Have you always loved planning things from scratch? Are you looking to now make a full-time career out of simply planning?

How to Start an Event Planning Service

The event planning industry has seen significant growth in recent years, and research shows that the profits in the industry will continue to rise in the coming years.

If you’d like to know more about starting your own event planning service then you’ve come to the right place, happy planning!

Define Your Market Area

A common mistake most rookie event planners make is to believe they can set up a service that can cater to any type of occasion. Unfortunately, this is most likely not the case, at least if you’re a beginner in the field.

Event planning is a taxing industry where every event needs a strategy that caters to its personalized needs. Here are some examples of the kinds of events you can potentially base your services on:

• Celebrations – weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, graduations, reunions.
• Education – conferences, meetings, seminars.
• Promotions – rallies, launches, fashion shows, variety entertainment.
• Commemorations – memorials.

The list isn’t exhaustive, but it gives you a gist of what you’re in for. Typically, most beginners start their career by choosing one from this list and focusing their promotions and advertising on that particular target audience.

So if you think you’ve got a flair for planning weddings or other fun events where your creativity will come in handy, you may want to go for the first or third option. But if you’re more inclined to work on events that are official and organizational, you could base your service on educational and business events.

Develop a Business Plan

A business plan is a blueprint of how you’re going to achieve the goals you set out for your business.

Here are some of the things you’ll want to include in your business plan before you even take the first step towards creating your service:

• Market analysis: Determine if there’s a potential market for the particular service you’re planning to put forth. There’s no point in starting a service if it isn’t currently in demand.
• Marketing strategy: How do you plan on advertising your service to your target audience once it’s out there? You’ll also need to set aside a budget that is solely meant for promotions and advertisements as your service will be off to a rough start if you don’t work on building a strong client base during the initial stages of your service.
• Finance: Do you have the funds to kickstart your business? If you don’t, you need to consider where you’ll get your first investment from and how you’re going to grow the service before you start receiving clients.
• Operation: Over here, you’ll decide how you’re going to put your business plan into action. Your resources, facilities, equipment, inventory, location, etc, will come under this category. Remember not to overlook any aspect of the service as it can cause future complications if left unplanned.

Choose the Right Software

The world today is almost completely digitized and it would be foolish to think otherwise. With the pandemic that took over the world in 2020, most events shifted to an online platform and took place virtually.

Whatever niche you choose for your event planning business, you need to be able to execute it on both online and offline sites.

Here’s where choosing the right software can lessen the burden of being an event planner: with the help of applications such as Planning Pod’s event management software, you’ll be able to have access to three of the most important applications needed for an event planner – venue management, event planning, and floor plans.

Using these three, you’ll be able to smoothly organize any number of events without much hassle and confusion. Additionally, you’ll be able to stay on top of all the event bookings and clients with no deadlines or meetings missed.

In Conclusion

Here’s a summary of the things you’ll need to remember when starting your very own event planning service:

• Define your area: This will help you select a target audience, which will automatically make marketing your service easier.
• Build a strong foundation: Your business plan is the foundation of the business. Make sure you’ve analyzed all the aspects such as marketing, promotions, funds, and equipment before you get started.
• Choose the right software: This will help minimize your problems and let you focus on enhancing your customer’s experience.