The end of your event does not cue your vacation time (although we wish it did). Your post-event management is just as critical as your pre-event management. If you don’t have a plan for your post-event, don’t panic. Start by reading these 6 post-event musts and get to work to start providing a strong transition in to your next event.
1. Create next year’s registration page as soon as possible
We cannot stress this enough. Make next year’s event registration page as soon as you possibly can (even before the start of that current year’s event) and send it live immediately after the event ends. Catching people while they are still in the hype of your event is an easy way to create a pattern of returning attendees. It’s also a good time to attract new attendees while there is press around your event and the feeling of #FOMO is more relevant than ever right after your event.
2. Keep your public relations tactics going
Just because your event is over, it doesn’t mean the conversation around your event should be over as well. You should prepare a post-event email, post-event press release (if necessary) and post-event social media marketing plan to continue the conversation and make sure your event keeps its centrality. Consider providing benchmark data to show the amount of growth that happened as a result of your event and encourage attendees to share their participation in the event.
3. Solicit feedback from attendees
Testimonials help your event grow and can help you improve on what needs work for the following year. Don’t wait to ask your attendees for feedback, ask them while everything is fresh in their minds. You can solicit feedback from attendees by sending a post-event questionnaire via email or simply by interacting with them on social media to get their opinions.
4. Show gratitude
Your gratitude can be intangible or tangible, as long as it’s expressed. A Harvard Health study found, “Managers who remember to say “thank you” to people who work for them may find that those employees feel motivated to work harder.” There are multiple ways to show gratitude to your attendees, vendors, suppliers, venue and other team members:
- Give hand-written thank you notes
- Send a thank you email
- Call them or leave a personalized thank you voicemail
- Thank them in person
- Offer your help to them in the future in return for their help
- Give them a good review or write about how great they are on LinkedIn
5. Hold a post-mortem
A post-mortem is an open meeting that gives your team the chance to voice their opinions on what worked and what didn’t work. Remember, this is an important time to learn from your mistakes, boost team morale and share information internally to keep an open line of communication between you and your team. Holding a post-mortem meeting also gives you a good opportunity to re-examine your budget. Did you go over budget? Were you under budget? Was there anything you could have cut costs on? These are all things to evaluate during the post-mortem. Lastly, make sure you have settled everything with your vendors, suppliers and venue. You don’t want to leave the wrong impression on anyone you worked with to make your event so great.
6. Celebrate
You don’t have to go all out and rent a space in downtown Los Angeles at the Ritz-Carlton to show your appreciation for your event team (unless that’s your style of course). However, it is important to celebrate your team and show them that their work is something worth celebrating.
Bonus: Want to know our seventh post-event recommendation?
