Tag: Marketing & Event Management b.com Notes

An event manager oversees the design, set-up, and execution of events that bring people together. These events can run from small networking meetings with a few dozen guests to large-scale conferences with thousands of attendees over several days and everything in between.

No matter their scope, managing events is always a people-centric endeavor. Your goal is ensuring people get the most from a given event, and you work closely with people to achieve that goal.

Role

• Event Coordinator duties and responsibilities
• Understand requirements and details of each event
• Understand clients’ needs and wants
• Plan and organize events with attention to financial and time constraints
• Book venues and schedule speakers
• Meet with clients and coordinate with them regularly
• Look for and compare different vendors (catering, decorators, musicians etc.)
• Negotiate with vendors to achieve the most favorable terms
• Hire, train and oversee personnel
• Evaluate personnel and provide reports
• Manage all event operations (preparing venue, invitations, food, drinks etc.)
• Track the overall even expenses regularly
• Do event budget planning
• Stay within the budget
• Carefully oversee event happenings
• Offer solutions to resolve problems in a timely manner
• Evaluate event’s success and submit reports

Duties of an Event Manager:

• Pre-event organisation
• Planning an event that meets the stated objectives
• Working out event budget, and logistics (venue, catering, etc)
• Managing an effective event marketing campaign
• Managing registrants
• On-the-day management
• Ensuring that on the day logistics are running smoothly (catering, venue, equipment)
• Managing event staff to help mark attendance, run speeches, provide attendee support, collect sign ups etc.
• Sending SMS communications to attendees when needed (last minute venue changes, parking notices etc)
• Post-event communication, reporting & analysis
• Managing post-event marketing/communications (‘thank you for coming’ email, feedback surveys, etc)
• Reviewing reports
• Analysing feedback and report data to measure whether event goal was achieved

Different People

1) Infrastructure Manager

They have the following responsibilities:

1. Procurement management and resource management.
2. Responsible for setting up and dismantling the infrastructure for the whole event like:
3. Construction of boundary walls, entrance and exit gates, driveways, walkways and parking lots
4. Construction of AC/Non AC hangers/ halls, seating arrangement, stage design/ set up.
5. Construction of green rooms, staff rooms, storage rooms, power rooms, toilets, sewage systems, stalls, counters, booths and kiosks.
6. Responsible for setting up electricity, water and phone connections.
7. Responsible for conservancy (i.e. cleanliness).
8. Formulates, prepares and implements the risk management plan. (risks related to infrastructure management like sudden shortage of workers, materials, power failure etc)

2) Event Manager/Event Planner

They have the following responsibilities:

1. Responsible for planning and producing the whole event.
2. Responsible for procurement management and resource management.
3. Formulates, prepares and implement risk management plan (risks related to event planning and production).

3) Security Manager

1. Responsible for formulating, preparing and implementing the security plan and strategies. i.e. how to protect delegates, guests, service providers, organizers, sponsors, partners, clients, target audience, goods and merchandise, etc.
2. Procurement management and resource management.
3. Formulates, prepares and implements the risk management plan. (risks related to security like stampede, brawl etc)

4) Logistic Manager

1. Responsible for custom clearances and other clearances.
2. Responsible for warehousing of cargo
3. Cargo insurance
4. Expected to move goods and merchandise from one destination to the other in the most efficient manner.
5. Responsible for procurement management and resource management.
6. Formulates, prepares and implements the risk management plan. (risks related to logistic management like cargo theft, etc.)

5) Information Manager

1. Manages the information acquired through different sources.
2. Responsible for the documentation of all business operations carried out pre-event, at-event and post-event.
3. Maintains database of service providers, delegates, guests, organizers, sponsors, partners, clients, target audience, media people and various govt. departments officials.
4. Formulates, prepares and implements the risk management plan. (risks related to information management like loss of data)

6) Event Coordinator

They are responsible for coordinating with all event professionals and ensures that business operations are efficient and effective.

The increasing competitive pressures brought on by globalization are forcing business professionals to find new ways to engage customers. There are many definitions of event marketing. It is defined as the marketing discipline focused on face-to-face interaction via live events, trade shows and corporate meetings among other event types. Others define it as designing or developing a ‘live’ themed activity, occasion, display, or exhibit (such as a sporting event, music festival, fair, or concert) to promote a product, cause or organization.

An event is a live multimedia package with a preconceived concept, customized or modified to achieve the clients’ objective of reaching out and suitably influencing the sharply defined, specially gath­ered target audience by providing a complete sensual experience and an avenue for two-way interaction.

Events are attracting worldwide attention and at the same time getting corporatized. Events have proved to be a versatile marketing communication tool, since they can be customized to cater to the needs of the industry.

According to Philip Kotler, Events are defined as “occurrences designed to communicate particular messages to target audience”.

Events can also be defined as something noteworthy that happens according to a set plan involving networking of a multimedia package thereby achieving the client’s objective and justifying their need of associating with events.

Characteristics

• It can be an observable occurrence.
• It can be designed to achieve certain goals.
• It can also be termed as experiential marketing.
• It is objective-oriented.
• It provides an avenue for effective interaction.

Types

1. Wide range of events:

Event marketing encompasses a wide range of event types:

1. Mega events and local events,
2. Exhibitions,
3. Trade shows,
4. Publicity stunts,
5. Themed and created events,
6. Corporate entertainment,
7. Award ceremonies.

Advantages

• It helps in brand building, that is, creating awareness about the launch of new products/brands.
• To highlight the added features of the product/services.
• It helps in rejuvenating brands during different stages of product life cycle.
• Helping in communicating the repositioning of brands/products.
• Associating the brand personality of clients with the personality of target market.
• Creating and maintaining brand identity.

Categories of Events

• Political Events
• Religious Events
• Everyday Life”
• Social Events; Weddings, Anniversaries, Death, Communions, etc.
• Entertainment Events
• Awareness Events
• Crafts and Creativity
• Sports Events
• Educative/Academic Events at colleges
• Corporate Events
• International Events
• Promotional Events

The Excitable Client

Everything you say is exciting to this client. They will enthuse, wax lyrical, delight in the details as you share your plans for their event. Feed off their energy and make it your aim to get attendees as excited as they are about the event.

The Demanding Client

They know what they want and they expect to get it. Forthright, blunt to the point of rudeness, the demanding client will make requests and expect you to jump. They tend to have a singular vision and be set upon it. With no respect for processes and protocol, they will interfere with your planning, contact you at all hours and not let up until they are wholly satisfied.

The Bargain Hunter Client

Budget-conscious and with a penchant for bargaining, this client will pinch every penny. Be prepared for them to encourage you to slash costs, cut deals, throw in extras in order to keep them happy. Dealing with a Del Boy can be disheartening: it’s all too easy to feel that they are undervaluing your skills and the effort you put in. However, stick to your guns and believe in your abilities.

The Grumpy Client

Nothing is quite good enough for this client. They are constantly moody and unenthused, even when you pull something spectacular out of the bag. Expect constant grumbles, occasional tuts, and a frown that never turns upside down.  Never fear though, beneath that tough exterior is a big softy.

The Impatient Client

With apparently no concept of how long things take and the pressures you are under, the impatient client wants things done NOW. You will be expected to drop everything to accommodate their requests.

Buyer person are focused on prospects looking to solve a problem or meet an objective that your products, solutions or services help them to achieve. Buyer person encompass all of the differing roles or stakeholders involved in the purchase decision and are usually represented by decision maker, influencer, champion, and gatekeeper roles. Distinctions can also be made as to economic buyer and functional buyer.

User person are designed to address the perspectives of those who work with your products, solutions or services on a daily basis. The goal is to help these “end users” achieve more complete use of the product, gain more value than they initially anticipated, as well as to help them become champions for continued use new additions, extensions or feature upgrades. They got what they needed to solve the original problem from your product, now how do they gain more value, or use more features? This persona is often the influencer in an account-based-marketing retention sale.

A person who buys the goods or services and pays the price thereof. The word customer is derived from the term ‘custom’ which means ‘practice’, so the word customer means the individual or entity who purchases product or services from a seller at regular intervals. It can also be known as client or buyer. They are divided into two categories:

Trade Customers: The customers who purchase goods in order to add value and resell them. These include Manufacturers, Wholesalers, Distributors, Retailers etc.

Final Customer: They are the customers who purchase it either for their own use or to hand over it to the final user.

The three kinds of customers:

• Former customers or ex-customers
• Existing customers
• Prospective customers

Consumer

a person who is the end user of the product. The word consumer is made from the word ‘consume’ which means ‘to use’. In this way, the word consumer means a person who purchases the product or service for his own use or consumption.

As per the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, it does not include the person who purchases the commodity for the purpose of adding value or resale for any commercial purpose. However, a person can use those goods or services to earn livelihood or self-employment. Any type of user, other than the buyer who purchases goods, consumes the goods by taking permission of the buyer will also come under the category of Consumer. It includes the person who avails the services for any consideration. Moreover, the beneficiary of such services will also be regarded as the consumer. There are three Consumer protection council in India:

• At national level: Central Protection Council
• At state level: State Protection Council
• At district level: District Protection Council

Marketing intelligence (MI) is the everyday information relevant to a company’s markets, gathered and analyzed specifically for the purpose of accurate and confident decision-making in determining market opportunity, market penetration strategy, and market development metrics. Marketing intelligence is necessary when entering a foreign market.

A Market Intelligence system focuses on the systematic collection and processing of information from all the relevant sources to ascertain the changing trends in the marketing environment. In simple words, the marketer gathers data from all the available sources and process these into meaningful information that can be used to make critical business decisions.

Marketing intelligence determines the intelligence needed, collects it by searching the environment and delivers it to marketing managers who need it. Marketing intelligence software can be deployed using an on-premises or software as a service (SaaS, or cloud-based) model. These systems take data from disparate data sources, like web analytics, business intelligence, call center and sales data, which often come separate reports, and put them into a single environment. In order to collect marketing intelligence, marketing managers must be in constant touch with relevant books, newspapers and trade publications. They must talk to various stakeholders like customers, distributors, and suppliers. In addition to this, they must also monitor social media and carry out online discussions. Marketing managers can design reports that correlate and visualize data coming from a variety of departments and sources (even, in some cases, external data). This allows them to see current key performance indicators in real-time (or as quickly as sources provide data) and analyze trends, rather than wait for analysts to deliver periodic reports.

Marketing intelligence systems are designed to be used by marketing managers and often viewed by employees throughout an organization. Notable systems on the market include Contify, Leadtime, Pardot, Marketo, and Hubspot. They may have user interfaces that closely resemble consumer software than the software around individual data sources, which are designed for use by analysts. Business intelligence, for example, can collect highly accurate, timely, granular data, but often requires IT support to build and edit custom reports.

Organizationally, marketing intelligence can be the name of the department that performs both the market intelligence and competitor analysis roles. Business intelligence of any kind may also be their responsibility, in tandem with (or solely performed by) the Finance department, for measuring market share and setting growth targets, the mergers and acquisitions group for exploring acquisition opportunities, the legal department to protect the organization’s assets or research and development for cross-company comparison of innovation trends and the discovery of opportunities through innovative differentiation.

Steps

• Train and Motivate Sales Force: A company’s sales force can be an excellent source of information about the current trends in the market. They are the “intelligence gatherers” for the company. The acquired facts can be regarding the company’s market offerings, whether any improvements are required or not or is there any opportunity for new products, etc. It can also provide a credible source to know about competitor activities, consumers, distributors, and retailers.
• Motivate Distributors, retailers, and other intermediaries to pass along important intelligence: Specialists are hired by companies to gather marketing intelligence. In order to measure the quality of production, the way the employees are behaving with customers, quality of facilities being provided; retailers and service providers send mystery shoppers. Firms can also assess the quality of customer experience with the shops with the use of mystery shoppers.
• Network Externally: Every firm must keep a tab on its competitors. Competitive intelligence describes the broader discipline of researching, analyzing and formulating data and information from the entire competitive environment of any organization. This can be done by purchasing the competitor’s products, checking the advertising campaigns, the press media coverage, reading their published reports, etc. Competitive intelligence must be legal and ethical.
• Set up a customer advisory panel: Companies can set up panels consisting of customers. They can be the company’s largest customers or representatives of customers or the most outspoken customers. Many business schools set up panels consisting of alumni who provide their knowledge and expertise and help in constituting the course curriculum.
• Optimal usage of Government data resources: Governments of almost all countries publish reports regarding the population trends, demographic characteristics, agricultural production and a lot of other such data. All this data must be or can be referred to as base data. It can help in planning and formulating policies for the companies.
• Information bought from external suppliers: Certain agencies sell data that can be useful to other companies. For example, television channels will require information on the number of viewership, ratings of TV programs, etc. An agency that calculates this information and generates this data will provide it to companies that need it.
• Collect Competitive Intelligence through online customer feedback: The customer’s view of a product is essential for any company. Ultimately it’s the customer who’s buying the product. Hence customer feedback must be taken. Online platforms like chat rooms, blogs, discussion forums, customer review boards can be used to generate customer feedback. This enables the firm to understand customer experiences and impressions. It becomes easier for companies to apply a structured system to do so as it can then scan out the relevant messages without much of a trouble.

1. Sense of responsibility

Good marketers always take responsibility for their actions, no matter what the circumstances. They aren’t afraid of their results being investigated and are ready to justify their work.

2. Good observational skills

Marketing is all about identifying and satisfying the client’s needs, which is why successful marketers should be able to identify their target audience, their needs and work out how to satisfy them. They must be able to put themselves in the consumer’s shoes in order to understand (empathise). Client feedback is essential for modifying and adapting the product/service accordingly. The ability to identify customer needs is therefore the essence of a successful marketer.

3. Creativity

Successful marketers know how to stand out from the crowd. They know how to make the product or service they are selling attractive. They don’t want to completely change everything, but rather try to see things from a different angle and help others to do the same. Successful marketers are ready to take risks with creative ideas that others may find completely crazy.

4. Eternal learners

All successful professionals dedicate a large portion of their personal time to developing their career and successful marketers are no exception. They don’t stop at a typical day’s work, but make a personal and financial investment in order to develop their skills.

5. Sales ability

Not only should marketers be good at marketing, but also at selling. A talented marketer will be able to sell ice to the eskimos, regardless of the product or service anti-dandruff shampoo or an annual gym membership. Successful marketers know how to communicate their message effectively after all, marketers are the ones managing sales behind the scenes.

6. Curiosity

Successful marketers know how to observe the behaviour and habits of consumers in order to fully understand their motivations/what will make them fall in love with a product. They are obsessed with market trends, consumer preferences and their curious minds mean they are constantly asking questions.

7. Innovation

Marketers aren’t afraid to try out new ideas and methods. As mentioned previously, they are curious and always on the lookout for new challenges. There’s nothing more exciting for marketers than testing out a new way of communicating and discovering the results.

8. Adaptability

The marketing world is constantly evolving, which is why marketers need to be ready to react and adapt quickly to new trends.

9. Relationship builders

All good marketers know how to build relationships with those around them, one of the most important aspects of working in the marketing world. Having a good network allows marketers to get the best deals along with many other advantages. It is crucial for marketers to get along with both colleagues and clients if they want to build a successful career.

10. Modesty

Most successful professionals, including good marketers, aren’t glory seekers. The best marketers don’t brag about their achievements, but are more interested by the challenges set by clients and working out how to solve them.