Corporate Competition Party or Event

Over the years, I have been to a few corporate events. I won tickets for the public via social media. The reason retail businesses do this is to expand their audiences. On the companies Facebook or Twitter, you are required to follow and share the competition post. This helps them market the company or product at a faction of the cost they would have had to pay for an advert or marketing scheme.

I also have been to a few events with my work. These events where for suppliers and other businesses within the same industry. But in this post I will talk about the ones I went to by winning tickets.

Competition platforms

The first event I went to was one I won via Very.com. You had to make a Pinterest board using their products. This meant their products were being shared from their webpage at no cost to themselves. Their website would have got a lot of traffic too. I would recommend Pinterest if you are using your event to share your products.

You can also use Twitter to follow/ re-tweet, Facebook to like/ follow and Share.

Very then used the items used on our boards to design the party decorations which the press would photograph.

Be careful of bad PR companies

Very.com organised this event via an external PR company. I also went to the BAFTAS (won via Hello but I think the company was hired by EE) and this was organised by the same PR company. Both events were organised by young twenty year olds that were more worried about having a good time themselves rather than the clients.

I don't know if this PR company has connections to get these contracts with these companies, but if you are hiring externally do research on that company! Or you could keep main staff members from your company involved in the process to keep an eye on proceedings.

Otherwise, as with these events, all winners were complaining. They will then go to friends and family and give bad press about an event you have spend thousands on. Media can help a company but there is also the negative side to it. The people attending your events can write negatives things on media platforms and the whole event can have a negative impact on your company.

Example of a good competition event

If organised very well these events can bring in a lot of good publicity and new customers. I went to an event for Pandora with Stylist.co.uk. It was well organised and everyone felt relaxed. There were waiters who made sure you always had a drink or something to nibble. They had hair dressers/ nail stylist ready to do pamper everyone. I believe the services of these companies would be provided free or at a low cost, as these companies were advertised at the event and goody bag at the end.

There was a lady showing the products and selling them. These were not pushed and you only went to her if you wanted to. At the end of the event we were given a gift bag. This contained vouchers for all the companies that were there that night. It also contained a Pandora gift card. As the event was hosted above the Pandora show at Oxford Street, nearly everyone ended up using their gift card and spending extra. My friend who I took to the event had never bought the product before and now has started buying.  This shows a good event can bring in new clients.