Corporations invest thousands of dollars each year in tickets for hospitality events for employees, clients, and prospects. These events strengthen relationships, build brand rapport, and leave lasting memories.
However, throwing money at corporate events without a clear strategy leads to waste. Successful implementation happens when you understand every event’s purpose and potential impact.
Let’s look at how four corporate hospitality ideas can accomplish your goals and create lasting memories.
Why Should Your Organization Sponsor Live Events?
Before choosing from among corporate hospitality ideas, start with a foundational question: “Why should we buy these tickets in the first place?”
Live events are powerful because they create connections with clients, prospects, and employees. You might provide access to a favorite band, professional team, or noteworthy speaker. You can’t recreate that kind of experience with a sponsored dinner or employee happy hour.
Live hospitality events also enable personalization, which helps your brand stand out in a crowded market. Understanding exactly who or what a specific client, prospect, or employee wants to see, and then delivering that experience, sets your brand apart from your competition.
Let’s explore three major areas of applications to consider when purchasing corporate tickets.
Bolster Client Relationships
For existing clients, hospitality experiences are significant for retention and getting customers to resign or renew a contract.
Corporate hospitality also reinforces the foundation of your previous agreements. By distributing tickets for the best events to the right people, you connect in more memorable ways. For example, a client is much more likely to remember seeing their favorite artist in person than receiving a box of cookies from a company that forgot they had a peanut allergy.
Strengthen Connections With Prospects
Live events are useful for converting prospective clients. A ticket to a sporting event might be the motivating factor that pushes a prospect over the edge as they get excited to explore a partnership or sign a contract.
Events also set the tone for the caliber of customer service you plan to offer later on. When you “wow” prospects at the door, they know positive experiences are in store.
Build Rapport With Employees
A live event is much more valuable than corporate-branded swag like a notebook or coffee mug. Employees want fun experiences, too. Forward-thinking executive teams consider and prioritize internal team members.
For staff, hospitality is useful as a thank you, reward, or incentive. These opportunities are also great for networking and motivating employees to level up or remain engaged in corporate culture.
4 Corporate Hospitality Ideas That Create an Impact
For any corporate hospitality ideas, options and variety are key to success. Think about your relationships with friends, family, and coworkers. Does everyone in your life love football, or enjoy country music? Probably not.
Leverage a wide variety of events, like the four below. Each client, prospect, and employee will find something to enjoy and remember.
1. Sports
Sporting events include local or regional teams at both the professional and minor league levels. You might consider tickets for the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, or other leagues.
Ticket options range in timing, pricing, and duration of the season. Popular choices include:
- Single tickets. For single-use events, companies buy many tickets to cater to larger groups for one-time games.
- Season tickets. Longer commitments and playing seasons may mean you want access to several games. If you’d like to cater to clients one week and employees the next, consider spreading out over a season.
- Suites and boxes. Suites create an enhanced or luxurious experience. They’re the perfect gift for an internal team that crushed a huge project or for the highest-paying clients and VIPs.
2. Live Concerts
Now that the pandemic is over and touring is back in full force, people have opportunities to get a glimpse of their favorite artists.
Single-show music events and global tours often stop at a range of venues like arenas, stadiums, and small theaters. The key is finding the concerts that your clients, prospects, employees, and guests are most enthusiastic about.
The benefit of subscribing to these types of tickets is that your guests don’t have to buy them themselves. You provide new memories and eliminate the hassle of purchasing tickets through high-fee sites.
3. Learning, Educational, or Networking Events
At learning, educational, or networking events, decorated speakers (usually subject matter experts in your field) visit a local Chamber of Commerce, a large conference, or an annual charity luncheon.
Because these events blend the professional world with entertainment, they provide opportunities for clients, prospects, and partners to network with each other and gain new ideas.
4. Unique Regional Events
No matter where your business is based, there are likely several events unique to your region or city throughout the year. A state fair, music competition, or international food fair might fall into this category.
Offering tickets to city-specific events demonstrates that you have a finger on the pulse on what’s happening in your neck of the woods. Not everyone has a huge national team or a world-renowned artist they love, but many people like to enjoy new and local experiences on the weekends.
Regional events are ideal for employees and those in your network who stay in the region regularly. Always consider your workforce and their preferences — those factors relate to your community.
Grow Your Business With Hospitality
Take full advantage of these four corporate hospitality ideas (and many more) with a qualified ticketing partner. With a professional exchange partner, you can buy, manage, and optimize corporate hospitality events to get the most out of your business’s investment.
Give your clients, prospects, and employees top-notch experiences. Book your Ticketnology demo today.