How to successfully niche as a competitive event planner

The events industry in the UK is extremely competitive. Finding a niche can help set you apart and help you provide a specialist service that goes above and beyond for your clients.

In this article, we will share how you can niche as a competitive event planner. We hope our tips help you stand out from the crowd and enjoy a long and successful career.

What is a Niche in the Events Industry?

Before we get started, it’s important to understand what having a niche in the events industry means. A niche is a specialised segment of something – it might be an academic subject, a commercial industry, or a product or service of some kind. When you find your niche, you find your speciality.

If you’ve decided to start an event business, finding a niche within the industry means you will specialise in a segment of the events industry. It might be charity events, themed parties, or corporate award ceremonies (to name a few)!

How to Successfully Niche in Events

Now that you know what it means to find your niche and a few of the benefits, let’s take a look at how you can successfully niche in events.

Find What You’re Passionate About

When people think about specialising in events, they often think about creating something brand new. However, that’s not always necessary. The best way to succeed as a competitive event planner is to find what you’re passionate about and chase that.

According to Life Hack, “If you choose to follow your passion, you can begin to truly enjoy what you do […] You will be willing to put in the extra effort to go beyond what is required of you […] Your passion ignites your work, and, like a rocket, it accelerates you past roadblocks that may come about.” So, find what you’re passionate about and prioritise your efforts towards specialising in that area.

Improve Your People Skills

Working in the events industry requires people skills. You need to know how to talk to people, deal with conflict in a healthy way, and earn the trust and respect of your clients. Honing your people skills is essential if you want to succeed in the events industry.

Choose the Right Target Market

If you want to succeed as a niche events planner, it’s important to choose the right target market. You won’t stand out if you choose to break into an overly saturated market. Instead, you should do your research into market demand and find the audiences that want a particular type of event.

For example, parents of young children are unlikely to be your target audience when it comes to promoting week-long music festivals. Choosing the right target market can go a long way towards achieving success as a competitive event planner.

Gain Industry Experience

If you want to succeed in your events planning niche, you need as much experience as possible. People want expertise. There’s nothing more off-putting than an events planner who doesn’t know what they are doing.

In order for your events planning business to be successful, you need to know your industry inside and out. You need to know what your clients are looking for, who the best vendors and speakers are, what’s the latest in events technology, and how to keep your audience engaged.

The Benefits of Finding Your Niche

Why should you specialise in a niche? The events industry is huge, there are so many opportunities. So, why limit yourself to one particular focus? There are many benefits to finding your niche in the events industry, including:

• Making a Name for Yourself: when you specialise in a particular type of event, you become an expert. While there might be thousands of event planners available to run said event, you might be the only one who really specialises. This allows you to stand out from the crowd and provide a higher level of service. Typically, a niche event isn’t widely provided and therefore it’s easier to break into the market and create a name for yourself.

• Gain Expertise: the events industry is fast-paced. There is so much that changes so much of the time. If you’re managing different events each week, it can be difficult to gain the expertise needed to make improvements, save money, and do better next time. Finding your niche in events lets you gain the experience needed to really hone your skills and improve the quality of your events.

• Customers will Find You: as we have shared above, specialising in the events industry helps you make a name for yourself. And, in doing so, customers will come to you. After all, your customers want the best event on offer and if they have the option to choose a specialist, they will. So, your customers will seek you out and refer you.

• Form a Relationship with Your Vendors: the events industry relies on vendors to deliver a great service. However, when you’re running different events each week, it can be difficult to know your vendors properly. When you have a niche, you can form a relationship with your vendors and secure their services through repeat bookings that benefit both your businesses. This allows you to work with people you trust and develop beneficial business relationships.

• Make More Money: we all want to make money at something we are passionate about. When you find your niche as a competitive event planner, you have the opportunity to make more money. This is because you specialise in your field, so your services are more likely to be in high demand. With high demand comes the potential for more money as you can charge more for your services.

Final Words

As you can tell, finding your niche as an events planner will help you enjoy success in a competitive market. We hope this article will help you find your niche and succeed in event planning this year.