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Planning a conference always gets people excited, but if you’re the event organizer, you’ll quickly realize you need more than enthusiasm to pull off a successful show. So to plan an event that will be unforgettable, get started with Bitrix24 and see how it can streamline your projects.

Create a conference planning checklist

The first of your conference planning tasks is to set up a meeting with your core team and decide the major milestones that need to be hit before your event. Nothing too granular, but cover the main areas.

Organize an in-person meeting, or a video conference call if you’re a remote team, and be sure to assign a note taker who can keep a record in a shared document.

Make sure to discuss topics like your overall purpose, who should be on your guest list, and when and where it should be hosted. If it’s online, do you have the right tools to make it a success?

Split your team into workgroups

As a project manager, you need to have a good grip on your conference planning software so you can get a global picture of how things are going. However, not everyone else needs to see everything. It can be overwhelming to be bombarded with every little update and that can affect productivity.

On your company’s organizational chart, you can create workgroups based on department or focus area. Each team can upload their files into their own Drive, plan meetings, tasks, and events on their team calendar, and keep a record of what they have achieved so far.

Project management tools as conference planning software

Bitrix24’s project management tools give you more features than you could ever need so your event runs smoothly. As part of the conference planning steps, here you’ll have to go into more detail on those major milestones from your initial meeting.

Fill up your project with tasks and even subtasks. You can assign each task to a responsible person and add on participants and observers who will all receive notifications on their Bitrix24 dashboard.

Once you’ve got your tasks planned out, you can visualize them all on a Kanban board with columns for to-do, in progress, and completed.

Set your timeline and deadlines

Event planners know that even with the most precision preparation, you’ll inevitably have a few boxes unchecked an hour before your conference starts.

Conservative preparation with conference planning software is essential, but it’s not good enough simply knowing the date of your event and hoping everything gets done beforehand. Almost all your tasks will depend on others, so by using a Gantt chart with dependencies, you can see the big picture before zooming in to the more minor details.

And don’t just rely on your memory to keep track of things. Set alerts to remind you of major changes or to let you know if a task is approaching its deadline.

Communicate progress effectively

While workgroups work well, be careful not to fall into the trap of separating people into silos only to find the day before your event that you haven’t got a venue.

Frequent, quick progress reports are essential for you as a project manager and for the morale of your whole team. Sure, you’ll be able to see the overall progress of tasks on your Gantt charts and Kanban boards, but you can also get your managers to fill in a collaborative doc with their successes and areas for improvement.

Schedule a 20 minute video call every week in the run up to the event to motivate your team and give everybody an insight into the bigger picture.

Build your guestbook and get in touch

You know what your conference is for and where and when it will be, now it’s time to sort out your guests. You can manage your guests from your CRM, from which you can send email sequences, answer any questions and get confirmation of attendance.

But where will all these contacts come from?

Sure, you’ll probably have a database already, but you can get more with customizable online forms that will automatically populate your database. Post your forms on your website and share them on social media for maximum reach. Now send out your invitations and automate reminders and teasers throughout the time between now and your event.

Plan your post-conference communications

One often-overlooked aspect of event planning is what post-event action you’re going to take. Once the last fireworks have boomed, are you just going to say goodbye and leave it at that?

When you organize conferences, you need to remember to post on social media and send follow up emails after the event. You can encourage attendees to sign up for your newsletter, offer a tempting little discount, or ask them to spread the word.

Part of Bitrix24’s conference planning software allows you to set up a post-event workflow, so make sure it’s ready to go once the conference is over. Strike while the iron is hot and sure up your repeat business.

All-in-one organization software on all your devices

With venues to visit, meetings to attend, and everything else in between, you can’t expect to be sitting at your desk for eight hours a day.

This doesn’t mean you’re going to fall behind on any of the work though. Download Bitrix24 on Android or iOS, and keep on top of things while you’re on the go.

You can assign tasks, approve documents, and communicate with your team from wherever you are. Furthermore, if you need a little reminder about something, set an alert in your calendar and never miss a thing.

Start organizing your conference today

To run events, you need the right tools, so sign up for Bitrix24’s conference planning software today! More than 10,000,000 organizations have already signed up to plan their conferences and so much more. You’ll have all the tools you need, from project management and Gantt charts to email marketing tools and internal communications. Everything is seamlessly connected together which saves you time, energy, and stress — a valuable tactic for event planning.