How to Host a Successful Seminar

ManagementFebruary 09, 2023 10:00


Does your company want to establish itself as a prominent thought leader? To build trust and credibility within your industry? An excellent way to do so is to organise live corporate events such as seminars, panel discussions and workshops. Webinars are useful—but nothing beats the synergy created when you have face-to-face interactions during a seminar!

Furthermore, these external corporate events can facilitate networking opportunities for your employees. Seminars provide a space for a diverse group of industry experts to gather, connect and exchange ideas. This can help your employees to form new business relationships, which may potentially translate to leads and referrals in the future. Here are 5 tips on how you can host a successful seminar:

1. Determine the Seminar Topic

First, you have to decide on your objective for this seminar: is it primarily to educate or to motivate? Having determined your objective, you can then move on to picking the topic with clearly defined parameters.

Make sure that the content you wish to cover within the seminar is manageable and easy to follow. If you attempt to cover a lot of ground in too short a time, your participants may lose interest.

2. Identify and Secure Featured Speakers

Once you have confirmed the topic as well as the date of the seminar, it is time to identify potential speakers. Will they be senior-ranking employees within your company—or members of your industry’s professional associations?

Whether these speakers are sourced internally or externally, they must have specialised, in-depth knowledge of the seminar topic. Reach out to the featured speakers well in advance so as to secure their availability.

3. Choose the Right Venue

While the search for featured speakers is ongoing, you must also identify potential venues to hold the seminar. If your office does not have a dedicated space for hosting seminars, you have to look elsewhere for an appropriate commercial space.

The ideal venue should be able to accommodate all your participants comfortably in different configurations. However, space is not the only consideration. It should have reliable infrastructure in the form of functional light and sound systems; high speed WiFi is a given as well.

4. Prepare the Itinerary

Planning the flow of events during the actual day is vital. How many hours will the seminar last for? If it is a full day event, the standard procedure is to have a lunch break along with two tea breaks. Besides the keynote presentations by the featured speakers, you can consider having interactive components like icebreakers and Q&A sessions.

With a detailed timeline of events, you are then able to source for vendors—food and beverage caterers, event styling and décor companies and so on. Take note that all these costs do not exceed the stipulated budget.

5. Publicise the Seminar

Amidst the flurry of logistics planning, do not neglect formulating a marketing strategy to target your intended audience! Get the word out there through timely announcements on your company’s website and social media channels. These announcements should have a clear call to action, prompting those interested in the seminar to register.

 

 

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