need to do it? So, as you can see here, this rolling ou

t process looks a lot like a Gantt chart, we've layered on top of themselves all of these different stages. Now, I don't want you to be afraid of these things overlapping, right? You want the promotional phase and the creative phase to overlap, because we're gonna learn a lot in the very early stages of our promotions. We're gonna know how we might need to tweak things and you need that creative team still involved in the process. That said, you do want to create deadlines for things. You want t

o make sure that everything has a clear beginning and a clear end, otherwise I found things just don't get done. Now, as you build out your rollout timeline here are three quick tips that I think will help you make sure that this event actually gets pulled off. The first one is simple, but I can't tell you how often I see people overlook it. It's that you want to get the entire team or at least as many people who fall under the responsible category as possible involved in the process early and o

ften. If you can get everyone in the room during the ideation stage and if not the ideation stage, make sure they're at least in the creative stage. I love the old adage, "If they help plan the fight, they won't fight the plan." So, you want to get them involved. Number two, use data. I like to use data at different stages of the process and you can use data and measurement as an energizing tool, as your energizing bunny. And the best way to feed this bunny is with carrots, right? But, you might

also use the stick. What I mean to say is, you can use a dashboard to show people how many RSVP's somebody is driving, get them really excited or you can show them where you're not hitting, what's not working for you as a way to get people onboard and focused on their goal. But, I do find that using data at every single stage helps you sprint this marathon that is an event. And last but not least, you want to communicate. You want to communicate a lot. I always would say to my event planning te

am, "Our entire job, not just part of our job, our entire job is communication. Both with our attendees externally and with our team internally." So, setting up a communication cadence early in the process, that just makes this whole machine work. Okay, so that's our role up and roll out process and they've been working great for my events, but I'm sure you have ideas, comments, and ways that you do it. So, please make sure to leave a comment in the section below and check in next time for our n

ext Run of Show. If you felt like this episode made you much smarter than when you started watching it, make sure to check out other episodes of Run of Show Weekly and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel.