11 Oct Top 5 Tips to Creating a Conference from Scratch – Lessons from BizCom Summit
Creating an event, let alone an educational conference, from scratch is no easy feat. There are venues to secure, speakers to find, and attendees to attract. All of these tasks can be a daunting mission if you don’t have the right people, processes, and product in place (thanks Marcus Lemonis!). We recently teamed up with Morgan Molitor from construction2style to put on our first annual conference together, the BizCom Summit.
Morgan and I have been hosting smaller monthly meetings at the construction2style office in Elk River featuring a wide breadth of speakers to help small businesses succeed. Everything from SEO (search engine optimization) to Social Media 101, to the Power of Pinterest. These more intimate events have been extremely successful, and we wanted to create an event where we could attract a larger audience and help more small business owners and marketers in general. Thus, the BizCom Summit was born.
Short for Business Communications Summit, this year’s conference had a variety of subject matter including the legalities of your online presence, how to create a blog influencer strategy, transitioning your focus (and workload!) from content creation to marketing your content, SEO strategy, and a full social media panel featuring local lifestyle influencers as well and major brand influencers. The night was absolutely amazing. We had the best speakers, the most wonderful sponsors, and of course attendees who were hungry for information and ready to learn. I will be sharing more content from the conference itself later on the blog, but for now I wanted to share my Top 5 Tips to Creating a Conference from Scratch.
1. Work with partners and sponsors that understand the mission of the event. I absolutely could not have done this event without the support and ingenuity of Morgan and her team at construction2style. Together we figured out the goal of the conference, brainstormed topics and potential speakers, and made the event come together with the help of our two teams. Having a partner who understands your vision and has the resources to make it happen is essential to creating a successful conference. In addition to amazing partners, finding sponsors who appreciate the content and the value you are presenting to the community is huge. For BizCom, we were so lucky to find sponsors who saw the value in our speakers and our content, and were willing to support us through different mediums, whether that was cash or in-kind donations. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the amazing sponsors for BizCom, without them this event could not have been possible.
Platinum Sponsor: St. Jude
Premium Sponsor: construction2style
Premium Sponsor: Alta Events Co.
Venue Sponsor: Mercury Mosaics
Photography Sponsor: Josh Haroldson
Videographer Sponsor: Chelsie Lopez Production
Videographer Sponsor: Vonder Cosmos
Drink Sponsor: MisFit Coffee
2. Work with speakers that have meaningful content for your audience. This is absolutely critical in your planning process. If you do not have the content that your audience wants, you are not going to get any attendees. Its as simple as that. We recommend sitting down at the beginning of your planning process and identifying what your goals are for your conference. Is it to bring education to a certain audience? Is it to raise money and awareness for your sponsors? The goals for an event can be very different and can drastically change your approach to planning. Understanding your mission and your audience is going to bring you the most success in your conference planning. For the BizCom Summit, we wanted to help small business owners, marketers of larger businesses, and creatives looking to become more successful in their blogging and social strategies, be more aware and strategic with their online presence. We had some absolutely amazing speakers and panelists, and the feedback we got from our attendees is that everyone walked away with some knowledge and the start of a gameplan to attack their marketing strategies. Thank you so much speakers!
Wynne Reece from Reece Law and Creatives Counsel chatted all about the Legalities of Your Online Presence
Tim Brown and Bea Bonte from Hook Agency talked through 7 SEO Experiments that Skyrocketed Our Traffic (and One That Failed Horribly).
Lindsey Bomgren from Nourish, Move, Love, chatted through her 80/20 Shift Between Marketing and Content.
Jen Biswas from Paisley & Sparrow and Morgan Molitor from construction2style teamed up and talked about How to Create a Successful Influencer Blog Strategy.
Our social panel consisted of Alyssa Greve (Cambria), Meghan Joy Yancy (Meghan Joy Today), Jessica Petrie (Maccabee), Jen Biswas (Paisley & Sparrow), and was Moderated by Emma Sievers (BA Women).
3. Find an amazing venue. This is so important in your conference planning. When you are evaluating your goals and mission for your conference, make sure you first identify the best location for your event (central to many of your attendees, in a big city or small town depending on your appeal, somewhere where there aren’t competing events on your same date), and secondly find a location that will work for your format, and be a place your attendees want to go. Things to keep in mind include physical space for large keynotes or breakout sessions, spaces that have restrictions or limits on food and beverages, accessibility (parking, entrances, other businesses in the building, etc.) and overall aesthetic. We could not have lucked out more with our venue sponsors and Mercury Mosaics. Not only was the space absolutely stunning to work in, but the space was so big we had so much flexibility on how we wanted to format the conference. In the end we decided to run two sessions of two breakout sessions simultaneously, which worked our great because of the size of Mercury, and brought everyone back together at the end for our social media panel. The Mercury team was so accommodating to us, and we would absolutely recommend them as a potential venue for future events!
4. Find décor that suits the venue. This goes hand and hand with finding a venue that suits your needs. If you are planning on hosting a conference in a convention center or a hotel that has multiple breakout rooms, you are most likely going to have be creative with your décor to spice up the space. Things like flowers, balloon installations, linens, and other décor items can really bring a plain conference room to life. If you are able to be a little more selective with your venue and find a space that already has its own cool aesthetic, don’t feel like you need to go overboard with the décor. A couple of simple flowers and a statement piece can really bring your event together and give your guests something to take pictures in front of. This is huge to help spread the word post event! Did I mention we do balloon installations now?! 😀
5. Don’t skimp on the food and drinks! You definitely need to keep this in mind when you are figuring out the timing for your event. Running a full day conference? You are going to need to account for breakfast, coffee, lunch and of course snacks. Hosting a networking happy hour? Having delicious and creative drinks (with a non-alcoholic option!) available is essential. Planning on a late afternoon running into the evening event? Make sure you have either a meal (if it is a formal sit-down event) or heavy apps for your guests to enjoy since they are skipping dinner. Food and beverage can be a heavy tab for some events, but being strategic with your money and sponsorships can help you ease the pain of F&B. Again keep in mind the goals of your event, are your guests there to learn or there for a great event? You always want to keep your attendees at the top of your mind, so spending a little extra on quality food and drinks can go along way, especially if you want your attendees to come back next year! Special shout out to our master mixologist for the BizCom Summit, Marcus from Misfit Coffee!
Overall the BizCom Summit was a huge success. Check back for posts about the content that was presented plus recordings of each of the sessions so you can learn all of the information for yourselves. Also check out construction2style’s website for our future workshop and conference dates, we have a really exciting rest of the year and 2019 planned!
Don’t forget to check out our awesome friends wrap up’s from BizCom!