Organizing a business conference is a complex task, which requires thoughtful planning and proper execution according to the planning. But from where can you start planning for the event?
Our ultimate guide to organizing a business conference will inform you about the correct ways to arrange a business event successfully. Regardless of the event theme or place, deciding the goal stands out as the first key step here.
However, it is tough to reach the target audience and invite them to register for your event without running lucrative promotion programs on the conference website and social media platforms.
Meanwhile, the organizers must take at least 12 months to pre-plan for the conference and execute it perfectly. Stay with us to know every detail related to the organization.
What is a Business Conference?
A business conference is a meeting place for industry professionals, experts, and researchers to share fresh ideas about business. It is a broad network, where intellectuals in this field meet to exchange innovative knowledge.
Learning new insights and knowing about the latest industry trends is possible through professional interaction during the event. Attendees present their papers at the event, which increases the chances for future collaboration and partnerships.
A successful arrangement of the event always takes ahead the attendees for personal and professional development. No platform offers an attendee to stay under the supervision of the leading industry professionals and interact than a business conference.
You can find a good amount of variety in the world of business conferences.
- Industry-focused conferences to discuss the latest trends and challenges in a particular field.
- Networking and leadership conferences for professional advancement through panel discussions and interactive sessions.
- Entrepreneurship and startup summit to guide the interested ones in growing their career.
- Global business conferences to gather like-minded professionals and researchers from around the globe.
- Technology-based conferences are arranged to discuss the latest technical innovations to gain success in the specific business field.
- Trade shows and expos are arranged to showcase their newly invented products and services.
No matter what type of event you’re attending, it always helps you in professional as well as personal development.
Ultimate Guide to Organizing a Business Conference
A business conference requires proper planning to get to the peak of success. But is it only limited to planning? Not at all because without proper execution, planning alone never can bring you success.
For a proper organization of a business conference, one needs to advance according to the plans and we would like to help you out by distributing the entire organizing process in three segments.
- The planning period
- The execution period
- The follow-up period
The planning period includes tasks like deciding the conference theme, promotions, recruiting speakers, and so on. On the contrary, ensuring a seamless, smooth event is the main task of the execution period.
Don’t ever skip the follow-up period as it allows the organizers to assess their success rate by comparing it to what they wanted to achieve.
The Planning Period
This particular segment is very crucial as the success of the conference depends largely upon the planning stage.
Step 1: Determine the Conference Theme
The first crucial step in planning a business conference is to establish a clear theme. This theme will serve as a guiding framework for the entire event, influencing decisions about objectives, target audience, speaker expertise, and other key aspects.
Step 2: Decide Conference Objectives
Once you have determined the conference theme, the very next thing you need to do is decide what you want to achieve from the event. Deciding the objectives means a business conference organizer can work to achieve those goals from the word go.
The conference can be arranged within your company to discuss the advancement of the company or find solutions to any sudden challenges inside the institution.
On the other hand, your event might have aimed to earn revenue from ticket sales, but still have to emphasize the content. Moreover, events that allow showcasing any latest innovations from the attendees are the most valuable ones.
Step 3: Build an Organizing Committee
An organizing committee is necessary because you can’t get all the jobs done alone. Distributing a huge task among a few people makes it look simple.
Soon, after the theme, objectives, and goals are decided, form a committee of the best intellectual persons in your organization to ease the way to success. Assign specific team members with specific duties.
Meanwhile, members are accountable for their tasks, and they must keep others updated regarding the progress of the work.
Step 4: Finalize the Budget
Finalizing the entire event budget means there is an outline of the expenditure in the event. Having a fixed budget also helps you to know the amount you have to spend in a specific field related to the arrangement.
The major fields that impact the budget are –
- Venue cost
- Promotion cost
- Speakers’ fee
- Catering cost
You can neither bring a quality speaker to your event for free nor satisfy the attendees all day long without serving quality food & beverages.
Meanwhile, there is a good chance to reduce the entire cost a lot by getting a sponsorship from a reputed brand. Partnership with a well-known, reputed company gives an extra limelight to your event.
People will have a positive vibe about the event, which is the result of the partnership with a trustworthy and reputed company.
Moreover, a successful arrangement can encourage this or any other company to keep in touch for future events.
Step 5: Select the Most Suitable Venue
Attendees are the life of any business conference as they share their innovative thoughts and research in front of industry experts for their professional advancement. But what would it be like without ensuring attendees’ comfort?
No matter how many reputed speakers you’ve recruited or how much quality the contents have, if the attendees can’t have a comfortable experience, the entire arrangement goes in vain.
A spacious venue, which is easily accessible from the airport, with every possible technical support, and a large parking area is always something an attendee would love to have.
Step 6: Fix the Event Date
Before your marketing team starts the event’s promotion, fixing the date is a must. How are you supposed to invite anyone to your conference without a fixed date?
After finalizing the venue, the next task is to make sure there is no other event scheduled on that particular date. Clash of events will divert the concentration of the participants.
Moreover, it’s never an ideal decision to arrange a business conference on a public holiday when most people love spending time with their dear and near ones.
Step 7: Conference Agenda and Format
A conference agenda is a crucial piece of information that notifies all the registered attendees about what will be included in the event. The promotion seems incomplete without having a proper schedule for the entire event on the promotion page.
Starting from the event name, theme, date, time, and keynote speakers’ list everything should be there in the agenda.
Offline, online, or hybrid, what format is preferable should be decided depending on the event theme. A conference within your organization can be an online one but offline or hybrid is preferable when attendees from different parts of the world will join.
Step 8: Run Promotion After Identification of The Target Audience
Business enthusiasts, entrepreneurs in this field, researchers, and graduates should be perfect additions to a business conference. And you should run your promotional programs for your target audience.
Both free and paid marketing are capable of reaching the intended participants. But will all of them register for the event after seeing the promotional advertisement? Not a chance, because they will want to know a few details before registering.
A good way to attract more attendees when they visit the promotion page is to offer discounts for early bird and group registration.
Participants who register within the early phase of the registration period will have a certain amount of discount and such lucrative offers can bring more participants.
Step 9: Recruiting Appropriate Speakers
Regardless of the conference topic, speakers appear as the key force to engage the attendees. It is impossible to organize a successful business conference without attendees’ engagement.
Quality speakers with vast knowledge of the event theme are the first criteria for the selection. Moreover, speakers with a better track record in this field will always get prioritized.
Moreover, they must come with the capacity to interact with the audience during their speeches. The best they can do is ask them a few interesting questions and try to get the answers simply.
Again, the dedicated panel discussion opens up the opportunity in front of the participants to get expert solutions to any of their problems.
Step 10: Aseamless Registration Process
A hassle-free registration process provides a positive impression to the expected attendees from the very beginning. There must be a dedicated team in the organizing committee to look after the registration process.
Create a conference website, which has an attractive advertisement on the front page that directly takes to the registration page. An attendee must provide all the essential info to fill out the registration form.
The website will offer both tickets for regular price and discount tickets for early birds. After the payment is over, the person will wait until he/ she gets a confirmation email notifying the registration success.
Step 11: Sending Reminders to The Expected Attendees
The team working on the registration has another crucial job which is to send reminders to each registered attendee to join the conference on time.
Although sending reminders doesn’t matter for those who are eagerly waiting for the day to come. However, people who remain busy with their work all day long have every chance to miss out on the event.
Therefore, a personalized email will work as an alert for those attendees to inform them about their upcoming schedule. Such alerts also allow registered attendees to take preparation before visiting the event premises.
The Execution Period
On the conference day, there is a lot of stuff you need to look out for as the organizers. Without proper utilization of this stuff, the chances of having a successful event decrease.
Step 1: A Convenient Check-in System
Listing the attendees manually is a tiresome task, but when there is a system to detect your presence through biometrics, the entire process becomes convenient.
For instance, if there is biometric fingerprint technology at the entrance, identifying the number and names of the registered participants becomes easier.
However, a team must work to ensure that only registered attendees are allowed to enter the conference. Unauthorized entries can create chaos, which will appear as a major obstacle to conference success.
Step 2: Serving Conference Accessories
A good way to welcome the attendees is by handing over a welcome package from the conference organizers. The package can include accessories like a conference certificate, a notepad, a pen, a bag, and so on.
It’s a good way to encourage the participants to be involved throughout the event. Moreover, it’s a way to prove that you as the organizers recognize your audience and respect their presence.
Step 3: Ensuring Atechnically Sound Program
Uninterrupted technical support is mandatory when you’re organizing a huge event. Proper lighting, a quality sound system including a microphone, and constant WiFi service are some of the key aspects of a technically sound event.
On the other hand, a team must be imposed at the event premises to deal with any unexpected technical issues. They have to ensure the maximum perfection of the technical side.
Step 4: Maximum Attendee Engagement
Ensuring the maximum attendee engagement largely relates to the planning period as the speakers have this huge task of engaging the audience. Now, did you select intellectual and quality keynote speakers to run the conference?
If the answer is yes, then there is nothing to worry about because top-tier speakers come with the quality to create a better interaction with the audience during their speeches.
Moreover, panel discussion creates an environment, where the attendees can share their problems in this particular field and seek solutions from the professionals. Those interactions also promote collaboration and partnerships in the future.
Step 5: Energize with Quality Catering
It’s not unnatural for the attendees to lose their enthusiasm a bit when they are sitting idle in a position for so long. That is why, serving quality food and beverages in the middle of the event is a good way to bring their enthusiasm back.
Meanwhile, always fix the food items depending on which part of the day you are serving it. This means that the type of food you choose should be appropriate for the time of day. For example, you might serve a light breakfast, a hearty lunch, and a lighter dinner. One more suggestion is to have a little bit of variety in the food item to keep things interesting and appealing.
Step 6: Zero Compromise with Security Issues
A peaceful conference without any disorganization and chaos is possible when the organizers are highly concerned with security. Two things are doable here to deal with security issues.
The first thing is to have security cameras all over the event premises. If not possible, at least have cameras at the entrance and important sections of the event location.
The second thing is to have a dedicated team working to ensure a secure event and deal with any sudden security issues.
The Follow-Up Period
As an organizer, if your motif is to learn from the mistakes and work for improvement in the upcoming event, there is hardly any better alternative than taking feedback from the audience.
It’s a part of the follow-up period, but there is more you can do to follow up.
Step 1: Arrangement for Post-Event Rewards
Post-event rewards are to encourage attendees with the best presentations and papers. Such awards will become a good addition to their CV and assist a bit in their career advancement.
Moreover, it’s a good way to encourage them to go forward and register for the next event that relates to their professional background.
Step 2: Collecting attendees’ Feedback and Work Accordingly
It’s possibly the best thing an organizer can do for improvement in their upcoming conferences or events. The attendees will share their opinions regarding the entire conference, both positive and negative.
It will take off the curtain from the mistakes of the organizing committee. But this feedback goes into vain if you never work on the improvement.
Step 3: Connect Through Social Media Platforms
Even after the event ends, there is a good chance to stay connected with your audience and update them regularly about your upcoming events. These platforms create a community of organizers and like-minded audiences.
Audiences can share their suggestions regarding the upcoming event, which raises the chances of knowing the fields of improvement and working accordingly.
Challenges to Organizing a Business Conference
It’s tough to maintain business conference planning from the very beginning till the end smoothly. There are a few common challenges an organizer will face while organizing a business conference.
Lack of Clarity About the Goal
A successful conference is only possible when the organizers have a clear concept of what they are looking forward to achieving from the event. The committee working to plan a successful business conference must have a prolonged discussion on their goal.
The goal has an impact on things like who will be the target audience, how the promotion program shall go on, what quality of speakers they should hire, conference duration, and so on.
Due to the lack of clarity confusion will arise, which can ultimately lead to an overall faulty arraignment.
Not Having Enough Time for Planning
There is every chance of facing issues if you don’t emphasize the conference planning time. Having at least 12 months before the event takes place allows the management to dive deep and look out for every small detail.
From deciding the event goal, inviting keynote speakers, running promotions to reach the target attendees, and ensuring a seamless event, everything must go through a systematic planning procedure.
Budget Issues
Event venue, promotion, speaker fees, and catering costs are some major fields where you need to have a clear idea of the total cost. However, did you finalize the budget?
Assess your total expenditure before starting to work according to the plan. Without having a proper budget depending on your arrangement, the ultimate result will be a shortage in your entire budgeting.
Lack of Attendee Engagement
One of the most challenging issues during the event is enabling the attendees to engage throughout the event. However, the task largely depended on the keynote speakers.
Therefore, to avoid this issue, the best you can do is to go through the track record of the speakers. Experienced speakers with a good track record possess the quality to connect to the audience.
Unable to Distribute Responsibilities to the Right Person
Handing over the wrong responsibilities to the wrong person can have a poor impact on the entire arrangement. While distributing duties to the team members, assign a particular duty to a specific group of people with a better knowledge of it.
The assigned members will be responsible for their failure and they can also find solutions to any issue in this field compared to others.
Tips for Organizing a Business Conference Successfully
When someone asks for tips to arrange a successful business event, the discussion always moves to the four features of a successful conference. These are the key fields that can easily lead you towards the goal.
The four features are –
- Selecting an appropriate event location
- Arrangement of interactive sessions and panel discussions
- Seamless technical support throughout the event
- Attendees’ comfort by serving quality food and drinks.
Selecting an Appropriate Event Location
In simple words, an appropriate location means it is easily accessible from the airport, can accommodate all the expected attendees, has no security issues, and no nearby event is scheduled on the conference date.
Arrangement of Interactive Sessions and Panel Discussions
Interactive sessions and panel discussions are the dedicated segments for the participants to communicate with industry professionals, showcase their innovative thoughts, and seek suggestions for their professional development.
Seamless Technical Support Throughout the Event
Seamless technical support provides a positive experience to both attendees and speakers, which is essential for the successful arrangement. Technical issues will always disrupt the event’s proceedings.
Attendees’ Comfort by Serving Quality Food and Drinks
Don’t let your attendees feel hungry or exhausted in the middle of the conference. Arrange quality food and drinks during the break to serve and energize the participants.
What Are the Benefits of Organizing a Business Conference?
Business conferences have purposes like discussing innovative ideas, arranging a meeting of the workers within an organization, generating revenue through ticket sales, and so on.
However, how organizing a business conference is beneficial for an organizer is a buzz question.
Generate Revenue Through Ticket Sales
Commercial business conferences have a target to earn revenues through ticket sales. However, the ticket-selling number depends heavily on event marketing. The better your marketing team works, the more tickets will be sold.
And an increased number of ticket sales means a huge amount of revenue. Moreover, extra ticket sales are the resemblance of success. This is because success only comes with maximized attendee participation.
A Successful Arrangement Earns Them a Good Reputation
Not every organizer can assure you of a successful conference. But the reputed organizers can. Now the question is what can transform your organization into a reputed one?
The simplest way to earn a reputation is by arranging a successful business conference. Also, don’t forget to take feedback from the attendees regarding any suggestions or what can improve the event quality.
Finding Accurate Solutions to Diverse Problems
Problem-solving conferences are typically arranged within an organization to look after any sudden issues and find out the most appropriate solution. The speakers will hear out the problem from the participants first.
Each participant will share their issues related to the event topic and let the speakers do the rest of the job by suggesting ways to overcome their problems.
Improving Leadership Opportunities with in the Organization
A conference is always a good initiative for your company or organization as it enhances the path of getting leaders who can operate the proceedings of an event.
Moreover, members of the organization will work together with a single goal of making the event a successful one. Working together will uplift the reputation of the organization.
Offer Personal and Professional Development to the attendees
Organizers of a business conference invite participants to join the event and get some effective guidelines for personal and professional development
Although these guidelines won’t provide success to an attendee immediately, they will help one capable of making a progressive run toward his/ her professional goal.
Project Management Tools to Organize a Business Conference
You can’t just stop after planning to organize a business conference, because the next step is tougher, which is the execution of the plan according to the planning.
But the biggest hindrance here is that you can’t keep track of everyone’s work manually and when the members aren’t accountable for their duties, they might not put proper importance to their work.
To solve this issue, a project management tool comes as a blessing. A good number of project tools are available out there to track the activities and work progress.
- Trello
- Cvent
- Asana
- BaseCamp
- HubSpot
- Hoba
- Slido
- com, etc.
Although both free and paid tools are available for this task, paid ones offer more facilities for your business. You have the right to choose between free and paid ones.
However, a few more things are there to consider before using any of these project management tools.
- Understand your needs before choosing a management tool like tracking the activities, virtual communications, etc.
- A professional interface to provide a professional experience.
- A tool that comes with a simple layout and is easy to use.
- It must come with the capability of managing the entire project.
- Availability for external sharing with the partnership company.
- The paid one must come with a reasonable pricing.
All in all, an ideal project management tool can provide you with these facilities to maintain the work progress with a cost that always stays within reach.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there any other query you are left with after covering almost every possible aspect related to organizing a business conference? If yes, this section might help you out a bit.
How Do You Structure a Conference Agenda?
Before structuring the conference agenda, as an organizer, you need to know the event goal and who your expected attendees are. After that, you must organize the agenda by providing some valuable information.
- Brief description of the conference theme
- A detailed schedule with location
- Information about the sessions
- Speaker Biographies
- Sponsor details (If there is any)
- Contact information
It’s good to include the agenda on the promotion page because a good number of attendees will decide whether to join the event or not after assessing the agenda.
What is a Conference Format?
Basically, a conference is organized following three different formats, and as an organizer, you are the one to decide which format suits the event theme best.
The three formats are –
- Offline conference where attendees join physically
- Virtual conference with attendees joining online
- Hybrid conference.
Most commercial conferences are organized offline. However, nowadays, organizers have become more dependent on arranging hybrid conferences because attendees outside the event premises can also become part of this.
How to Make a Good Conference?
A good conference is the result of perfect planning and proper execution. From choosing the most suitable event venue to ensuring a technically sound event, every single task makes a good conference.
However, forming a management committee to manage the entire event is a necessary step. A project management tool can also assist the committee very well in keeping track of their work.
Last Words
Are you on the verge of organizing a business conference? Don’t worry, as our guide to organizing a business conference has already made your way a lot smoother than before.
As no event can go on without a specific goal, deciding the goal comes first before anything else. The immediate step is to select a venue that is mostly relevant to the event theme and can accommodate the number of attendees.
However, it’s not enough because the budget issue can create severe problems later on. Therefore, fix the budget and start working on arranging a conference ensuring attendees’ maximum comfort.