Event planners have a lot to handle, often with limited resources and a tight timeline.
Surveys of event planners have shown that they’re frequently (42% of planners) working 15+ hours per day during the lead up time to an event. Those long hours don’t improve during an event either.
Sleep hours? Those fall below 5.
With this level of work, purposeful tools become important. Despite that, the planning and fulfillment process is full of back-and-forth email and spreadsheets. These general use tools dominate communication, task management, information delivery, and more when working with the partners that fuel events.
There are clear downfalls of leaning on email for crucial planning and fulfillment needs.
- Email is crowded – The average email inbox has 200 emails sitting in it. And likely a good portion of those are unwanted spam. Half of all email falls in that category. It’s no wonder that email reminders and follow-ups to the partners you work with are often required.
- Email is not shared across teams – History of past follow-ups, important documents, or key updates are only visible to those on the recipient list. This adds additional effort, sorting, and potential risk to the process. Example: Sponsor emails you with the subject line “URGENT,” but the priority note has no context or a past email chain. You’re initially unsure how to respond. Instead of your important task that needs completed today, you’re now pulled into sorting through communications and searching for status information.
- Email is not purposefully structured for this effort – Email is not project or event management software. When forced into this roll it starts to look like painful back-and-forth notes, searching through email folders, and copy-paste reminders.
- Email doesn’t bring additional insight – Did a sponsor open your important note? Which partners have completed their tasks?
You’re likely not surprised that we have a recommendation for an improved option for your partner management and fulfillment needs. [wink]
Ask yourself: Am I managing my event with purposeful tools?
With a purposeful tool supporting your events, hopefully you can beat that sleep-hour stat above!
PatnerHQ is a centralized partnership management portal for you and all your sponsors, vendors, exhibitors, and more. Complete tasks, find information, and communicate back and forth about your events, all in one place.