by Nowadays, there’s a huge amount of information available to us. We rarely have to “go it alone” with any task in life. We can lean on the experience of experts who are happy to share their top tips. It’s also possible to find tools to help make our lives easier. In the event industry, this means identifying the right event planning websites.
Organising an event is fun and rewarding. But if you’ve done it before, you’ll know that the process can feel like spinning plates.
Coming up with ideas, coordinating bookings, marketing, safety considerations, and all the other aspects of an event can seem daunting. By finding the right websites, you can streamline all of these.
Luckily, we’ve taken the legwork out of this search. Below, we list 8 of the best event planning websites.
Some of these sites are membership-based tools. Others are simply blogs and collections of top tips and advice. All of them offer something to save time, spread awareness of your event, and make the process simpler.
1. Event Marketer: Industry publication
Event Marketer is an industry publication with a huge amount of information and news about event planning.
Depending on the scale of your own event planning operation, some of this may seem irrelevant. Yet there is plenty of information there if you do a little digging. Event Marketer has categories for both consumer- and business-oriented events.
Sure, not all of the featured events will quite match your own. But using your coffee break to spend a little time on the Event Marketer website might spark some impressive new ideas.
Your next event could break records
Create an event
2. Event Manager Blog: Tips, ebooks, and templates
Event Manager Blog is yet another industry publication. It’s especially great for those who are new to the industry. A lot of their ebooks and guides are designed to take your knowledge “from the ground up.” If you’re new to putting on your own events, you’re sure to find valuable information.
Some great resources of theirs include a post on promoting your event with no money and a guide to event management software.
Create an experience that inspires, connects and is remembered forever
Create event
3. Hootsuite: Social media management
We haven’t included any mainstream social media websites on this list. Not because they’re not important. We just don’t want to insult your skills by assuming you don’t know about them.
Knowing that social media is key isn’t complicated. Knowing how to manage your social media definitely can be. Hopping between Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and any other social media you plan to use for event promotion can be time-consuming and tedious.
Hootsuite describes itself as a “social media dashboard”. It allows you to link accounts and manage them from one central hub. So you can, say, share a photo to four or five social accounts in the time it usually takes for one.
4. Eventopedia: Find a venue
Eventopedia is a very simple concept: You can search for event venues all over the world. Then you can easily review technical specifications such as capacity and transport links. Finally, you can contact the venue directly about making a booking.
The site also has a growing “Suppliers” section to help you find suppliers of food, drinks, or other services at your event.
5. HubSpot: Marketing platform
HubSpot is not specifically aimed at event planning, but it is a really useful tool within the industry.
Described as a “marketing automation platform”, HubSpot can help with everything from sending and tracking email marketing campaigns to managing your ticket sales.
This is another website that can seem intimidating at first, as it is a powerful CRM. Luckily, the site has a series of free classes and courses provided by industry experts. There is also a blog for picking up tips on getting the most out of HubSpot.
If you’re working on a relatively small scale, you’ll be pleased to know that HubSpot has free membership plans so you won’t be out of pocket.
6. Canva: Free graphic design
People usually don’t go into event planning because they love graphic design. It may seem that the two are not directly related, but your attendees will often make decisions with their eyes.
Having promotional material that looks good will make you stand out from the crowd. If people see an event page, poster, or invite that looks amateurish, they’ll assume the event itself is amateurish.
Canva has lots of templates, free resources, and assets for you to use.
Everything can be done directly in your browser and most of the features are free. Never has it been easier to create something that looks professional without having to pay for it.
Even if you are lucky enough to use a graphic designer for your main promotional material, you might just need to make additions and tweaks at short notice. Canva to the rescue!
7. MailChimp: Email marketing
“Email marketing is so 2009”.
Or is it?
Email marketing is actually still the most effective way to reach customers for many businesses and industries. As many as 80% of professionals think it’s an effective way of retaining customers. Event planners are missing a trick if they aren’t collecting people’s emails.
Techniques to do so include special offers and discounts or even just the promise of information on future events. However you choose to build your list, MailChimp allows you to get started totally free of charge.
8. Billetto: Sell tickets to your event
Ticketing can be a big challenge. Get it wrong, and you’ll be left with a real mess to sort out.
Billetto allows you to create an event page easily, sell tickets, and even promote your event. People come to the Billetto website looking for events to attend in the local area. By adding yours, you’ll make sure it shows up in their event calendar.
Billetto can even let you manage recurring events such as monthly meetups or ongoing shows.
Over to you…
By finding the right event planning websites, you can make the planning process a lot simpler. Putting an event together takes organisation, creative thinking, and a lot of hard work. Having the right websites to help you can be a proverbial lifesaver.