When you’re just starting out as a New York event planner, you can sometimes overlook the business-boosting potential of one corporate event client. Don’t just land a client, produce the event, and walk away. Instead, build a stronger, ongoing relationship with that business client. Look to develop a community of past event clients from which you can draw referrals, potential sponsors, and repeat events. Strategic relationships matter in the events industry. And these are the advantages you can expect from building an event client referral network.
1. One Client Can Become a Lifetime of Business Opportunities
If you’re one-and-done with any of your event clients, you’re missing a valuable opportunity to grow your business. Every single client has the potential to become an ongoing business resource for you, especially the corporate clients who need event planning services year-round. Win the company holiday party and build a relationship to keep planning those parties every year. And soon, they’ll hire you for their product launch events, industry conferences, managers meetings, and team-building events, too!
2. Referrals Are Easier to Close
You still need to actively market your event planning business to land new corporate clients. However, as you grow and cultivate your network of existing company clients, you can create a referral marketing strategy just to them. Incentivize referrals and expect soft leads from your pool of event clients who are already impressed with your services. And each referral is much easier to close than a cold lead, only fortifying your ability to generate ongoing event business for yourself.
3. A Community of Clients Can Be a Community of Sponsors
New York event planners often use sponsorships as a method of boosting event awareness and generating revenue. When you have a dedicated community of past event clients, you essentially have a warm audience to which you can pitch sponsorship opportunities. If they’ve already experienced planning an event with you, they’ll be more agreeable to sponsoring other events you plan that align with their brands.
4. An Endless Resource for Testimonials and Case Studies
When you focus on building long-lasting relationships with your corporate event clients, you create an endless resource for your business of testimonials. Use testimonials as marketing tools on your social media and website. And dig even deeper into some of your past event client experiences to leverage potential case studies that can work in your favor to land new clients.
5. It’s the Megaphone to Your Word-of-Mouth Marketing
When you create a community of client relationships, you can, over time, broaden your reach in your market. Those corporate event clients will start to talk about how great it was working with you to others in their circles. And these are audiences you wouldn’t normally be able to reach intentionally. In a way, a community of championing clients can put a megaphone to your word-of-mouth marketing in a big way.
Grow Your Event Client Referrals at The Expo
Learn more about scaling and growing your event planning business at The Event Planner Expo! It’s NYC’s premier event conference, attracting thousands of top pros and influencers from around the globe. Find the strategies you need to squeeze every drop of business growth potential from your clients. And reserve your exhibition space today so you can land new event clients and form the strategic relationships you need to be successful!
