Corporate Event

Are you thinking about organizing a customer event? Don’t shy away from the supposedly large organisational effort, because the advantages of corporate events are obvious: Through direct contact, the customer deals more closely with your brand and your company, gets to know your employees and no longer has a faceless company in front of him – all this strengthens customer loyalty.

In addition: When else do you have the opportunity to get direct customer feedback in a relaxed atmosphere? Of course, you must not forget that you can also market your products at a company event.

Especially popular and practical for corporate events: a summer party! It can be held outdoors, which saves you expensive room rental, it offers simpler – and cheaper – catering options, such as food trucks or a self-organised barbecue, and outdoors you usually run into a space problem less quickly – perfect for larger events or space-consuming activities.

Organization tips

Before you get started with the organization, you should first define your target group. Who are your customers and what could you like?

Also create a guest list if you want to send personal invitations.

Next, you should set goals for the event. What do you want to achieve with the event? Do you want to win new customers with the event, do you want attention for new products or new contact details for future product information?

Define criteria that you can use afterwards to determine the success of the event.

Define a budget. If you have previously set goals for the event, you can more easily estimate which budget is appropriate.

If you know your audience, you can think of a theme and program that fits your goals and budget.

Check the feasibility of your ideas! Obtain initial offers to see whether your ideas can be implemented with the existing budget and whether you have sufficient capacity. Who can help on site? Do you have enough space? Do you need any special permits?

Once this has been done, you can determine the location and the date. A popular stumbling block is to set the date for an important sporting event or folk festival. Make sure that no other event gets in your way.

Once the location and date have been set, you can send out invitations. Also consider a deadline for feedback so you can plan better.

Finally, if you are planning a public event, you should start promoting your event as early as possible.

Identify the need

When changes take place in the market or in the industry, many people are open to accepting information offers – the ideal starting point for your event.

Check, for example, whether there are new technologies that offer your customers opportunities and at the same time create pressure to adapt. Always ask yourself from the point of view of the decision-makers on the customer side: What problems do they have? What information do they need? Here you think primarily in terms of business categories. For example, you will find the criteria according to which a customer decides, for example: reduce costs, work faster or organize better.

Decide who you want to address

The closer you stay to your offer and the needs of your target group when choosing topics, the more trade visitors you will attract. The disadvantage is that there may be only a few people, and your event is difficult to present in the press.

On the other hand, broaden the topic, attract more interested parties and score points with decision-makers in chambers, associations and politics, for example with topics such as “How new technologies change the working world” or “Optimising marketing with digitalisation”.

Find out from professional training providers which seminars are available for your core target group

Since these are subject to a fee and are nevertheless accepted, you can assume that you will meet with great interest with a free event on similar topics.

The right mix makes the difference – but in the search for the best topics, the plan often fails to address new customers through a special event or to retain existing customers. Therefore, you should be skilful in responding to the interests of your target group.

Everyone would like to fulfil target group wishes – but which topic fits best? Everyone would like to fulfil target group wishes – but which topic fits best?
Establish the company reference
The following procedure is recommended for developing event topics:

Formulate your company’s offer in one sentence, for example: “We offer printing machines for copy shops and take care of maintenance and repair”. In the specialist publications that your customers read, look for topics that are closely related to your company’s performance.

You can use these as topics for your event. For example: “Minimize printing costs” or “New technologies can print faster”.

Then check whether a topic found in this way also carries an entire event: Assign to it both information from your offer and neutral but useful information from the specialist publications.

Golden rules for a successful company party:

Perfect company celebration: less is more

Although a business event is often associated with showmanship and pomp and circumstance in one’s mind, less is more in every respect at a perfect company celebration. Especially when planning the program, you should be careful not to put too many items on the agenda.

Otherwise, the company party will quickly become tedious for the guests and will remind them all too well of their unloved everyday working life – an association that must be avoided at all costs during the company party. You should also select the food carefully when eating and thus focus on quality instead of quantity. Otherwise, your guests will quickly become saturated, which will have a negative effect on the party atmosphere.

Alternation lends momentum to every company party

In order to prevent this oversaturation at your company party, you should always alternate the meals with artistic contributions. For example, some speakers may follow after the starter and a cabaret artist or magician will entertain you after the main course. In this way you bring structure into the evening and at the same time ensure variety.

If the artistic contributions only take place after the meal, the guests are already full to the brim and can follow the performances only with difficulty. In addition, this can result in very long waiting times for the artists, which can be avoided by a varied programme sequence.

Fun with structure: dramaturgy of the company celebration

In general, it is important to bring a meaningful dramaturgy into the evening. At a company party, important speeches and presentations are often on the agenda. Therefore, it is important to distribute them well throughout the evening and to always let a loose part follow a serious item on the agenda.

Don’t line up all the speeches in a row, but rather let the first speech be followed by an interactive slide show or the performance of a singer or a pianist.

A well thought-out sequence is the be-all and end-all of any business event, otherwise your company party will quickly appear tough and tedious to the guests.