Problem #1: Poor Planning

Everyone knows about this one. The program is thrown together haphazardly. Clients have little or no notice about the upcoming workshop or class. What’s worse is the event planner, due to lack of knowledge or inexperience, probably never considered hiring an event photographer, using event registration software or how they were going to promote the conference.

Solution: Using online event registration software like Eventzilla makes it possible for even the most inexperienced of planners to create conferences, workshops and other events that get results.

Problem #2: Failure To Promote

The company plans workshops, classes or product shows for six months into the future. Unfortunately, no one knows anything about their shows because they fail to promote the event. They never place advertisements or send out mailings. They just assume because they know about what they are planning, everyone else will get the message.

Solution: Marketing is the key. You wouldn’t try to sell a product without advertising. Why do this to your events? Sell tickets online, promote on Facebook Fan Page, send a tweet to your followers, create a hash tag for your event, send out messages to your mailing lists and use event registration software to log who is planning to attend.

Problem #3: Choosing The Wrong Conference Registration Software

Even though a program is designed to make the job of conference planning easier, if it is difficult to work with or doesn’t provide all the functionality needed, most people aren’t going to use it.

Solution: Pick a conference registration software program that has all of the functions you need without a long list of extra bells and whistles to confuse your planning and scheduling team. There are many pay per use event registration softwares available in the market.

Problem #4: Making It Difficult To Get Tickets

The consumers of the world are big fans of convenience. They want to do their shopping or find the information they are looking for in one place and anything that makes their lives easier becomes popular quickly. Unfortunately, many conference planners fail because they simply make things too difficult for prospective attendees.

Solution: Sell tickets online and offline. Make it easy for your clients to purchase tickets to your events as soon as they hear about them. Include the links to your online ticket purchasing outlet in your emails to your mailing lists so client can purchase tickets while the idea is still fresh in their minds. Last but not least – add a phone number to your event page to make it easy to reach you in case the attendee has a question before purchasing tickets for your event.

Problem #5: The Sins Of The Past

Was your last workshop a flop? While it is possible to recover from events that went bad in the past, it requires a lot more work to regain your reputation.

Solution: Prevent the problem before it starts by always using a top quality event registration software and follow through with your clients. Hire a professional event photographer to show prospective attendees just how much your even planning has improved. In short, show your clients that you learned the lesson and you are putting in the work to regain their respect.

Hosting a workshop or conference? Try Eventzilla to setup a custom registration form and accept payments to your PayPal account for Free!

Managing events and getting attendees to your events is quite a job in itself but if you cannot find the right people to attend your events, that is a big let down. And with the attendance remaining slim during the recessionary period, let us look at some methods that can help you get that elusive lot.

Promote It

Recession or not, the most important tool for attracting attention to your event is still promotion. And with the Internet revolution that has everyone hooked on, what better place to reach out to millions of your potential attendees. With the advent of websites like Eventzilla, you can promote your event almost everywhere on the net with just a click. Whether it’s Facebook or twitter, blogs or customized webpages, use them all to get your event out there.

Webinars are another great concept that can help you reach out to people globally without worrying about boundaries and timings. Here’s something on webinars that would get you thinking.

Remain in touch

Try and remain in touch with the people you expect to see during your events. This takes care of two things. Firstly, it reminds the person of the event and tells him that you are interested in the people who are going to attend. This may not be a big step for you but it would go a long way in making sure that people attend your events.

Making an event successful depends on a lot of things and one of the critical factors is how engaged you keep your audience. This also ensures that next time you do something similar, you would already have a loyal audience to bank upon.

An analysis is another aspect that can help you understand the kind of people who are interested in the event. Using Eventzilla, you can also check out who is buying tickets for your events and how many people are visiting your events webpage.

The Invitation

As they say, make them an offer they can’t refuse. Simply put, make a professional event invitation, one that would be quite hard to turn down. How do you do that? By giving them what they seek.

The essence and secret to successfully inviting the right set of people is honesty. Reach out to people who can really benefit from what you have to offer and the rest will take care of itself.

The Social Media Specialist

When: 05.04.2010
Where: New York:

If you want a piece of the world, you need to know your social media. Infact, you need to be a specialist. With the ever expanding content market that is being updated, commented and edited every second of every day, the social part o your life needs to be exploited to the max to make it big. And to do all this, all you need to do is register for the IAB Social Media Marktplace. With this, you get an insight from:

•    John Battelle (Federated Media)
•    Wenda Harris (MediaLink)
•    Ian Schafer (Deep Focus)
•    Andrew Markowitz (GE)

Registration: http://www.iab.net/events_training/socialmedia2010/overview
Twitter: @iab
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbMVMgB-hy8

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Blog Well

When: 07.04.2010
Where: Cincinnati
Who: Gas Pedal and Social Media Business Council

Learn how the latest in the world of social media is being used by the largest corporations from around the world to change the way people work and think. Take a cue from the best. With firms like Dell, Duke Energy, Hilton, Tyson Foods and  P&G sharing their case studies into corporate social media, it can’t get better than this. Attend this and there would not be a roadblock that can stop you on the internet super-way.

Learn more: http://gaspedal.com/blogwell/cincinnati/

Registration:

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/SecureCart/SecureCart.aspx?mid=9405278D-4B0F-45E9-B633-A99BB5E13749&pid=be4e9107e024464caad558fd0ae73170&bn=1

Price: $250

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Think Mobile

When: 7.04.2010 – 8.04.2010
Where: New York
Who: AdMob, Nielsen

Enter the world of Mobile Apps and discover how you can expand your market through the digital revolution. Think Mobile is a conference that stresses on the strategies and concepts related to mobile and mobile apps. Here are some of the things that are in store for you at the meet:

•    Designing and Marketing your mobile apps and user interfaces
•    How to use the Mobile Apps to make money
•    Increasing your markets through mobile apps

Registration: http://www.mediabistro.com/thinkmobile/?c=tmmash

Twitter: @mobilecontent

Price: $125

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Connect Now

When: 7.04.2010 – 9.04.2010
Where: Sydney, Australia

An event spread across three days, Connect Now focuses on the upcoming technologies and enterprises. Here’s a preview of the itinerary:

Day 1&2:
For the first two days of the conference, the stress would be on learning from the new and emerging trends in the ‘social market’. Way to augment your business through the growing cluster of digital applications and leveraging the same for your future adventures.

Day 3: This day has been totally dedicated to the NGOs, charity groups and those that work without the aim of profit.

This is definitely one event that would leave you with more strategies than you would have ever found in a single place.

Registration: http://www.connectnow.net.au/register

Twitter: @Marketing_Now

Price: Starts at $400

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Natural SEO

When: 9.04.2010
Where: London
Who: Natural SEO

An event brought to you by Natural SEO, this one aims at breaking the myths that have come to be commonplace with Search Engine Optimization. The prime attractions are the tools that have been designed to help those actively involved with blogging and SEO. You can also try a hand at the mentioned features at the event and see for yourself whether it really can make a difference for you
The event while being free, is limited to just a hundred places.

Registration: http://www.meetup.com/thupr2010/calendar/12578944/

Twitter: @meetup

Price: Free

Total Seats: 53

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New York Entrepreneur Week

When: 12.04.2010 – 16.04.2010
Where: New York

A non-profit alignment that works with the single aim of promoting the entrepreneurs around the world, this is the perfect place if you are someone with a dream and an idea. Interact with entrepreneurs and dealmakers from around the globe and learn what drives them to excel in their fields.

If you have the will and the idea, there is nothing that should come in the way. And if something does, this is the best place where you can get rid of all your obstacles.

Learn more: http://www.nyew.org/
Registration: http://www.nyew.org/index.php/event/agenda-schedule/

Twitter: @NYEWeek

Price: Starts at $150

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Hosting an event?  Start selling tickets for your events using Eventzilla
Eventzilla is an inexpensive online ticketing and registration solution that makes it simple for individuals and businesses to sell, market and manage their events in one place.

• Great communication and interpersonal skills
• Organizational skills
• Multi tasking
• Work in strict deadline scenarios

Nature of work

Multi tasking and orchestrating several activities simultaneously best sum up the work that a CMP does. The work is energizing and demanding at the same time.

The working hours and schedule of a planner vary quite a bit. From sitting in the office working out the details to visiting different meeting sites and locations to oversee that everything goes on according to the book, the hours can be normal and long both. At the same time, it is an exciting job that leads you to meet new people, travel to great locations and meet speakers that enthrall audiences. If there is one word that you would never find in a planner’s dictionary, then that would have to be ‘boring’.

Qualifications and Education

Although people from all kinds of fields and backgrounds become event planners but the Certified Meeting Professional certification from the Convention Industry Council is one that holds a lot of ground.

The CMP Program is the essence for the Event planners. Although planning meetings has a lot of stuff that you would gain from experience only, there are a number of reasons why CMP should be high on your list if you plan to become a meeting planner:

• Industry wide recognition
• Exposure to industry involvement
• Increases your value to prospective employers

Essentially, the Certified Meeting Professional course is a certificate that highlights your sincerity and dedication towards the profession. It established the fact that you are serious and have the professional skill set that is critical to the job profile.

The CMP program though requires you to possess three years of experience as a meeting professional and hence you would need that before you can apply for the certification.

Most of the requirements for a meeting planner job simply require a bachelor’s degree and some of the areas that are preferably more attractive to the employers include marketing, hotel management, public relations and communications. This is because the study of these areas helps you deal with things that are the part and parcel of a planner’s profile.
What are the prospects?

The employment opportunities are a sunny sight with the expectations for growth of options expected to be faster than average. As businesses continue to grow throughout the world, meetings would assume increasing importance and hence hold a lot of promise. Statistically speaking, the employment market is expected to grow annually at a rate of 20% from 2006 to 2016.

With new platforms like Eventzilla (a platform that helps you sell tickets of your meetings online and to a wider audience) coming up that plan to tap the ever increasing market of meetings and meeting planners, the scope for growth seems to be increasing even faster than the expectations.

What do they earn?

The salary aspect too puts the meeting planners in a state of comfort. The Average annual salaries of the meeting planners that have less than a year of experience fall between $29,000 and $42,000. On the other hand, those who have an experience of around 1 – 4 years earn in the range of $35,000 and $47,750.

With the world going global and getting smaller, the meetings would hold an important place in bringing the people together. Also, with the wide array of roles that professionals need to play these days, training programs would only increase with time. Add to this the statistical fact that the growth prospects are expected to grow at a rate faster than the average for all occupations and a Meeting Planner certainly seems a promising career.

Some more food for thought:

http://www.conventionindustry.org/cmp/

http://www.citytowninfo.com/employment/meeting-planners

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos298.htm#projections_data