How to Define Goals and Objectives for Successful Virtual Event Planning

For instance, the goal of your event could be to increase brand awareness for your business. The objectives that you could define to translate these goals could be expanding reach by running a branded hashtag campaign and engaging relevant influencers.

Now to be able to measure these objectives, establish metrics to track the success of the event. Social shares, for instance, are a great KPI that can help measure the success of an influencer marketing campaign.

Now that you have the background set let’s understand this in more depth here.

What Are Event Goals and Objectives?

The terms “goals” and “objectives” may be used interchangeably in day-to-day life, but are different conceptually. Goals are usually precise and measurable. Objectives, on the other hand, are the strategies and steps used to reach those goals. You will get a better understanding of the two concepts as you approach the end of the article. So read on!

Why Is Goal Setting Critical?

Goal setting is the most critical step of event planning. To conduct a successful event, and maximise rewards for yourself and attendees, community managers have to set measurable goals and make a reasonable prediction of how things could fall in place.

When you set up event goals, you narrow down your thought process, become more specific and create a roadmap to achieve them. Once goals are set, objectives are defined. Objectives will regulate which event metrics are most important for measuring success.

“An event participant should always take away something from the event, be it a learning, an experience, or a connection. What you achieve from that is customer retention, sales, and improved brand recognition. Win-win!
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Five Steps to a Successful Event

Community managers should look at the bigger picture to be able to queue up those million little tasks and their deadlines.

Step 1: Research, Research and Research

There is nothing like over research. The more you research, the better the results. Essential steps to undertake here are-

• Market research
• Competitor research
• Attendee persona
• Marketing trends and challenges

Step 2: Identify Smart Goals

List the event goals to bring clarity to your thoughts. It will help you analyse the exact answers to critical questions for setting and defining event goals and objectives:

• Why is this event being organized?
• Why are you inviting those attendees to the event?
• What are the attendees going to take away from the event?
• What is success to you, and how will you measure it?

Step 3: Align Event Goals With Business Goals

As a best practice, align event goals with the mission statement of the company and the brand’s marketing strategy.

When you phrase your goals, you have clarity, and then you can communicate your expectations better to your upper hierarchy.

You may have several ideas for the goals at first, but SMART-ly narrow it down.

Here is what SMART stands for – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-based goals.

Step 4: Define Objectives

Goals are now set; you need to define objectives based on certain key performance indicators (KPIs) to be able to quantify or measure those goals. For instance, here are some KPIs and tips you could consider to measure goals-

• Number of registrations
• Cost per customer acquisition
• Qualified leads acquired at the event
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Cost and revenues
• Social media channel insights to measure the engagement and designated event hashtag performance
• Compare event log-ins vs registrations
• Ticket sales and individual ticket type performance
• Repeat attendee number to mark them as your premium members
• Report and analyze first-time attendees

Step 5: Draft an Overall Event Plan

Once event goals are crisp and clear, it’s time to come up with a final event plan. Here are some pointers you should be focusing on-

• Speakers and panellists
• Technology partner- One of the main aims of an attendee at an event is to make connections. Allow them to connect through an immersive experience. Your Virtual events platform has a huge role to play in this, so choose wisely!
• Timeline
• Budget. (Read “How to create your Event Budget”)
• Plan to engage attendees – Delight and deliver an experiential experience to your attendees. Everyone should take away something from the event, be it learning, an experience, or a connection. What you would achieve is customer retention, sales, and goodwill. Win-win! (Read B2B “Event marketing guide”, “How to plan a large scale online event?”)

Final Words

Good event planning requires you to know upfront what you’re trying to accomplish. Don’t dive right into planning, without giving thoughtful consideration to goals and objectives. Be SMART and begin with goals.

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