The profitability of an event is important to consider when you begin to plan a scientific meeting or conference ensuring that the event covers costs, and any profit can be put back into providing additional education. When thinking about how to make your event profitable there are several things you should consider.
Budget
Firstly, and most importantly when considering how to make your event profitable, you should be setting a budget. This will set you targets to achieve throughout the process and give you an indication of how many delegates you will need and how much sponsorship you will need to obtain for a financially successful event.
Think about your outgoings, considering things like the cost of your venue, audiovisual requirements, catering, marketing material, and accommodation. These are just the top line costs to consider. But you also need to keep in mind any additional social events, costs associated with having event abstracts and awards and have a buffer for any unexpected charges.
Planning an event can take a great deal of time and involves a lot of work, Event Managers or Professional Conference Organisers (PCO) are ideally positioned to help bring your event to life and within the budget. They can even help create a budget for you, giving advice on how to make your event profitable.
Throughout your event you should always stick to your budget to make sure that you come in profitable, but you can always reforecast if things aren’t quite going the way you anticipated. This is a great way of keeping your board or committee informed throughout the process.
Sponsorship
Holding an Exhibition at your event can also make your event profitable. Not only will you be able to sell stands to exhibitors, but your delegates will have a great opportunity to find out about the latest products on the market. This will act as a key incentive for them to come along to your event or conference.
Most events have main sponsors normally consisting of a couple of Gold sponsors and a sole Platinum sponsor (more depending on size of the event) which can make a significant difference in the profitability of your event. Sponsors are often linked to the success of events and are usually key to making sure your event can go ahead. It is therefore important to consider what packages can be offered to your main sponsors and for many ‘Platinum’ sponsors, presenting a symposia slot in the main programme is a key benefit.
Offering different levels of sponsorship packages is important if you want to attract a good level of sponsorship support. As well as symposia slots other benefits to consider are – display of their logo on marketing collateral for the event, a stand space within the exhibition, delegate bag inserts, advertising on your holding slides as well as many other benefits that can be offered in line with the format of your event. An Event Manager will be able to assign you a sales lead who can help obtain sponsorship and suggest packages. Having an experienced sales lead can help you increase your exhibition size and income.
Marketing
It’s important to market your event in a timely manner when considering how to make your event profitable. Make sure you allow enough time for potential delegates and sponsors to consider coming to your event or conference.
Getting branding confirmed early alongside a theme for your event or conference is important to start marketing your event. If you use an event manager, you could be assigned a marketing lead who can create branding options and work with you to market your event.
Allowing enough time to market your event to your target audience will ultimately mean your event is more profitable as it will give more delegates time to register and share the event details with their contacts.
Additional experiences/events
Think of different ways you can attract delegates to your event or conference, the more people you can attract to your event the more profitable it will be. Holding additional experiences or events alongside your event could also bring an extra revenue stream.
Firstly, think of additional things you could include within your programme and at the venue to make your event more profitable. This could be things like interactive sessions within your exhibition, a great opportunity to sell additional sponsorship, or a poster presentation session where submitted abstracts are presented by their authors. This would fill a slot within your programme meaning you can make savings on a traveling speaker, but also give a valuable opportunity to poster presenters to network and present their work.
Another great opportunity to make your event more profitable is to include additional social events at your conference or event. This could include a gala dinner or a less formal social evening. You could sell additional tickets to these events, giving attendees an opportunity to network and socialise with colleagues and other professionals within their field in a more casual setting.
Make your event more profitable
You should also consider how to make your event more accessible; this will also help with the profitability of your event by attracting more delegates.
These are just some initial ideas to make your event more profitable, an Event Manager can discuss and advise on more opportunities. Start planning your profitable event or conference today.