They say, in show biz, that you should not work with children and animals, but I think sometimes they should add, with colleagues also.

One of my mentors once told me “Never go into business with friends…because you trust them too much!”

Doing business with friends and colleagues certainly has risks as there are unspoken expectations, which often lead to misunderstandings.

So, I have these rules with regards to doing business with friends and colleagues as it certainly has risks:

Rule number 1: Always treat your friends the same in business as people you do not know

Rule number 2: If you are not sure what to do refer back to rule number 1!

One of my friends once rented a condominium from me and I counted the rent in front of him and he said “What you don’t trust me?”

I replied: “This is not about trust, it’s good business practice. I want to make sure that everything was OK and that you hadn’t paid me too much…now business is concluded…let’s go for coffee my friend!”

I am not sure if he fully understood what I meant, but business is business, profit and loss is business, deadlines and responsibilities to complete agreements is business…

…and friendship is friendship.

So when doing business with friends and colleagues, the starting point should be the agreement that you are conducting business and that all business rules and practices will be done in the normal way and that neither party should be offended during the deal.

Working like this should be normal practice and will in the long run produce better results for you, your business partners and ultimately your final shows.

Business Etiquette Handling Meetings With Colleagues should be treated the same as any other client.

Be on time, be respectful, send confirming emails and letters, follow things up in writing and all the rest of the normal business practices that are carried out in any good business relationship.

I have been disappointed too many times by friends in business to know that everything will go smooth simply because you are friends.

If anything, results maybe worse, because you don’t want to say things to your friend as you may upset them.

This holding back maybe critical to show success.

I was recently bidding for a video projection system and both myself and one of my competitors were presenting basically the same product.

When it get to this point and the product is the same, the client will normally choose the person they like and feel most confident with.

So when putting a show together what are some of the Business Etiquette Do And Don’ts that you should consider?

1) Tell Your Staff First

I remember once I had an idea for a special event and in my enthusiasm and excitement I told one of my suppliers about the event and the possibility of working with them at the event.

Not long after, my Marketing Manager came to see me all upset because she had had 5 or 6 calls from people who wanted to work with us on the project, except she didn’t know anything about it and not only felt stupid to the suppliers, was disappointed with me for not discussing the ideas with her first.

So always begin your projects by having internal meetings and discussing ideas with your team before you announce outside of the company.

2) Lock Everything Down Before Announcing

Make sure your venue, sponsors, suppliers, guest speakers and all the other key elements of the show are locked in place before you announce the event.

There is nothing worse than having to go back to all your invited guests that everything has changed.

3) Plan Your Venue Etiquette

Over the last month I have attended a number of shows where the venue has failed to deliver well.

On 3 occasions electrical power was turned on late, delaying the ingress of equipment.

On one occasion the air-conditioning system was turned off before the end of the event.

Lights that take for ever to turn off during the special reveal, no hanging points for lighting and sound, dirty toilets, poor parking, over eager and hostile security guards are just a few of the problems that you may experience.

The list of problems associated with venues is too long to mention here and all of these problems can affect the comfort and attitude of your visitors.

Make sure that you have discussed all of these points clearly with the venue and discussed penalties for errors.

4) Invites And Thank You.

When inviting guests, the invite should be personalized. “To Whom It May Concern” is a terrible and unthoughtful way to invite.

Invites should be sent out in plenty of time to allow your guest to book the day for you, but not too far away from the event that they will forget.

You are OK to send reminders, but do not over do it and you should probably send a reminder the day before.

Once they have confirmed, paid or responded in some way, always send a thank you note.

Make your guest feel loved and they will love you back.

5) Working With Idiots And Those Who Do Not Care.

A friend of mine was planning a very special firewalking event and contracted a local marketing team to promote and invite the guests.

The marketing team came recommended for having a large database, however it was discovered that not only had they bought the database from a worker at a credit card facility (illegally), but that they also hadn’t made a single invite 2 days before the event.

Never be tempted to work with this kind of group, even if they come recommended.

If you feel something is wrong, follow your intuition as there is probably something wrong.

I once was given some advice (20 years ago) and my mentor said…“If they give you problems before the contract is signed, expect bigger problems once the contract is signed”

These are just a few of the very basic Business Etiquette Do And Don’ts and yet they often get forgotten or overlooked.

Having been in the entertainment and show production business for nearly 20 years, I have seen many of these problems happen over and over again and if you are planning an event, you absolutely must plan for these obstacles.

Business Etiquette Do And Don'ts

Judy Allen, author of at least 10 books about staging and events has put together an incredible resource all about Business Etiquette Do And Don’ts to help you plan the perfect event.

Judy has put together events in over 30 different countries and works at events for huge corporations such as Disney’s Beauty and the Beasts Gala night.

Saying the wrong word, making the wrong gesture or acting in a certain way, may not only ruin a business deal in some countries, but could also involve you in religious or legal proceedings.

In England for example, it is very common to do business over a pint in a local pub. Try that in the Middle East, Brunei or some other country and you are likely to be arrested.

In some Muslim countries, just being alone in the same room as a woman (especially a married one) may give rise to serious legal and religious discipline.

Pointing with your finger, crossing your legs and showing the soles of your feet, walking into a room without taking your shoes off and punching one hand into another may all get you into a position of disrespect with your host.

The Spanish tend to dress casually (but not shorts) when doing business, but the Japanese always dress to impress for business in full business attire.

In England, one is expected to be very punctual however in Japan you are expected to be fashionably late.

Tipping in New Zealand is rare, but in America tipping is expected and if you do not tip, you simply won’t get served the next time you ask for something.

So why is International Business Etiquette so important?

Most business revolves around relationships. People do business with people they like, trust and respect.

There can be no greater way to respect your foreign guests than to know and understand their culture and observe it when in their company.

They will look upon you with great respect, if they know they you took the time to research their customs and practice them when you are with them.

This alone could be the difference between you or your competitor getting a project.

Respecting other cultures is essential when doing cross-country business, even in meetings in your own country.

If a Muslin business man comes to your city and you take him for a beer and a pork lunch, you will almost certainly offend him and lose the deal.

Taking time to learn International Business Etiquette and cultures is an essential part of doing business these days and it is well recommended that you take the time to learn the essential steps to keeping respect and starting and keeping business.

International Business Etiquette

International Business Etiquette that you will surely want to take a look at if you are involved in business on an international scale at all.

Do not loose out in business or make mistakes with special events because of poor International Business Etiquette.

Imagine the picture and ask yourself how you would feel if this happened to you:

It was 8am in the morning. All the suppliers had been there since midnight installing their equipment. There were 2000 people in a queue outside the venue waiting excitedly for their “hero” speaker to motivate them into success.

One rather small problem…No Electricity!

The venue did not, for some amazing reason normally allow setups during the night, but on this occasion made an exception and the technical crew were not on site as they had not been told.

Eventually at 8.15am they got an electrician to turn on the power and the teams setup with the audience coming into the venue. Fortunately they were very forgiving and the organizer entertained them as best he could while the suppliers got everything ready and the event started with only one hour delay.”

Imagine this was your event. How would you feel being treated this way by the venue?

But as terrible as it is that the venue treats you like this, in some ways you would be responsible for this, if it was your event, as it was not discussed or sorted out before.

Ground Rules For Business Meetings – Rule Number 1

Do Not Assume

This is one of the most important of all the Ground Rules For Business Meetings if you ask me.

How many times have you heard “Oh I thought you meant…” or “Oh I thought you were going to do…”

Do not assume that things will be done the way you want them, when you want them.

Without being rude, treat people as if it is the first time they have done this and make sure that every single simple little item is covered.

Once you have experience in events, you will be able to have event recall and you should have a list of items that need to be discussed.

This list should be updated at every meeting with some new point and added to the things to talk about.

If this had happened at the above event, a lot of stress would have been avoided.

Ground Rules For Business Meetings – Rule Number 2

Put Everything In Writing

Putting everything in writing may very well save your life and is another major part of our Ground Rules For Business Meetings.

When you are having your meetings, as you talk, make notes of what was agreed, promised or assigned. Also write the name of the people that said each comment, so you can refer to it later.

After the meeting, send a copy of the points to each person in the meeting by email, snail mail or some other way.

This may seen tedious, but one day you will be grateful you did.

Ground Rules For Business Meetings – Rule Number 3

Make People Responsible.

When you send documents to people, make sure that they sign for them.

They should print, sign and date a receipt for the documents, so that they can never say “I did not know…”

Also send everyone a directory of the names, telephone contact numbers and email addresses of all the key people involved in the event along with their titles and responsibility to the event.

This way no one has any confusion about who is involved and what their role in the project is.

These 3 Ground Rules For Business Meetings, may appear to be very obvious to you and somewhat very simple, but it is amazing how many people do not do them and then live to regret it.

If you have an assistant, you can assign the task of handling these tasks to them so you can focus on the event.

If you would like help organizing your event, feel free to contact me anytime here

I am sure you have been in an audience at sometime in your life, when the event has been delayed and no one tells you what is happening.

How do you and the rest of that audience feel? Slowly the audience begins to get restless until dissatisfaction sets in and the night could very well be ruined at this point.

“I was part of a major concert with over 30,000 people in the audience and half way through the show, the main breaker serving the lights and sound blew up, bringing the concert to an abrupt halt.

However the band, stayed on stage and started singing along with the audience at the front of the stage without microphones.

Very soon the singing passed from one person to another until the whole audience was singing along without any sound or lights.

The band prevented any bad feeling and the audience was kept happy and entertained for the 15 minutes that it took to replace the breaker.

This was great business meeting etiquette of a different kind and everyone went home happy!”

Business Meeting Etiquette in the entertainment world is a little different to normal business which is done at meetings and desks. Our business meetings maybe conferences, concerts and special events, but the same 7 secrets apply to all:

Secret 1: Start On Time

Very often, the audience has paid good money to come and see your event and it is only correct not to keep them waiting.

If for some reason, there is a delay, due to some unforeseen circumstance, let the audience know what is happening and maybe even give them some entertainment while they wait.

It is fairly easy to get someone on stage just to talk for a while rather than just letting the audience sit there wondering what is happening.

It shows lack of respect for your audience and they will soon feel abandoned by you if you don’t inform them of what is going on.

Secret 2: Be prepared

Not only should you have had rehearsals, but all your slide shows, Powerpoint presentations, laptops and other presentation devices should have been tested to make sure they are all compatible.

There is nothing more embarrassing than half way through your new product launch you have a technical breakdown and have to say sorry to the audience.

You will lose them at that point!

Secret Number 3: Be More Prepared

Preparation is the key to event success. Sometimes things will go wrong. It is inevitable that sometimes this will happen.

Often equipment will not work. A common one I see is when wireless microphones will not work and there are no backups ready causing a long pause in the presentation, so always have microphones with cables ready just in case or other equipment around for back up.

Secret Number 4: Question and Answers

If you have a question and answers section, give some of the audience some questions in advance. There is nothing more deflating for a speaker than when at the end of their presentation they ask if any one has questions and no one says anything.

“Plant’ a few questions in the audience to keep the momentum going and there will probably be more questions to follow from other participants.

Secret Number 5: Don’t Just Read Powerpoint Presentations

I don’t know how many times I have been to presentations where the speaker just reads all of the words on the Powerpoint presentation and the audience just sit there reading all of the words without paying any attention to the speaker.

If you have ever sat in such a presentation, you know that you can read faster than the speaker can talk and so you just sit there in a “cut-off-long-distant” feeling from the speaker, just waiting for the next slide.

Powerpoint presentations should highlight keywords and phrases not the whole presentation. The speaker should deliver the content not the Powerpoint.

Secret Number 6: Venue Coordination

Last week I was at a conference as a sponsor at an event that was due to start at 8 am in the morning. The ingress of equipment was at midnight the night before.

However the venue, did not provide power until 7am which delayed setting up all of the equipment. This had a knock on effect and the organizer of the event was going nuts trying to keep his audience.

Secondly, the very minute the last speaker stopped speaking, the venue turned off the air-conditioning and started pulling the chairs and tables out forcing the audience to leave.

This was terrible on the part of the organizer who wanted meet-ups and photo ops in the room after the event.

Before the event, you should have production meetings to discuss all the requirements so that you do not get these kind of surprises.

You can bet the organizer won’t be going back to that venue again.

Secret Number 7: Adapt and Involve Your Audience

One of the saving features of the conference I spoke about above, was that before the 1st speaker went on stage, they had a 10 minute segment where an entertainer got on stage and had the audience singing, clapping and dancing.

Not only did this get them excited and energized for the 1st speaker, who came on stage to a thunderous applause, it also made them forget that they had been waiting for an hour whilst the technical stuff was being done.

Any bad thoughts they may have had was quickly removed from their head and the opening moments of the event were simply tremendous due to some smart thinking by the producer.

Business Meeting Etiquette – Summary

Business Meeting Etiquette actually has no secrets. These 7 secret are just common sense and careful planning by experienced producers.

Tim Bennett has almost 20 years on the international circuit producing special events and conferences and would love to help you get your next special event ready for your audience and can be contacted here.

Treating your audience special and with respect is the key to any special event.

If yes then you maybe liable for prosecution, so read on to find out if you have a problem or not.

What Is Copyright infringement?

Copyright infringement is when you use a product that is protected by copyright without permission. This is unauthorized and encroaches on the rights of the author. This includes music, video, songs or other recorded formats.

Piracy and Theft is included in the copyright laws.

Copyright enforcement is the responsibility of the copyright owner and punishment of infringement is now a criminal procedure.

There are a number of famous cases recently revolving around copyright that show how serious it is viewed amongst the courts.

Remember Napster that was recently shut down for promoting peer-to-peer music sharing?

Maybe you heard the song “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison. Well that got him a huge fine after the court ruled that he was guilty of copyright infringement with regards to a song called “He’s So Fine”

The Warner Music Group owns the rights to “Happy Birthday” so if you sing that in public you are also breaking the law.

Copyright Infringement Laws Music Industry

Copyright is clearly an important issue and one that the authors, the courts and the music industry all fight with a vengeance, so it is very possible that a show that you do may turn up on a social site such as Youtube and get you into serious trouble.

Courts are now even chasing people who download music onto their own computers.

The Happy birthday song is actually owned by the Warner Music Group (1) and generates over $2 million dollars in revenues for them.

If you want to use it commercially, it will cost you anywhere between $5,000 and $30,000 to do so and this includes, movies, recordings or special events.

If you sing it at home, it is OK as this is no longer a public performance, but the Copyright Laws For Music Industry protect it being used for any commercial intent.

It is amazing that a song which is so familiar to us and in the Guinness book of records as being the most popular song actually may cost us money if we use it.

Many restaurants sing a different version of happy birthday to their celebrating guests and now you know why. I always wondered why they didn’t use the original, but it is simply too expensive to do so.

Even the girl scouts were told they would have to pay if their visiting campers sang it on their premises to their friends.

We may think that they world has gone crazy when we cannot sing simple songs like this but they are owned by someone else and ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Virtually everything these days has some kind of protection for the designer which is normally a good thing, but which sometimes goes to far.

However that being said, how would you feel if you wrote a wonderful piece of music or produced an amazing movie and someone else used it and made more money that you from it. Or what if they completely stole it from you?

I am sure that you would be a bit annoyed to say the least and would want to do something about it.

How Intellectual Property Rights Work – Protecting Property

Protecting a house or a car is reasonably easy. Just put a fence round it or a gate and it is kind of hard to walk off with a house! Although I am sure it happens sometimes.

Protecting ideas and non-tangible products like songs, music, brand names and the such is harder.

I am sure that you have heard a piece of music before and thought…“Wait that sounds exactly like…”

It maybe that they have stolen that bit of music and the courts are full of such cases.

Patents and trademarks, industrial design and trade secrets are also covered as well as certain words, phrases, symbols and designs.

The idea of Intellectual property rights (known as IP) is to allow the owners to benefit from the property they have created including financially.

How Intellectual Property Rights Work – Incredible Facts

It is estimated that about two-thirds of large business in The United States can be traced back to intangible assets. Can you imagine what would happen to the owners of these assets if they had no protection.

There is some criticism about how far IP actually goes, especially when creating new ideas that are for the benefit of man generally, but in essence they are a good thing.

How Intellectual Property Rights Work – How Does It Affect You?

As an event organizer, when you start planning the event, you no doubt brainstorm with technicians and local suppliers, but especially stage designers and lighting designers.

Often they will give you a number of designs and options that you can use for your stage.

These designs are the property of the author and you may not use them without the permission of said creator.

Even if you keep them on file for years and resurrect them later, you may still not use them without permission.

One regular trick here in The Philippines is award a project contract to the cheapest designer and then to get the cheapest contractor to copy the design of the most expensive designer.

This is definitely not allowed and you will be breaking the law if you do this and maybe liable to prosecution.

Stage designs, lighting designs, dance routines and other creative ideas may all be protected under Intellectual Property.

If you are thinking of using certain ideas, the easiest way to do this without problems is to simply discuss it with the designer and get permission.

Make sure that the permission is in writing and that it clearly states all the agreements of the two parties and have both parties sign the document.

It is much cheaper to do this than illegally using someone else’s ideas.

If you cannot reach agreements, it is better to come up with a different concept that using ideas illegally.

In order to be free from Intellectual property issues, ideas should be substantially different. Some say up to as much as 30% difference, but it is best to check with Intellectual Property rights Lawyers.

Shows are meant to be enjoyable for not only the audience, but you, the organizer and you certainly do not want to be suffering from law suits and claims against you for using ideas that are not permitted.

For more information about copyright, trade marks and How Intellectual Property Rights Work you should get yourself a copy of this comprehensive book. It has superb reviews and at under $15 is an absolute steal

Ignore The Copyright Act At Your Own Risk!

So what is Copyright?

An author or a creator of an original work is given rights to protect the work from being copied, sold, hired or otherwise distributed without the permission of the creator.

The author or creator of the work may sell, copy, distribute and otherwise do pretty much what they want with their own work.

But no one else can without their permission.

There are a few exceptions to the rule. You cannot copyright ideas that have not been put on paper, lists such as telephone directories, recipes and a few other items. Ideas need to be fixed or expressed. Copyright does not need to be registered. Creation of a work is sufficient.

For example, this article is copyright to Tim Bennett (that’s me) and no one else may use it without my permission.

Other exceptions are also allowed that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship.

There is a provision for “fair dealing’ also which takes into consideration the use of copyright material that is normally allowable for research that is not commercial and takes into account how much work is used, the commercial content and the nature of work.

If in doubt, ask a lawyer.

Copyright now covers, but not limited too, maps, books, paintings, motion pictures, sound recordings, other written material, computer programs and other works.

Copyright Length Of Term

Copyright does not expire when the creator dies.

The copyright is passed to the estate of the creator and extends up to 50 to 100 years after the death and can also be renewed by the estate of the creator.

The length of term of copyright varies according to country, so please check before using any copyright material of deceased artists or creators.

What Is The Definition Of The Copyright Act – How Does It Affect Your Shows?

Well basically it means that you cannot use any copyright material without permission of the author or creator.

This includes music, video, film and other works. I regularly go to shows where epic movies are edited and used for visuals in special events and this is illegal without permission and should the creator find out, you could be in a lot of legal trouble.

What Can I Do To Protect Myself At My Shows?

Well there are many ways to use works of art at your shows:

1) Get permission from authorized owners

2) Use public domain material

3) Use Creative Commons material

4) Create new material.

5) Use material created by the government (most government material is not under copyright)

Copyright is a very complex matter and What Is The Definition Of The Copyright Act cannot really be explained fully here, however, basically it is illegal to use copyright material without permission and I recommend that you consult a lawyer before using any such material for your shows.

Permissions for some works of famous artists can be really expensive, running into thousands of dollars for just seconds of material, but trying to beat the system and using illegally can have much more serious consequences.

Note that public performance licenses and copyright licenses are different and a public performance license does not give you permission to use copyright material. It only gives you permission to transmit performances in public.

In another case, a 56 year old woman was given the shock of her life when they told her that her singing while she was stacking a shelf in the supermarket was considered a public performance and she would have to stop singing or pay for a license.

Even institutions such as the Police in England have had problems as well as giants as big as YouTube when it come to Music Copyright Law.

Technically if you work from home and you play music at the same time, you could be breaking the law!

Absurd as it seems, but these are just a handful of some of the true cases being considered right now for breaking the Music Copyright Law.

So how does this affect you when you are having a special event or conference?

The PRS in England states on their webpage: “wherever you want to stage a live event you will need to obtain the correct license before the event” and this covers, but not limited to:

Concert Venues
Festivals
Theater
University
Hotels and other Live venues

Every country has different Music Copyright Law, but essentially they are similar in that if you are holding a public performance you will need a license to play any music content what-so-ever.

So what constitutes a public performance?

Anything that is considered “outside of your normal domestic circle or home life” is considered public.

This would clearly include concert halls, hotels or any commercial space in anyway, even the walk way on the path outside of your home!

Many venues such as hotels and function rooms, concert halls, etc already have a public performance license and they automatically renew it each year, however if you are playing music, as the organizer you maybe held responsible for the breach of the Music Copyright Law if they have not applied, renewed or received the license so before you have your event ask to see a copy of the license for your peace of mind.

Now you may think that it is completely insane for a taxi driver to have to pay to listen to the radio in his car, but he could be in trouble!

If you are having an event, then make sure that you are not going to have problems with the Music Copyright Law and protect yourself.

Note that the license also applied at events such as your office Christmas party or any function that is held within your company facilities.

So is it possible to get others to sell for you thereby reducing the advertising and marketing expense for you?

If you have ever been to an event such as a movie for example, then come out and told all your friends how “fantastic it was and you have to go and see it”, then you were advertising the movie without being asked by anyone or being paid by anyone.

The director loves you!

Personal recommendation is one of the most powerful forms of marketing we can enjoy. When your friends recommend something, I am sure you normally listen and then check it out at some stage. If you tell the right set of people about your Sales And Marketing Events, they will soon be spreading the word for you.

What others say about you is so much stronger than what you can say about yourself.

When a guy tells his girl how handsome he is, she thinks “Yuck right – Mr Ego!”

But when one of her girlfriends tells her how handsome he is, she tells them “hey hands off he is mine!”

Referrals, testimonials, gossip or whatever you want to call it, give you credibility as it is unprovoked praise and spoken in other people’s own words.

These days social media is all the rage: Twitter, Facebook, Youtube MySpace and hundreds of other sites all set up for one reason alone and that is the promotion of our likes and dislikes to others.

The ability to influence a mass audience with these methods is incredible.

It just needs one person, (Malcolm Gladwell calls them Sneezers) to start an epidemic as they blurt out to their friends everything about you, your event and your product.

The value this adds to your promotion is invaluable, not to mention the huge saving in marketing and advertising fees.

Your corporation is probably already spending less than it used for events allocation and accounts for travel, advertising, entertaining are being reduced on a worldwide scale.

As spending for attendees from other companies is being reduced, the industry reports a drop in attendees as events and conventions by as much as 10% in 2009.

As a result the reports show that:

Companies tend to send the decision maker to events now
Smaller teams travel
Registration is often last minute
More bargains and discounts being sought

So what Marketing Tools For Events do we need to help us?

Marketing Tools For Events – At The Event

Train Your Staff

Well firstly it is important to change the way we talk to the visitors at events.

More management maybe present and they generally like good information and they want it competently and quickly, so training of your in-house staff is a must. Sending them on sales programs, product awareness modules and other similar in-house activities may be considered.

Promotional Material

The on-site presentation needs to be excellent. This does not mean it has to be incredibly expensive. Buyers although impressed by how you look at a show, are after information, service, integrity and the ability to do what you say you can do.

Focus on solving the potential clients problems and you will be way ahead of your competitor who is just talking about “Me! Me! Me!”

Your events should be clean, well presented and safe however, and if you can add Wow factor well it is even better!

Focus on The Customer

When you go to an event, you are probably looking for information to help you, your company or your cause.

Although past performance is important as a selling technique, (at least they can show they can do it) I think far too much importance is put on “look at what we did for others” instead of “look at how we can help you now.”

Marketing Tools For Events – Before The Event

What kind of marketing tools for events should you put into your plan?

Well there are so many available for us to consider both offline and online from advertising and marketing to actually taking the money and booking tickets:

Online there are many things you can do:

Invite: With social sites being the number 1 tool for communication you must not overlook the power of sites such as Facebook and Twitter as they are viral and can be targeted.

You can set up websites, email capture tools, email marketing, article writing and a whole host of other communication methods.

Registration: Attendees can register for information, newsletters, magazines, as well as attendance to your events. This is an excellent way of communicating with your customers.

Payment: There are a number of different Payment processing tools online. They handle collecting the money for you, take a very small cut and pass on the rest to you. There are companies that have been doing this for years and are extremely professional and experienced such as Paypal and can take credit cards, cash or other forms of payment. This takes the headache away from you.

Management Online Handling

Marketing Tools For Events

They are an online event management team that will create personal websites for your event, pass on information, arrange payments and ticket selling and visitors can also print tickets directly from the sites.

They have a number of social media marketing tools available to help you also.

There are a number of other similar Marketing Tools For Events online and if you need help setting any of these tools up, then allow me to help you do so.

Well before we can answer the question it would help if we identify what each one is.

Direct Marketing

Direct marketing does not use the conventional tri-media forms of advertising such as TV. radio or newspapers, but instead use brochures, fliers, billboards and other forms of advertising that is placed directly in front of consumers, hence the name – direct!

Direct marketing is used as a marketing tool by small to medium sized companies regularly as it is generally cheaper than TV and newspaper and campaigns can be targeted.

Direct marketing can easily be measured. If a company sends out 1000 leaflets and only gets 5 replies, then they know something could be wrong. (depending on the campaign)

Direct marketing is full in the face advertising and says “here is the product – now do something!”

Direct Mail however has one big advantage that you can send directly to potential customers homes, however the cost of envelopes, printing and postage may make this expensive to do.

Email marketing

So email marketing could be considered a form of direct marketing, however it has one big advantage over traditional forms of advertising and marketing and that is that due to tough spam laws, email marketing is permission based normally.

Permission based means that the recipient of the email gave permission to the sender to send the email.

Often this is done via an opt-in box on a website. The reader visits the site and gives permission by entering their name and email into a box in order to receive the information.

The fantastic thing about this is that it is directly targeted towards a specific subject and the sender knows you are interested in the topic.

If you were not interested in what the website is offering, you would not give permission for them to send you information.

Email marketing also allows the sender to regularly send emails to the reader and over time they will form a relationship which could make it easier to sell in the future.

Messages can also be personalized and as long or short as the sender wants.

The downside to email marketing is that some people (like me) receive hundreds of emails a day and delete all that don’t grab attention immediately, even without reading them.

And a bigger downside is that your potential customer has to have internet access or they won’t get to see your message, so you could potentially be losing a lot of customers who either do not have (some still exist) internet or those who do not use on a regular basis.

Email Marketing Via Direct Mail Marketing

So who wins in the battle of email marketing via direct mail marketing?

Well you may have reached the conclusion that they can effectively be used together and it you said that then I would agree with you.

I often see a billboard or magazine advert (direct marketing) that catches my attention, then grab the website address go the their website and ask for more information via email (email marketing) and I am sure you also have experience this.

Email marketing has a number of electronic systems that need to be put in place such as websites, auto-responders and other software and SEO needs to be considered as well and I have been doing all of this for my own websites and marketing for a number of years now and if you would like help setting up your own system, let me know here.

If you want to see how an email marketing system works why not opt-in my magazine by entering your name and email address in the box above.

Events As Marketing Tools For Corporation sales can be very powerful when put together correctly.

Marketing is a process designed at selling an image, product or service. Marketing is everything you do.

Everything a company does has an influence on how a customer feels about a company and how the customer feels has a direct influence on the buying decisions of a customer.

The saying about “First impressions” spring to mind here. When a potential customer first comes into contact with your corporation how does he feel?

If you were to go to a restaurant that was dirty, with chipped plates and the head chef walks into the dining area covered with blood, a knife and a cat’s head in his hand, would you eat there?

When your potential customer sees your office, your website or calls you up, what kind of reception do they get?

Do they feel relaxed and comfortable with you or do they want to run as fast as they can?

The Buying Process

Customers go through a certain process when they are buying and it all boils around needs!

Your customer has a need, problem or situation in their life that you can help them with.

Your first task is to identify the need. Then you need to tease them with information and dialogue to get their interest.

Once you have their attention, all you need to do is align yourself correctly to their need and you have a sale. Blow this part and they are gone.

Events As Marketing Tools For Corporation Sales

Events are an incredible way of getting the interest of your potential customer and aligning yourself.

The event arena is a place where the customer becomes emotionally involved with your product.

They can pick it up and feel it, they get to meet you and talk in depth to you about how you can solve his need.

This is not a time to sell, but rather focus on showing your customer how you can help them. Once you have done this, the sale is almost fundamental.

Not only does your customer come into contact with you, but they can also come into contact with other potential buyers and also previous buyers, so make sure you are looking after everyone well as they will swap stories.

Your marketing does not finish at the sale, but should continue well after the sale so that your old customers not only have good things to say about you, but also want to buy again and again.

Events As Marketing Tools For Corporation image can have an incredible impact on your success, but they do not always work.

Be careful that you are not just giving away a load of brochures to customers who do not want to buy.

Support is the new marketing tool. I often think of the quotation:

“People do not care how much you know…
Until they know how much you care!”

Giving your customers help and support is they way to keep them as a customer and get them to come back time and time again. If you need help putting your special events together, please contact me here and together lets enjoy success.

If you have been on the internet for a little while, then you have almost certainly received one of those stupid spam emails that goes something like this:

“Hi Dear,

My name is John and I checked your profile and you look so lovely and interesting and I would love to get to know you better. You certainly are very beautiful and I think we would make a lovely couple. Please email me at…”

How sweet, except… I am a guy!

So nice message but sent to the wrong target market!

I am simply not interested and will throw away the email in a flash and maybe even report them.

Are you doing the same with your event marketing strategies?

Marketing is about getting the right message in front of the right person at the right time.

Now using the example above, the timing is maybe right, but it was the wrong message to the wrong person.

For your Event Marketing Strategies to work all three have to be in alignment.

So the 3 questions that should be a priority in your Event Marketing Strategies are:

1) What is my message?

2) Is it going to the right people?

3) Is the timing right?

Watch this advert:

Now if you were in the shopping mall with him what marketing strategies could you implement?

Other than selling him condoms (it’s actually to late) you could sell him a:

Gun
Dog
Whatever the kid wants
Child minding service…

I am sure you can think of many more, but your marketing strategy should be to get the kid to stop screaming and the guy some peace of mind.

If you can do that, he will buy it!

Wouldn’t you?

It is about as basic as putting gasoline in your car radiator and water in your gas tank. Sure you can do it, but the results you get will be disastrous!

Handling your event marketing basics correctly will save you a massive headache afterward.

When you are planning your event, you should always consider that there are two main elements to the convention, conference or special event and those two are you (the host) and your visitor.

Both parties need to be kept happy.

Marketing in a nutshell is this:

Finding a plan that understands your customers needs and presenting your products and services to your customer to serve those needs while at the same time satisfying your needs.

Now that may seem like a mouthful, so to break it down even further it basically means “solve your problems by helping others with their problems”

So there are two questions that you should answer when it comes to your event marketing basics:

1) What do I do and what do I have?

2) Who wants what I have and what I do?

Every event has these two elements. You have a product or service that you want to promote and you are looking for people who want it.

Your marketing promotions are almost certainly looking to do one of the following things:

* Find new customers
* Encourage repeat sales
* Entice your customer to spend more
* Promote profitable products

The first stages you will go through when in business is acquiring new customers and it is good to make this base as large as you possibly can, but after a while you will have a few customers who buy from you.

Getting someone to buy from you the first time is the hardest part, but once they have a product or service from you, it is relatively easy to get them to buy from you again and again and to increase their spending.

Assuming that they are happy of course!

Your customers get bombarded every day with advertising and marketing everywhere they go and after a while they go blind to it.

Don’t you? Do you really notice and pay attention to the TV ads and billboards all around you?

So part of your Event Marketing Basics should be about coming up with new and exciting ways to put your message in front of your target market.

Imagine having your event, going to all the effort of contacting sponsors, putting caterers in place, production teams and all the other elements required for an event and then no one turns up. The last thing you want is an event with the attendance as low as in the photo above!

Not only do you lose credibility to your sponsors, if you are employed, you may find yourself looking for a new job!

So how do you ensure that your Event and Marketing Promotions do not go to waste?

It basically starts with 2 main elements:

1) What are you trying to do, and
2) Who will want to see it?

The only reason people will buy tickets for your event is if they are interested in what you have to offer!

That’s it! Period!

Think about it from your perspective. Other than when you are forced to go to an event by your boss or client, for example, when was the last time you wanted to buy a ticket for a concert, film or event that you didn’t like?

Never?

Even when you go to an event that you are forced to go to, you want to leave as fast as possible and will think of almost any excuse you can think of to get out early!

Your customers are no different and this is why your events must have sticky appeal to the mass in order to be a success!

Now Tibetan snake charming, may be your passion in life, but the chances are that if you make this the main feature of your show, you probably won’t get the mass of people you want!

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) you need to give the public what they want.

If there is one thing you remember from this whole website, it should be this:

I am sure you have heard the story told many times about putting your worm filled hook into a pool of hungry fish, but basically this is what you have to do!

Find a target niche of people hungry for your product and then throw them the bait when they are really hungry!

As an example, taxes must be declared in April (in The Philippines) so it could be good to have a small conference in February or March called “How Confused Entrepreneurs Can File Their Taxes And Sleep At Night!”

It is good timing, relevant information and aimed at hungry customers!
Hungry for you to help them do their taxes!

When planning your event, look for pools of hungry people. They should be hungry for your information.

Event and Marketing Promotions – To The Right Niche

Finding your hungry niche is actually quite simple.

Online try Google search engines and look for for associations, clubs, schools and other groups of people associated with your niche.

Buy magazines and look at the adverts and see what is happening in that particular niche.

Go to embassies or trade centers and ask them for directories of their members.

Find large companies of employees in a corporation that deals with your niche.

Join forums and be an active member. The word soon spreads.

Hold exhibitions and other promotions.

Have a mailing list from a target website.

Talk at associated events as a guest speaker.

There are many different ways to work on your Event and Marketing Promotions, but one thing is for sure:

No amount of event planning or design will bring in your audience as much as marketing to the right people.

You will find it said many times on this website that good marketing is sending out the right message at the right time to the right people.

Get that right and your event will be a glowing success.

If you are stuck and don’t really know where to start and need some help, drop me an email here as I would love to help you at your event.

Surely this is what you want when you do your event planning – convention success!

One of the most painful ways of learning is through creating your own mistakes and even though it is a great teacher, I am sure that you do not want to suffer that pain too often, so learning from others who have gone before you is a great way to avoid plunging into problems.

So here are 10 tips on convention planning

10 – One Price For Tickets

Your visitors have attended conferences and conventions before and it has now become the exception to the rule that there are different ticket prices and if you don’t follow suit, you maybe left out.

First, audiences expect some kind of early bird price. Sometimes there may even be two different early bird prices. One price would be two months before the event and the 2nd price one month before the event with the actual ticket price being implemented 2 weeks before the event.

Group discounts are also expected now such as 6 for the price of 5 tickets and this will encourage groups of friends to come together as well as corporations.

You may even want to consider charging more for the front row seats as these are the best seats in the house and audiences will pay more for them.

9 – Linking With The Wrong Sponsor

Money can be tight these days and sometimes out of desperation, you maybe tempted to take any sponsor going, but in reality this can be a fatal move.

You certainly would not want to align yourself to cigarette companies for example if you are promoting a health product.

You may also want to stay away from religious groups as this is a very personal issue for people and may drive some away.

Controversial issues may also affect your audience numbers. Linking to companies that use certain products (such as fur or animal testing for example) may discourage your audience.

Your sponsor should be in alignment of your values and it is important that you sit down with your sponsor to discuss what is acceptable and what is not!

8 – Advertising The Wrong Message

You must get your target audience to take action. You want them to order tickets from you and book seats.

Your advertising message must get them so emotionally involved with you and your company that they want to do just that.

You need to hit them with a powerful headline that will lock them into your message and make them want to hear more.

Identify the one emotional trigger that will do that and put it in your message.

7- Advertising At The Wrong Time

If you advertise your event too close to the event, then your audience may already be busy or not be able to have sufficient funds to get a ticket.

Advertise too early and they have no sense of urgency and may put it off for another day and then forget.

Also be aware of special holidays and other events. People are not really into listening to your advertising slogan on Valentines day, fathers day and other special moments. They are really focusing on something else.

If you are advertising internationally, this is something to take special care with as different countries have different holidays and customs.

6 – No Website

It is not sufficient to have articles and adverts on your website.

You should also have a website specially designed for the event and each different event should have it’s own site.

So if your event is called “Saving Money For Teenagers” it would really reinforce the message to your audience if you have a website called www.SavingMoneyForTeenagers.com

Not only will it help them to remember where they can access information about your event, they can also send others to the site and it also looks super professional.

5 – Not Creating A List

One of the easiest ways to promote events to your market is via a target marketed list with prospects who personally opted in for information.

One of the easiest ways to do this is via an online list creating system which is very easy and cheap to do.

This list keeps open your communication channels and you can remind them, tempt them and give them teasers to get them to buy tickets from you.

4 – Failing to Track Your Advertising

If you do not know which advertising works for you, how do you know where to spend your advertising budgets?

There are many different ways to find out which advert pulls your audience.

Online it is relatively easy as there are many systems both free and paid that you can have installed on your websites.

Offline you can ask customers to call and talk to “Carol” and “Carol” doesn’t really exist. In another advert in a different magazine or newspaper, you may have the same advert, but ask your audience to call and speak to “Steve”.

This way you know which periodical is getting the people to call.

For future advertising this is essential as you can focus your finance on areas that work.

3 Focusing on Price Rather Than Value.

Your ticket buyers are not buying tickets from you because they want to give you money, but they are giving you money because they want you to solve some kind of problem for them.

The problem maybe they want to make more money, or find out how to feed their kids healthy food, or it might even be they are completely bored and need some hardcore entertainment.

Whatever the reason is, if you can show them right from the moment they have contact from you that they have incredible-not-to-be-missed-value, they will pull out their wallets and give you their money.

Focus on price and they will not be impressed!

2 – Only Using one Method of Advertising

Do you know that some people do not have Facebook and Twitter accounts?

Some do not even have emails or cell phones!

Wouldn’t that be nice?

Some people read magazines, watch television and listen to the radio and it is essential that you use multiple methods of advertising if your audience is like this. However if you know that all your audience uses Facebook and it works for you, then use it, but in reality different mediums promote different responses from different people.

1 – Not spending Enough Time promoting The Event

Out of all the tips on convention planning, this is one of the most important parts of the planning.

Some organizations spend more time planning the perfect event with no nut and bolt left out or polished, than they do promoting the event.

Yes the event should be good, but at some stage you need to realize that the event is good enough and start promoting it.

Promoting is what brings in the sales and effort should be focused heavily in this direction.

So there are 10 tips for convention planning for you and I hope that you implement them into your next convention as soon as possible. If you need help, let me know here and I will support you all I can.

It is good to have professional help to support you during events as it allows you to focus on other important areas and spread the load of an event.

Can you imagine how your event would turn out if you assumed that someone else was going to do something about the marketing.

You probably would not have a very good event, but over the years I have picked up some great help that I would like to pass on to you now so you can enjoy success.

Effective Targeted Invitations

If you are planning an vintage car event, you would not want to target boat enthusiasts.

While some boat enthusiasts have vintage cars, a large portion of your advertising and marketing will be wasted.

Some people think that if you invite 100,000 people, then surely if we get 1% we are doing well. My experience shows that not only will you probably not get 1%, those that do come will rarely be beneficial to the event as they are not your target audience.

Also know where your advertising works. There would be little point spending 50% of your advertising budget on a billboard just because it is big and in a high traffic area, if when you survey your audience and find out that only a handful came because of the billboard!

The Marketing Responsibilities Related To Event Management when it comes to invitations are to ensure that not only are a lot of people invited, but that they come from the correct target market and that the advertising is placed in the correct places to attract these target markets.

Communicate Personally

When you start your event marketing campaign, it is essential that you reach out to your target market in a personal manner that makes your prospective audience feel you are talking to them directly.

How do you feel when you get an email or letter and they either spell your name wrong, or address it to you like:

“Dear Friend,

We are concerned about the security of your house for you and your family and we care about you…”

They care?

Well why didn’t they even take the time to find out your name? And “Dear Friend?” they don’t even know you!

The words of your name are the most important words you will hear. When you hear them, you always turn. When you see them – you read. They are personal and so are your titles, position in business and even your family.

Marketing should address you correctly and people respond better at all levels when you use their name.

Some researchers say that if you use opening messages such as “To Whom It May Concern” you will probably lose about 50% of your readers at that point!

The Marketing Responsibilities Related To Event Management are not only to communicate with the right target market, but also to address them correctly!

Effective Marketing Tracking

The marketing team will use different methods to attract their target market from email blasts, Twitter, Facebook, billboards, TV, newspaper, text messaging and possible many more methods to contact with your audience.

But do you know which work for you and your corporation and which ones you are wasting your time with?

There are many free tracking systems on the internet to assist you when doing your online marketing and they can give you immediate results.

It can be more difficult to find out which TV advert or magazine brings in response, but with planned tracking systems in place, it is possible.

Surveys during and after the event will often give you a lot of good feedback and I encourage you to use surveys.

Speaking The Same Language

Your target audience has it’s own language. Look at the following examples:

“Buy 1 – get 1 free”
“50% Off”
“2 for the price of 1″
“Half Price Offer”

Essentially 4 different ways of saying the same thing, but which one works?

Split testing your adverts and marketing campaigns and recording the details will show you which adverts get the most response from each target market.

For example, people looking for great value, may be attracted to the “2 for the price of 1″ whilst those looking for a cheap bargain may like the “Buy 1 get 1 Free” headline.

Effective Pre-Campaign Marketing

Ask!

If you are planning an event for your distributors and you don’t know which speaker they would like to hear, then ask them!

Send your distributors emails or other form of communication and ask them to vote!

Ask them what they like!
Ask them what they don’t like!
Ask them why they don’t want to attend!
Ask them why they do want to attend!

This information is essential to put together the event for you. Knowing in advance who the audience wants to listen to on the stage, what they want to eat and the kind of entertainment they want could make the difference between a huge success and a massive flop for you!

Give Everyone An Easy Life

Marketing Responsibilities Related To Event Management do not stop at advertising and marketing to the audience.

They also need to be thoughtful of you and your corporation.

Planning an event is tough enough as it is, so the management team need to make everything easy for both the visitor and organizer alike.

The attendee needs to be able to get information about the event easily and likewise, you need to be able to send it to them easily.

Your visitor needs to be able to easily make his payment and you need a system in place to be able to make it easy to collect payment.

Your attendees need to have a good time and enjoy themselves at your event, but at the same time it needs to be organized within your budget.

There are two sides to every event and both sides need to go home happy.

Grab Every Opportunity

Before, during and after your event, grab every opportunity to market your company and your services.

At exhibitions do not pack up early just because everyone else is, but stay until closing time. You will be amazed how often people rush into the event at the last minute and grab information from You! You are the only one open so they have no choice.

Before events market everywhere. If you get the chance to talk at other events or do interviews then do them. Put fliers in taxis on buses, hand out business cards, talk to everyone.

During the event, allow “on the door ticket selling” and try and drag your target market in.

Advertise products and events to your captive market, ask them questions, give them surveys and so on.

After the event, send them thank you emails and letters, send questionnaires, surveys and ask them what they liked and did not like.

The opportunities are endless and the world is your oyster, as they say and with effective planned marketing you will surely have a great event.

Tim Bennett has been helping organizations around the world, plan their special events and conventions for almost 20 years and he would love to help and inspire you and your team when you pt your next event together, so email here to get that expert support.

Price is often an issue, after all most corporations do not have endless budgets and some kind of control needs to be implemented.

“I remember a couple of years ago being a visitor at a conference where they invited one of the participants of American Idol to be an entertainer at the event.

First the cost was huge, not only for the actual performance, but travel, security, food and other requirements by the artist. The spending was so high that there was actually very little money left for the rest of the event, which suffered terribly.

Secondly most of the visitors only attended to see their “hero” and soon left after the performance, never to return again, much to the dismay of the speakers.”

Conferences are not about the singers or the entertainment, although I agree that entertainment can be good, the emphasis should not be on promoting the entertainment, but on the quality of the speakers and conference content.

Conference And Convention Planning – Ticket Price

Conference And Convention Planning often revolves around the price of the admission tickets, but in my experience visitors will pay handsomely if the quality of the event warrants it.

Improving the value for the attendee is a better way of ensuring quality of visitors.

When the visitor goes home, they should be going home with the WOW factor stamped into their subconscious and not going home feeling cheated or ripped off.

This does not mean putting on high cuisine food, top bands and leather chairs. Of course the facilities should be sufficiently grand, but the content should be of great value.

Conference And Convention Planning – Suppliers

I often see corporations strangling suppliers for the lowest possible price for services and equipment, which in turn leads to lower quality and a lesser experience for the visitor and then they give away a car or some other huge prize to their top management!

This doesn’t inspire the visitor much and is a pathetic attempt at cost cutting in the wrong place. Taking away profit from suppliers is not good business and in the long run creates suffering. Business is meant to make both parties happy not just the corporation.

For event success, more focus should be placed on event value than ticket prices and cutting costs. It is much easier for me to service a contract if I can add value to my client rather than take away profit.

Organizers of events when organizing their conference and convention planning must consider the long term affects of addressing solely the cost of events. The perceived value of an event has much longer term implications for a visitor and it is important for organizers to understand their target markets.