The events industry is certainly not easy. As an event venue, you will constantly deal with demanding clients, unique requests, and a fast-paced industry that’s continually changing. This means you need to stay on top of your game if you’re going to grow your event venue business.
With the right venue management software and strategy, this could be easier than you think. In this guide, we’ll run you through some of the best tips and tactics to help improve your approach to event venue management.
10 Tips for Better Event Venue Management
There’s a lot you can do to improve the way you manage your event space. Here are a few top strategies to help you book more events, enhance your business operations, and keep clients happier. Â
1. Develop Relationships With Professional Event Organizers
To grow your event venue business, having strong relationships with professional event planners is essential. This will help you attract repeat business and put your venue on the map for a wider range of events.
Depending on your event space, you could cultivate relationships with planners of both corporate and social events. By getting your venue on their preferred list, you could enjoy a steady stream of bookings without constantly having to hunt down leads. The important thing here is developing long-term relationships that add value to the organizers and their clients.
Some tactics you can use to develop strong relationships with event planners include:
- Offering special deals and discounts for select event planners. This could include a kind of “loyalty” discount for repeat bookings.
- Get to know event planners at other events. Attend relevant events and create a friendly connection with these professionals. Â
- Keep these planners regularly updated with any news, developments, or promotions about your venue.
- Keep your relationship personal and friendly. Don’t add event planners to your regular newsletter blasts or marketing communications. Instead, reach out to them in a more personal capacity to develop more authentic relationships.
- Try to foster the idea of creating a mutually beneficial partnership instead of trying to continually sell your venue to an event planner. To do this, make sure these professionals get enough value out of your events - such as discounted rates, personal touches, access to special catering menus, or anything else that will make your venue a preferred choice for them.
Securing repeat business will become much easier when working closely with leading planners in your local events industry.
2. Streamline Communications
Providing easy and efficient communication is a critical task for any venue manager. Not only will this save you time and make your life easier, but it will also provide a more positive experience for your clients and leads. This is important for gaining referrals and more future clients.
There’s a lot that can go into event planning, which means your clients might have many questions. Quickly following up with their queries and being easy to get hold of is essential. One of the best ways venue owners can streamline their communications is by using venue management software with automated email templates.
This tool provides a library of your most commonly used email templates. Often, it will automatically fill in the event information too. This lets you send emails faster, making it a lot easier to communicate with venue customers, vendors, and event managers.
Of course, always keep your communications friendly and helpful. Providing potential clients with a good experience from the start will leave a lasting positive impact.
3. Use Event Management Software
The easiest way for venue managers to work more efficiently is to use the right software. This will save loads of time and effort while making it easier to tick off your daily tasks.
An event management solution like Perfect Venue provides a single dashboard where you can easily organize all of your venue and event operations. It includes tools like a centralized booking calendar, digital proposals, a library of email templates, BEO software, venue analytics, event booking engines, automated task management, and more. The platform also integrates with apps you already use - like Gmail.
Event and venue management software eliminates disconnected systems, manual tasks, confusing email threads, and navigating through long lists of documents. It will save you time, improve the way you deal with event clients, and ultimately help you generate more revenue.
It’s especially important to use the right venue management tools to stay ahead of trends and keep up with a highly competitive industry.
4. Make Your Site Visits Special
If you’re competing with multiple venues in your area, you’ll need to make sure yours stands out. To do this, it’s vital that you add a special touch to site visits with your clients. Remember, first impressions are everything!
When potential customers or event organizers visit, ensure someone is there to greet them. Offer a coffee on arrival and introduce the team who will be coordinating the event. If catering is on offer, consider providing a sample of your menu items. If you’re offering conference venues or convention centers, consider doing a mini presentation in the room. Let them test the sound system, and connect any equipment or technology they plan to use.
By making your site visit as insightful as possible, your potential clients will get a real feel of what organizing and attending an event in your space will be like. This will help get them excited about your venue.
5. Make it Easy for People to Get in Touch With You
This might sound obvious, but it's something that many small businesses get wrong. Establishing relationships with clients and event planners starts with them being able to get hold of you easily. To do this, your business needs to be highly visible and approachable.
Make it easy for prospects to discover and engage with your business. This means having active social media pages, a website with clearly visible contact details, up-to-date listings on business directories, an instant messenger on your site, and any other channels that make it easy for people to connect with you.
The easier it is to get in touch with your venue team, the more business you can expect to generate.
6. Be Trustworthy and Transparent
If you want to increase event sales, you need to provide a transparent and honest service. Only ever promote event venues that make sense for your client’s needs. If you try to sell a package that isn’t the right fit for a client, you’ll only end up earning a bad reputation for your business.
So, instead of just trying to boost sales, try to develop long-lasting relationships with clients. Be transparent about your venue, what you can do, and what your space offers. This will help you get more positive reviews and return clients. Â
7. Know Your Customers
To attract more customers to your venue, you need to know what they’re looking for in an event space. Understand the kinds of functions people will want to host at your property. This will help you find ways to adapt your space to their needs. Understanding your customers will also help you develop more impactful marketing strategies.
Speak to the organizers and prospects in your network. Look at what your competitors are doing, and stay ahead of event trends. Doing this will help you create a more exciting venue and improve your event management tactics to match your customers' needs.
8. Ask Event Planners What Value Add-Ons They Like
Once you have established relationships with event planners, connect with them and ask them what types of value they look for in a venue. This could be specific technology, event management processes, personalized experiences, or more. By understanding what event organizers want from a venue, you’ll be able to add more value to them. In turn, you’ll get more bookings.
At the same time, reaching out to event organizers about this shows that you care. It will help them develop more trust in your service.
9. Develop Strong Relations With Vendors
The cherry on top of having a great event venue is offering an excellent package of local vendors. This could include vendors for catering, drinks, decor, music, or anything else involved in event planning.
Building solid relationships with other event-related providers in your area will help you add more value and possibilities to event organizers. Having many vendors wanting to work with you will also help to establish more trust around your venue.
10. Understand Your Venue’s Event Experience
One of the best ways to improve your event venue management is to put yourself in the shoes of your clients or event planners. Try to experience your venue from the perspective of someone attending an event. This will help you identify issues and find ways to improve your offering.
Do regular walk-throughs of your venue to identify any issues. Run through your check-in experience, and even try to plant “guests” at events to gauge the experience for event attendees. This will help you find ways to improve your client offering.
Conclusion
Successful event venue management comes down to being well-organized and providing an excellent customer experience. You should also ensure your venue is always up to date with your client and industry needs.
By following these tips and using the right event venue management software, you’ll be able to improve the way you manage your event venue business vastly. This will help you gain more customers, boost your revenue, and establish a stronger name within your local events venue industry.
Want to know more about Perfect Venue’s event management software? Watch a demo or try it free today; we won't ask you for your credit card. Instead, we’ll promise you excellent customer service, saved time, and increased sales - you’ve got nothing to lose.
