Project Spotlight: Strategic Event Planning

As organizations and businesses seek to market their brand, they often consider hosting events. Both On the Minds of Moms, a parenting magazine, and Onsharp, a digital marketing agency, asked Reach Partners to help them determine what resources they needed to successfully host an event and to help imagine what the event would look like.

The two organizations had different missions and goals, but Reach Partners used the same process to help each business determine the best route forward.

Reach began by asking each business to identify the stakeholders, the people who needed to be involved in the initial discussions. We then facilitated meetings with the stakeholders.

“It was about asking questions and a lot of listening,” Anita says.

Among other details, Reach Partners asked both businesses to consider five W’s and one H: Who would be involved? Who would attend? What did the event look like? When did they want the event held? Where might it be held? Why did they want an event? How would it look and feel?

Reach Partners then developed a strategic guide and preliminary budget for an event that matched the organization’s needs.

 “We didn’t tell them what they should do, but helped them determine their goals and objectives,” Anita says.

After receiving recommendations from Reach Partners, Minds of Moms decided to move forward with the event plan and brought its magazine to life with a one-day gathering.

After Onsharp received its recommendations, it decided to not host a full-fledged event. That said, the process was a success.

“Choosing Reach Partners to help us plan our event strategy was a great decision. They guided us through a process that helped us define success, articulate goals, define a budget and identify a venue.  It was exactly the information we needed to make a decision about our next steps. We completed the process much more quickly and effectively than we could have done on our own. And, we had fun along the way,” says Kirsten Jensen, who was Onsharp’s director of marketing at the time.