One of the more enjoyable things about the holidays, or any time of year, is attending events with friends and colleagues. When you’re the organizer, that joy can be overpowered by all the details involved in the planning and execution of the event. That’s where our event planning comes in! In just a few steps you can create your own event page that’ll manage attendees and tickets and make sharing your event super easy. Great for managing a conference or a holiday party, here are some tips to get you started:

Pre-Event – Once you have the dates and venue planned you can set up your VerticalResponse Event. Our tool will let you set up a page to allow attendees to purchase or get tickets to your event. Even if you aren’t selling tickets, this will help you manage the number of attendees. And, with the handy social widgets you can easily share your event on your Facebook page or on Twitter.

Send email invitations to your customers, prospects or employees through your VR account. You can segment your list according to geographic region or customer type to ensure you’re inviting the right group of people. Here are some recommended invitation types:

• “Save-the-Date Announcement” for your event
• Formal invite with details
• Re-send to non-responders who didn’t respond to the first invite
• Registrant reminder before the event

Our event tool makes this easy: you can include the event page you created in your email, add a note, and voila! Instant email invites. Or, you can use one of our email invitation templates instead.

During Event

• Get Social: Create a #hashtag for your event (fun even for a company holiday party) or use an existing hashtag if you’re attending or sponsoring a booth at an event. This will allow you to track all Twitter tweets coming from your event.
• Also, encourage people to “check in” at your event using Foursquare or your favorite geo-location app. Even employees enjoy being able to ‘check in’ for holiday parties, so don’t forget to encourage them as well.

You can use the registration page from your VR Event to check attendees in, or ask them to print out their receipt as a ticket into the event.

Post-Event – Just because your event is over doesn’t mean you can’t keep in touch.

• Send follow-up emails to anyone who opted in to receive your emails via business card, raffle or guest book. Send a thank you to your employees and include a link to any photos that were taken during the event.
• Send your first email as soon as possible – within a few days
• Send a second follow-up a week or two later
• Post a thank you on Facebook, include pictures from your event to remind everyone of the great time they had.

We’ve created a timeline to help you keep track of communication about events. For a company holiday party, follow the Hosting an Event line to keep everyone in the loop. Click the image for a larger view.

Though we can’t find you a great DJ (actually, we might, there are some talented people working at VR!) we can help take the stress out of managing your holiday events. Whether you’re planning a company party or a conference, our event planning tool will make everything merry and bright for you!Want more tips? Check out our recorded webinar Getting the Most Out of Events for Your Business.

We also have two guides to help:
Events 101
Event Marketing for Your Business

What events are you planning this holiday season?

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