You’ve spent so much time, energy and passion on creating the event of the season, but now is not the time to relax. You need to spread the word to ensure as many people as possible will attend. Now, how can you advertise your event to get as many tickets sold as possible? It can seem daunting, but here we will break it down for you including a suggested timeline:
1. Firstly and most importantly, you must identify your target audience.
Everything that follows needs to speak to this specific group of people so it’s vital to know who you’re speaking to. It makes no sense spending time, effort and money promoting your event to people that won’t attend no matter how compelling your promotion is. You want to zero in on likely attendees from the start. If you’ve organised a similar event before, this is the easiest place to begin. Have a thorough look at your past attendees.
If you don’t have any data from a past event, take a peek at other events similar to your. What tone of voice do they use to advertise their event? How do they promote their event on social media and what content are they using? Which social media platforms are they using? If you already have a mailing list, use it to find out more about what kind of events your customers/clients/fans already go to. By sending a simple questionnaire, you can find out their background, where they hang out online and hobbies and anything else you think will help.
With all this information, you should be able to create a typical attendee example. You will probably know by this point their gender, age, and profession. From this you can create a persona to whom you will be directly speaking to in all the content and advertising you will go on to create. Perhaps he is Michael, a 40 year old man working in the financial industry (from your research which has told you 72% of attendees are male, so your persona is a man. Typical attendees are between the ages of 35-55 and working in finance and therefore so is Michael.)
When to do it: 6+ months before the event.
Without an idea of your target audience, you can’t get fully stuck into advertising your event.
2. Make a specific event website or landing page.
This landing page will be the center piece for advertising your event and the main way for you to share all the information your attendees need to know. You need to include the dates, times, location and other basic material. You can also use this space to include who (if anyone) is speaking at your event or any influencers attending. If possible, also include videos and testimonials from any past events you have held.
Most importantly of course, a CTA (Call To Action) for people to easily purchase tickets to the event. There are lots of ways you can create your own landing page although it might feel daunting. An easy to use, professional and free one is via this customized group website for events by NH Pro.
When to do it: 6-5 months before the meeting.
Like knowing your audience, you need this in place before the heavy advertising starts.
3. Your current audience is of course already a captive group that already know and trust you, so focusing on email marketing is really beneficial.
You should segment your list so you are targeting your event to the correct audiences. To those who have already attended a past event, you could offer an email subscriber discount. Or an early bird discounted rate exclusive to email subscribers.
Later in the process when you’re closer to the date of the event, you could use “last-call” messaging to advertise your event which can help sell tickets to those who don’t want to miss out. Even a few days before the event, it’s a good idea to send a “don’t forget” email to those who still haven’t bought a ticket just in case it had slipped their minds.
When to do it: throughout the campaign depending on timing.
There are many types of emails to send depending on group and timeline.
4. Keep in mind your use of text language, design and branding
Keep it uniform across all advertising and marketing material. Branding, colors and design will be the very first impression most potential attendees will see, so make it bold and dramatic.
When to do it: 6 months before the event.
You want this from the start, from the landing page, to email banners and all promotional content going forward.
5. Integrate the event into your usual content marketing.
How? If you usually post YouTube videos, simply add a CTA at the beginning or in the notes. If you’re a blogger, discuss the event in them. Include infographics on LinkedIn or Instagram. Don’t forget to consistently use your event branding across all these content marketing outputs.
When to do it: 2-3 months before the event and all the way up-to the date.
Even post-event content keeps your attendees motivated to keep in touch with you and learn more about any upcoming events.
6. Harness the power of social media.
This is a big one, so we’ll break it down a bit more:
- 6.1 To back up your own content marketing, consider running a social media campaign. There’s no doubt advertising delivers excellent results. If it’s the first time that you’ll be delving into paid marketing, consider outsourcing this to a professional. But, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google do make it relatively simple to do it yourself if you’re working to a budget. Think about running A/B testing to make sure your ads are as effective as possible. You can also run ads on lookalike audiences via Facebook which is a great way to reach new potential attendees if you’ve done the hard work with your target audience at the start of this process. Of course, the first place to start for specifically business to business advertising is LinkedIn. This platform makes it simple to advertise yourself if your event budget doesn’t cover outsourcing this. You can choose your own goal (website visits would be the best idea to get potential attendees onto your event landing page). Again, the previous work you’ve done on your target audience is vital here to ensure you are advertising your event to your ideal market via LinkedIn.
When to do it: 6-8 weeks before the occasion.
- 6.2 Retargeting ads, these are slightly different to advertising campaigns which aim to bring a new audience to your event landing page. This happens a bit closer to the event and the objective is to stay in the forefront of potential attendees’ minds. They’ve come across you and your event before, but haven’t bought a ticket yet. Give these people a second chance to do so with retargeting.
When to do it: 3-5 weeks before the event.
- 6.3. Approach a social media influencer to collaborate with. See if one of the attendees has a large following themselves and gift them merchandise and tickets for them to giveaway (or keep) and ask them to share information about the event to their audience (along with the link to your event page of course)! In the same vein, keep promoting and sharing on your own social media the keynote speakers you have coming to your event or any content creators you’re working with. This will open up their audience to your event and widening the potential attendee net.
When to do it: 3-6 weeks before the event.
- 6.4. Run a social media contest or giveaway. Contests always create a frisson of excitement and help increase your follower count. Usually, to win the free tickets they need to “tag a friend who might be interested” or comment something they’re looking forward to about the event. The more comments a post has, the more the social media platform will show it to other people.
When to do it: 1-2 weeks before the conference.
- 6.5. Create an event hashtag and use it everywhere. As well as a free way to advertise, it will also help you track other people talking about your event. Encourage people to continue using it even on the day of the event to ask questions you can find quickly and respond to efficiently, letting your attendees feel confident and happy to recommend any future events.
When to do it: throughout the process.
- 6.6. Create videos! Videos are very effective on social media for promoting your event. An example could be behind the scenes pre-event videos. BTS content makes your audience feel part of the event and builds buzz around the event. These videos can also tie in with your influencer collaboration and social media contests too.
When to do it: 1-2 weeks before the event.
- 6.7. Finally, don’t forget the power of posting in relevant Facebook groups and LinkedIn communities. Social media communities are great places to advertise an event. Search through groups where your ideal attendee likes to hang out, and start conversations or add value to existing conversations. You can link directly to your event’s landing page, or it might be a good idea to create an event on Facebook so the reader doesn’t have to leave the website or app to access your event details.
When to do it: 3-4 months before the event.
7. Unless you have a passion for photography and some skills think about investing in a professional photographer.
High quality photos are a must for social media content and advertising. Ask your photographer to capture some pre-event material to hype the event as well as being there on the day to capture moments you can use in the future to advertise your next event.
When to do it: throughout the process.
8. Do not forget to FOLLOW UP after the event.
You might be exhausted after hosting a successful event but don’t let this momentum drop. Use the photos from the event to send a debrief email to your attendees and a “here is what you missed” to those who didn’t attend. And add the date of the next one or a general “see you next time”.
When to do it: 1 week after the event
Hopefully this has given you plenty to keep you focused as you prepare to sell out your next event. Every little helps and don’t forget you will get a surge of sales very close to the date as many people keep putting off administration tasks like ticket purchases until the last minute. Keep going with all the ways listed on how to advertise an event. Here is a simplified timeline as a checklist to keep at hand throughout the process:
6 months before the event
- Identify your target audience
- Launch your event landing page
- Create a Facebook event
- Email your previous attendee list with an early bird discount
- Define your event specific branding.
3-5 months before the meeting
- Start posting in Facebook groups, LinkedIn and online communities
- Promote influencers and key note speakers
- Set up event hashtag.
6-8 weeks before the conference
- Promote content creators and key note speakers
- Hire your photographer
- Start using content marketing in your usual platforms
- Set up online ads.
3-5 weeks before the event
- Retargeting ad campaign
- Email campaigns for people who have expressed interest previously
- Ask influencers to start posting about your event.
1-2 weeks before your occasion
- Post behind the scenes videos to social media
- Send last chance email
- Run social media contest.
Event day
- Use your hashtag
- Engage with attendees online
- Post live social media updates.
After the event
- Thank everyone for coming on social media posts
- Send more detailed debrief email (including those who did not attend)
- Consider sending a survey for attendees
