Time is money – and especially for high-impact, hyper-busy New York event planners. So, you’re always looking for brilliant ways to shave minutes off of every tedious event planning task. Sure, you use apps and automations, you outsource vendors, and you take special care to avoid time-wasting activities. But today, we’re addressing a few specific event planning elements that most pros say ALWAYS take too much time to manage. And these are the time management solutions to streamline them.
Securing Guest and Keynote Speakers
With all your corporate event planning expertise, it’s still often a challenge to find and book great keynote speakers for your events. Sometimes it takes months to pin down a guest speaker and weeks of follow up to communicate and secure the speaking arrangement details. Look for tools and resources to help streamline the time it takes to harness incredible guest speakers:
- Stay diligent on social media to identify speakers.
- Browse the speaker platforms and databases regularly.
- Promote open calls for speaking opportunities.
- Attend as many conferences as you can to meet new speakers.
Attracting and Wrangling Sponsors
Most New York event planners will tell you that one of their tallest orders is wrangling event sponsors. It takes valuable time to create lists of sponsorship prospects, develop sponsorship packages, and sell the sponsorship opportunities. But you can alleviate some of the time spent with these sponsorship-attracting and wrangling techniques:
- Work ahead of your events, contacting businesses about working together on future events.
- Build out sponsorship package templates that you can customize on the fly.
- Build relationships with past sponsors to groom them for future sponsorship opportunities.
- Follow up all events with sponsor meetings to share data and event results.
Registering and Confirming New York Event Guests
Registering and confirming event guests in New York can be time-consuming, but with the right time-saving strategies, you can streamline the overall process and save valuable time. Here are some tips:
- Leverage event apps and online event registration platforms.
- Use template registration forms you can customize for each event.
- Market early-bird incentives and discounts.
- Send automated confirmation emails.
- Provide self check-in opportunities, including QR code registrations.
Fielding Attendee Event Questions
One of the most frustrating challenges that comes with event planning involves keeping up with the flow of questions from attendees. You know it’s important to respond quickly. But who really has the time to stop and respond to every email, Facebook message, and form query? Save yourself the hassle without missing a beat with these guest communication strategies:
- Create common FAQs to feature online and within your event app.
- Establish response protocols with templated messages you can customize quickly.
- Leverage centralized communication channels, like apps, where inquiries can be logged and tracked.
- Use automations and chatbots online.
- Be preemptive with communicating event details across all your channels.
Coordinating Schedules and Event Flow Itineraries
Your event time management might be on point. But one aspect of event planning that always seems to derail the perfect time management schedule involves organizing and coordinating event itineraries. You have presentations to time and schedule, entertainers to books, and event flows to manage. One hiccup can throw a big event wrench in the plan. Consider these strategy insights to better handle your event schedules and save a little time in the process:
- Know your objectives, create an ideal timeline, and identify key stakeholders first.
- Visually map out your event flow with sessions, breaks, and venue layouts.
- Be flexible when coordinating speakers, presenters, vendors, and exhibitors.
- Delegate what and when you can so you can be available to quickly resolve delays.
- There’s no such thing as over-communicating, with speakers, vendors, and guests.
Start exploring better ways to preserve and maximize your high-value time! Keep these insights in mind. And for more ground-breaking ideas for event time management, improved marketing, and business growth, get to The Event Planner Expo 2024! This is the one NYC conference of the year where you can build strategic relationships, land new event clients, discover new partners, and learn from six-figure entrepreneurs! Get tickets NOW!
