Focus on one particular musical event and reflect on what made that event meaningful..
Before you start planning any kind of event, the first thing to do is define your event goals and objectives. Many planners dive right into planning without even considering this crucial bit of information.
Don’t make this mistake! Setting event goals and objectives will actually make planning your event much easier.
We’ll start with the steps to setting goals for an event, and then we’ll give you a few examples of great event goals for a bit of inspiration.
In this post:
The terms “goals” and “objectives” are often used interchangeably. However, they each have distinct meanings:
When determining the goals behind the event, you are simply documenting the purpose of the event. Why is the event taking place?
Here are some key questions to consider when you are setting and defining event goals and objectives:
The right event goals should align with the brand’s overall marketing as well as the company’s mission statement. For event planners, remembering the big picture can be really helpful since their minds are normally focused on a million little tasks and deadlines.
Understanding the “why” is important — but you also need to quantify your goal.
When working with performance goals, focus on what you can control. For example, you can’t really control how many of your attendees choose to return for next year’s conference. But you can assess the number of sales made before, during, and after the conference. And how many qualified leads you obtained. And how many of those leads your team followed up with in the months after. The list can go on and on.
It may seem obvious, but when decision-makers look to measure the success of the event, they may suggest things that are simply out of your control. That’s why the way you phrase your goals can be so important when communicating expectations to your higher-ups.
When setting goals, work with SMART goals, which are:
For instance, saying you want to “host the best marketing conference ever” is not very specific or measurable. A goal to “plan a week-long country music festival by the end of the month” is time-based and specific, but it’s probably not attainable or realistic.
It’s great to reach for the stars when setting your goals, but think realistically of what you can actually achieve. Write down lots of ideas for the goal first. Then, narrow the list and combine the ideas to come up with one solid goal.
If you’re not sure what these “smart” goals should look out, check out the examples later in this post.
Regardless of your objective, one or more of these main event KPIs should be a great fit for your needs:
Event software is especially helpful for measuring these KPIs, so make sure you have a reliable platform ready to go ahead of time with all the features needed to capture your chosen data.
The next step is thinking through your event strategy. Once you know your event goal — and you’re confident and passionate about those goals — it’s time to figure out how you’re going to reach them.
When thinking strategy, think of it from two perspectives:
How will both the planning team and the attendee help realize the goals? Start to ask yourself questions such as:
You may find that your strategy might involve some mini-goals. Mini-goals and milestones are what you might need to set to get your ultimate goal — that is OK.
As you brainstorm, map out your event plan. This plan can be an outline, a project plan, or another document. It should highlight the goal you set and detail the actions you’ll take to reach those goals.