8 Event Planning Services Every Successful Planner Should Offer

Are you an event planner looking to improve your services, attract more clients, and enhance your portfolio? You can do all of this when you offer the right event-planning services. 

The event planning industry is lively, with many people filling different roles to create successful events. So, which roles should you fill? That’s up to you. But in such a competitive market, the more comprehensive your services, the better.

These are the eight event planning services every successful event planner should offer. 

1. Concept Creation 

How do clients know they’ve found the right event planner? It’s when they hear that you’ll take care of everything for them, starting with the concept. That is why concept creation/design is one of the most important event planning services you should offer. 

Even when the client offers their own event concept, it will probably be up to you to design the event around that concept. This can be challenging, especially if the concept is something far from the norm. And it is why you need to hone your event design skills. 

Struggling to find inspiration for conceptual event ideas? We can help with our innovative event ideas that will wow your clients. Learn to think outside the box. The more creative you are, the more impressed your clients will be. And the more successful you’ll be at event planning. 

2. Design and Decor

Event design is the process of bringing all the details of an event together, particularly related to style and aesthetics. But event design can include everything from the location and venue choice to the activities, layout, and decorations. 

Your choice of venue is very important, as it is the canvas on which your event concept and design will come to life. This is why the Perfect Venue Marketplace offers event planners such a wide selection of venues for every type of event. 

Event planners often work with an event designer, decorator, and event manager on large events. For smaller events, event planners who work alone may fulfill these roles themselves. Sometimes these event planning services are required for businesses, and this requires very careful attention to detail. 

How to Offer Decor Support

Corporate events should accurately reflect the brand identity and company culture. Fundraisers should represent their cause. And private celebration events need to represent the people and the celebrations involved. You’ll need to know how to incorporate these into your event themes. 

It’ll be a whole lot easier if you use our Perfect Venue Marketplace to find your event venues. The venues that specialize in the type of event you are planning may include the necessary decor elements.

However, you can’t always leave it to the venue to have what you need available. Consider offering certain decor services yourself, such as party decorations and banners, furniture or prop hire, and even floral arrangements. Establishing a collaboration network with such vendors will make things a lot easier.

3. Virtual Events

Most of the events you plan will be in-person events. However, you may occasionally be asked to plan a virtual social or corporate event. Once seen as just a Covid-era fix, virtual events are now here to stay. 

A virtual event is any event that takes place in a virtual environment, online, rather than in a physical location. This allows people to attend who would otherwise have to decline the invitation due to distance or a lack of transport. It is also more inclusive, allowing less physically able people to attend, too. 

Experienced virtual event planners know that virtual conferences and virtual team-building sessions can take almost as much effort as in-person events. And they require some technical know-how to execute properly. But they can also offer valuable insights into what virtual event participants respond to. 

Leverage Data Analytics to Refine Your Process

As virtual events become more popular with each passing year, this is an event planning service that you simply can’t afford to ignore. So, how can you get the feedback you need from your virtual events to improve your virtual event skills? 

Create short post-event online surveys for attendee feedback after the virtual event. Better yet, use a platform with access to data analytics, so you can track attendance, interaction, and engagement. This will allow you to refine your process, and offer better virtual event planning services in the future.

4. Event Marketing 

Do you work for an event company, operate solo, or own an event planning company? Well, regardless of where you fit in the event industry, you’ll need to do some marketing. We’re not just talking about marketing yourself, either, but also about marketing your planned events. 

That’s right, event marketing is one of the most important event planning services event planners should offer. If you’re tasked with planning a social event, a fundraiser for a nonprofit organization, or a promotional event, that event needs to be advertised and marketed to the right audience.

Understand Who You’re Marketing the Event To

It helps to know a little about event marketing, and doing a short course on that topic will help. It will be one more thing to be proud of in an event planner resume, too. 

Many event planning courses include elements of event marketing. Are you interested in doing an online course to brush up on your event planning skills? Check out our guide to the 6 best online event planning courses. 

Whether you have marketing skills or not, you still need to understand the target audience your event is aimed at. This will ensure that you attract the right attendees to your event. Remember to match your marketing platform (print media, email marketing, social media, etc) to that audience.

4. Logistics and Setup

Event logistics are the coordination and management of an event’s operational aspects, from transportation and equipment hire to catering and security. Even the venue setup falls under the umbrella term of event logistics. 

You’ll typically find yourself working with a team of event organizers or at the very least, an event manager or venue manager. They will share the burden of these logistics or venue setups. 

And you’ll certainly need a team you can rely on for larger and more extravagant events like dream weddings. When there’s so much to plan and do, everything has to go according to plan or your reputation could be on the line. 

But at times, you’ll be organizing events yourself, responsible for all aspects of event coordination in the event planning process. This is likely if you are a private events planner, specializing in smaller events.

Choose Venues that Require Little to No Setup

You could find yourself responsible for setting everything up at birthday parties, holiday parties, or even smaller company parties. To make it easier for yourself, look for venues on the Perfect Venue Marketplace that require minimal setup, or offer help with the setup. 

Tables and chairs will already be set up for dinner parties in dining rooms for hire. All you’ll have to do is add finishing touches like event-specific table decor. Informal gatherings in sports bars already have seating in place, too. 

Always check if your venue offers any logistics or setup support first. For example, corporate event planners know that venues for corporate events typically have AV equipment available and sometimes even technicians on call.

5. Event Registration and Ticketing

Another event planning service that helps you offer a more comprehensive event package is event registration. This entails collecting information from all who will be attending the event, and managing their participation.

Unless it is a free-to-attend event, tickets will be sold. Therefore, you may decide to include ticket sales and management along with your event registration services. But this is not nearly as complicated as it sounds. All you need is the right software, and you can start offering this event planning service today.

Get the Best Ticketing Software to Streamline the Process

Ticketing is easier than it first appears. You don’t even need a large team to handle this task. You can manage attendee registration, handle ticketing fees, and even analyze attendee data for reporting, with the right software. 

Our review of the best ticketing software options will help you choose the one that’s best for your event planning services. 

6. Vendor Management

Vendor management is another event planning service that you should offer. 

You might not provide this service if you work as part of a team for an events company. But you’ll need to know how to manage vendors if you decide to start your own events company. 

Vendors include everyone from structure or set builders to tech services, florists, and caterers. It takes great event coordination skills to manage all of these and more for large events, public or private. 

Managing this yourself, or appointing one of your own team to do so, helps to create a smooth, seamless event and takes stress off the client. 

The Right Venue Can Simplify Vendor Management 

Choose your event venue wisely, and vendor management becomes a whole lot simpler. Some venue centers offer in-house tech support, floral arrangements, or catering services. 

This means less hassle for you, and ultimately, a more successful event planning experience. If you know that you need multiple vendors for an event, enquire about such services before you book a venue. 

7. Onboarding Event Participants 

Let us share a secret that seasoned non-profit event planners and social event planners all know. Their success often depends on choosing the right host and guest speakers. That is why onboarding these key players is one of the event planning services we recommend you offer. 

An event host or emcee takes the event attendees on a journey through every stage of the event. They give the event structure and personality. Guest speakers add depth to the event, sharing their expertise with the audience and offering more value for their attendance.

Choosing Hosts and Guest Speakers 

If this is one of the event planning services you intend to offer, here are a few tips for choosing hosts and guest speakers. 

1. First, keep it relevant. Ensure that your host or guest speakers have relevant experience in public speaking and experience with your particular event type. Attendees also tend to relate more to a host or guest speaker from their peer groups, so pay attention to this too.

2. Next, keep it simple. Too many event hosts or speakers can make the event feel too busy or even chaotic. You want to add structure with a professional touch, not overwhelm the event attendees. Allow enough time between guest speakers for attendees to reflect on what they’ve heard.

3. Lastly, don’t choose blindly or rush your decision. Interview the candidates first, and ask them to do a short speech for you. This allows you to assess their personality and tone and decide if it aligns with your event and audience. 

Enhance Your Event Planning Services With Perfect Venue 

Offering many different event planning services will set you up for success in the industry and score you more gigs. 

It may not be feasible for you to offer them all. However, we recommend that you offer the services you can, and have at least a rudimentary understanding of the rest. This will help you create more successful events, satisfy more clients, and scale your event planning business with ease.  

But no matter how many event planning services you master, the key to a successful event is finding the perfect venue. And the perfect venue is what you’ll find every time on the Perfect Venue Marketplace. 

Start exploring venues today!