How to Get Clients for an Event Planning Business

Learning how to get clients for an event planning business mostly comes down to order. The first bookings usually come from people who already know you, the next from venues and suppliers who get asked for recommendations, and only later from search, social media and advertising. Start with the cheapest sources and let the slower ones build underneath.

That order matters because a new planner has little to show a stranger. A friend, a former colleague or a venue manager who has met you can vouch for you in a sentence. A stranger on a search results page needs a website, a portfolio and reviews before they will even call.

Start with the people who already know you

A new planner's first client is often someone they already know, or someone one introduction away. That might be a colleague organizing a team dinner, a friend planning a fortieth birthday or a local nonprofit that runs a gala every year. None of them needs convincing that you are real, only that you are doing this properly now.

So tell them, specifically. A general announcement that you have started a business is easy to ignore. A short message gives people something to pass on when it covers a few concrete points.

• That you are taking on a small number of private and corporate events this season.
• One example of the kind of event you mean, such as a team dinner for thirty or a fortieth birthday at a local restaurant.
• How to reach you, and that an introduction to a friend is as welcome as a booking.

The first booking can be modest. A well-run event for forty people produces the same things a planner needs from a large one, which are photos, a testimonial and a supplier who saw how they work. Our guide to building an event portfolio before you have clients covers how to get those from your earliest jobs.

Venues and suppliers are the steadiest lead source

Once the first few events are done, the most reliable source of new clients is usually the businesses around you. Venues are asked for planner recommendations constantly, and so are caterers, florists and photographers. A planner who is on their list receives inquiries from clients who are already committed to an event.

Getting onto that list takes a visit, not an advertisement. Introduce yourself, learn how the venue likes to work, and then prove it on an event by following their rules and making their staff's day easier. Our post on working with venues so they send you work sets out the approach step by step.

The table below compares the main sources side by side. None of them is enough alone, but they pay off on very different timelines.

The pattern in the last column is that every source except the first depends on events already run. That is why the network and venues come first. They are the only sources that can produce a booking before there is much to show.

Work out how many inquiries you need

A number makes the target concrete. Most new planners think in bookings, but what they can actually influence is inquiries, because not every inquiry turns into a client. Some want a date that is taken, some have a budget that does not fit, and some are only comparing quotes.

Here is a worked example with stated assumptions. Say a planner wants twelve events in their first full year, and say one inquiry in four turns into a booking. Both figures are illustrations to replace with your own, since the real conversion rate depends on your market and your pricing.

Four inquiries a month sounds manageable, and it tells a planner exactly what to track. If a month brings two, the problem is lead sources. If it brings eight and nobody books, the problem is the reply, the proposal or the price.

Turn more inquiries into bookings

That second problem is often the cheaper one to fix. A planner who converts one inquiry in three instead of one in four needs fewer leads for the same year, and conversion improves mainly through speed and clarity rather than discounts.

1. Reply the same day. A couple or an office manager has usually sent the same message to several planners, and the first thoughtful reply has an advantage.
2. Book a short call. Ask about the event's purpose, guest count, date and budget before quoting, so the proposal answers their real questions.
3. Send a clear proposal. State the scope, the fee and what is not included. Our comparison of event planning fee models helps with the pricing.
4. Follow up once or twice. Many inquiries go quiet because the client got busy, not because they said no.
5. Close with a contract and a deposit. A booking is not a booking until both are in hand.

Discounting to win a first client is tempting and usually a mistake. It sets a price the client will expect again, and it tells them the original fee was negotiable. A smaller scope at a proper fee does the same job without that cost.

Marketing that builds while you work

The slower sources in the table still deserve a start from day one, because they take months to produce anything. A new planner can set up the basics in a week or two, and each one will be worth more after ten events than after one.

• A simple website with a clear page for each service the planner offers.
• A free local business listing on the major search and map services.
• A place to collect reviews, with a habit of asking every happy client for one.
• One social account, used to show real rooms and real events rather than borrowed images.

Reviews carry more weight than most new planners expect. The BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey found that 41% of consumers always read reviews when looking for a local business, up from 29% the year before.

Event clients behave the same way. At the Event Planning Institute, we have seen the share of planner inquiries that mention reading reviews first rise by about a third in the last two years.

The trick is to feed all of this from real work. Every finished event can supply photos for the site, a review on the listing and a short post showing how the room came together. A planner who does that routinely finds that marketing stops being a separate job and becomes a by-product of the events themselves.

For the wider picture, the SBA guide to marketing and sales covers how to identify a target customer and set a simple marketing budget. For a planner, the target customer is usually narrower than it first appears, such as couples at three local venues rather than everyone getting married.

Corporate clients and repeat work

Private events tend to be one-off purchases, which means a planner is always looking for the next client. Corporate work is different. A company that holds a conference, an end-of-year party and a client dinner every year can rebook the same planner for all three.

That makes corporate clients worth pursuing early, even alongside weddings and private parties. They are found differently, through office managers, executive assistants and HR teams, and our guide to getting corporate event clients covers who to approach and what they want to hear.

Repeat work also comes from private clients, just more slowly. A thank-you note after the event, a check-in near the next obvious occasion and a polite request for a referral cost almost nothing, and they keep a planner's name in the right conversations.

Where the course goes further

The Fundamentals Course covers the first-client problem directly. Unit 6, Winning Your First Bookings, teaches how to get paid work without a portfolio through your network, local venues and suppliers, and an offer a first client can say yes to. Unit 3, Pricing and Quoting Events, covers the proposal that closes it.

The Fast Track Course adds Unit 7 on marketing, including a website that converts inquiries and local search, and Unit 10 on building corporate accounts that book every year. For the full setup that sits behind all of this, see our guide on how to start an event planning business.