Get your Christmas party sorted in no time with these tips.
For small businesses, a Christmas party might seem like an unnecessary expense when every dollar counts. Christmas parties should be seen as an investment into your business’ growth, rather than a way to splash and waste money.
For employees, a Christmas party is a way to thank them for their loyalty and hard work during the year and look towards a prosperous new year. It’s also a great way to boost staff moral. When staff members feel appreciated and valued, they’re much more likely to work harder, be enthusiastic about achieving good results and will become your business’ biggest advocates.
For clients, Christmas parties remind your customers that their business is valued and appreciated.
If you’ve had a change of heart but are worried that it’s too late to put on an event, don’t fret. You can organise your Christmas party in no time with these tools:
- Get the word out. Decent invitations are essential to getting the word out about your event. Canva allows you to design stunning collateral to promote your event without having to hire a graphic designer. It’s free to use and will save you a ton of time and money that would be spent fretting over Photoshop. You can also send invitations via email to save money on printing costs.
- Take care of tickets. When you need to plan work events, Facebook just doesn’t cut it and manual tickets are a headache to arrange. Particularly for those looking to invite clients or have large offices or interstate teams, forget about chasing RSVPs and look at an online ticketing solution. TryBooking is a cheap and powerful ticketing platform that charges only $0.30 for each ticket (for a free event = no fees!)
- Use data to your advantage. The value of data is often underestimated around events. The benefits of online ticketing means you’ll have access to more data such as email addresses that you can leverage for marketing purposes later on. A CRM like Salesforce can help to manage your attendees (such as noting dietary requirements), keep tabs of past interactions (handy for conversations at the event) and allow you to follow up with attendees post event.
- Figure out the food. Food is the highlight of most social events, so if it’s a flop, you’ll never live it down. Services like Deliveroo or UberEats offer business catering options so that you can get delicious food delivered from restaurants, straight to your event, and avoid underwhelming your guests with soggy cheese and tomato sandwiches.
- Don’t sweat the small stuff. Running a business is stressful enough, without the responsibility of organising an event. so hire an extra set of hands to help get things organised. Community platforms like Airtasker provide a simple and quick way to find the right person for the job, whether it’s arranging a DJ, sorting out the drinks or you could get them to plan the whole event if you’re just too busy. Airtasker is free to use and allows individuals and businesses to post a task to connect with professionals and local services to get your job done fast.
- Get the right tunes. Music can make or break the party, but probably you don’t want to be making small talk with your employees over an explicit 50 Cent album. Get the tunes right with a curated playlist on Spotify so everyone can have a boogie and your staff don’t accidentally stumble across your secret Disney sing-along playlist. It’s super cheap too – at the moment you can get a three-month premium subscription for $.099.
Inside Small Business
