Whether you are planning a virtual or in-person event, a clear communication plan between your team, partners, and audience can make all the difference in ensuring your event is a success. A well-designed event communication plan will include a timeline detailing when, where, and what to communicate with your attendees.
Here are some tips for building your complete event communication plan!
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1. What is an event communication plan?
An event communication plan helps you set up your strategy to promote an event and ensure its success. It also covers all your internal communications, to ensure that everyone is kept up to date with important announcements from your organisation and that the event runs smoothly.
A good event communication plan will detail your strategy and must achieve at least these three main objectives:
- Create excitement and strong awareness around the event.
- Engage the public and your prospects before, during and after the event.
- Facilitate the planning of the event and allow good communication between all the people involved.
2. Steps to a successful communication plan
Establish your communication objectives
Identifying your communication objectives is the first step in creating your communication plan for your event.
- Do you want to attract more attendees?
- Do you want your event to be recognised in your field?
- Do you want to attract targeted sponsors?
- Or maybe you just want to communicate about the date and location of your event?
It is essential to have specific objectives for your communication plan. This will allow you to select the best communication channels to achieve your objectives. For example, you may need to invest in promoting your event to attract more attendees. Also, consider focusing on companies and organisations that are compatible with your event and likely to be interested to attract sponsors.
Identify your target audience
You need to determine who you want to reach with your communication.
- Is there a target audience for your event?
- What are the characteristics (age, gender, profession, interests, etc.) of this audience?
You can use this information to tailor your message and choose the most appropriate communication channels to reach your target audience. To analyse and understand an audience; you can look at similar past events and the audience they targeted. CRM tools can help you with this task.
Once you have determined your target market, adapt your communication accordingly to reflect its characteristics. For example, you can use less formal language and communication channels such as social networks if your target audience is composed of young profiles.
Determine a forecast budget
Before selecting the channels for your communication plan, it’s crucial to establish the budget you can allocate for this purpose. Your target audience and communication objectives will shape your overall forecast budget. From there, you can allocate a portion specifically for communication expenses.
For instance, if your aim is to reach a broad audience, you might consider investing in billboards or online advertising. Conversely, if your target demographic is smaller, more focused channels like direct mail or social media may be more effective.
Determining your budget early in the planning process is essential to avoid unnecessary costs and ensure you have the resources required for successful execution.
Choose the right communication channels
Online advertising, billboards, emails, social media, public relations, collaborations, traditional media (TV, radio, print), and promotional events are just a few examples of communication channels.
It is essential to choose the communication channels that will be most useful and relevant to your target audience. Consider using more traditional means of communication, such as print or radio, if you want to attract an older audience, for example, who are often not connected to social media.
Establish a communication calendar
A communication calendar will help you organise the many elements of your communication plan, from the launch of the campaign to the date of the event, all the way to post-event communication.
Your communication calendar should include important dates such as:
- The campaign launch date,
- The publication dates of the various communication materials,
- The dates of promotional events,
- The date of the event itself,
- The forecast dates for the post-event communication campaign.
Write your communication message
Your message should be clear, concise, and easy for your target audience to understand. It should also be consistent with your communication objectives and your event.
The communication objectives you established at the beginning of your communication plan can serve as a guide for writing your message. For example, your message should emphasise the benefits of attending your event if you want to attract more attendees.
Create a public relations strategy
Public relations can help you interact with the media and influencers to promote your event. You should identify journalists and influencers who are likely to be interested in your event. You can offer them an interview or send them a press release to inform them about your event.
Measure the effectiveness of your communication plan
This step will help you determine whether your communication strategy achieved the objectives you set for it, as well as understand what worked well and what can be improved for future events.
To evaluate the success of your communication plan, you can use performance indicators such as the number of visitors, participants, conversion rate, and social network interactions.
3. The different phases of an event
An effective event communication plan must include provisions for the three main phases of an event: before, during and after.
Before the event
The period between the moment you have the idea of the event and the moment the event begins is crucial to its success. Therefore, your communication plan must quickly determine the following elements:
- The names of the presenters, the speakers
- The definition of the target audience
- The event schedule
- The means of communication
Once you have this information, you can start implementing your pre-event communication strategy. Here are some ideas on this subject:
- Create excitement around the event (announcement, teaser, etc.).
- Send formal invitations to let your audience know the importance of your event.
- Send reminders to provide relevant information about the event and promote it.
During the event
You should have a transparent communication system regarding the event schedule. This means that all team members should know their roles in advance and what they should do at regular intervals. You can do this by:
- Sending a welcome email to summarise what attendees can expect from the event.
- Sharing excerpts and key takeaways so attendees don’t miss anything important. Using specific hashtags, you can share these as part of your social media communications strategy or display them on screens at the event venue.
After the event
Your engagement with attendees should continue after the event. So your post-event communications plan could include:
- A thank-you email to everyone who attended the event.
- A feedback on the participants’ experience to determine what went well and note the improvements to be made for future events.
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