event-rfp

The pressure is on from all sides when planning a corporate event.  It’s your responsibility to ensure that the event company you choose to create and run your event thoroughly understands your brand, as well as your brand’s event’s objectives.  In order to do this, your event planning RFP, or Request for Proposals, needs to paint a crystal clear picture of your expectations. We’ve written before about the essentials that need to be included when compiling an event brief (for a refresher, read that blog here.) What we haven’t discussed, however, are the other crucial considerations that apply to the event planning RFP process, namely:

1. Be explicitly clear about your expectations.

It’s crucial that your event planning RFP explains your requirements as clearly as possible. The quality of event planning proposals you receive is directly proportional to the clarity of your RFP.

2. Ensure that the ‘bones’ of your event planning RFP are in place.

For the full run-down of what needs to be included in an event planning RFP, read our blog here. In short, your event briefs need to contain the following:

• Company or brand background – This needs to give potential vendors a clear understanding of the space your company operates in, the business’ operational model, as well as any industry competitors.
• A summary of past events – This helps an event planning company to understand your company’s event preferences.
• Budget – This is crucial. In order to ensure that your event will achieve ROI, expectations need to be realistic from the get-go.
• Corporate Identity Guidelines
• ‘Holy Cows’ – These are the non-negotiables; either things to avoid or things that needs to be kept on mind. For example, refraining from using blue event décor as it’s the colour of a main competitor.
• Information about the demographics of your guests – This will give an events company insight into the best way to achieve your event’s objectives.
• Event objectives – This section explains the message that needs to be conveyed, the desired result of the event and the reason as to why you’re holding the event in the first place.

3. Ensure that you and the marketing team are on the same page.

Miscommunicated information about an event can result in some very costly mistakes. Before compiling an event planning RFP, make sure that you clearly understand the marketing department’s objectives. If you’re in any doubt as to what’s expected from the event, clarify this before compiling an event planning RFP.

4. Ensure that you’ve got the get-go from finance department.

In order to avoid spending money that the company doesn’t have, as well as wasting an event company’s time and resources, make sure that the finance department has signed off the allocated budget. Budgetary restraints must be indicated from the beginning in order to ensure that an event results in ROI.

5. Ensure that you’ve got in-depth information about your guests.

If you don’t have the right information about your guests on hand, creating an event that achieves your marketing objectives is impossible. Make sure that you’ve got detailed data about your guests on hand, in order to give your event company adequate insight into the event’s requirements. Using event planning software enables you to collect and store this crucial information in a way that’s easy to use, and secure. What’s more, every time you invite a guest to an event, you’ll be able to access and add to this information easily. The more you know about your guests, the higher your chances of creating an event that’s relevant to them. Find out more about our RSVP management software here.