5 Event Marketing Strategies to sell out your next event
Events are a hugely powerful medium to drive more revenue and business. People are giving up their precious time and money to attend and therefore once they are in attendance at your event they are already a warm lead for an upsell to whatever your main call to action maybe – if there is one! Whether that is for a membership, a future event, service or product.
In today’s digital landscape there are endless opportunities to market your event, build a huge buzz, and speak to a targeted audience. Are you running an online or offline event but wondering what are the best and most proven ways to get more bums on seats, or online tickets sold? After all, your event will only be successful if you fulfil those ticket sales!
Consider using some or all of these event marketing ideas to get the word out!
Create a show stopping pre-event page
The event page is where all of your leads will go from any campaigns you put into place, to learn why they should attend, how it can help them, where the event will be etc. It is important to include some professional shots of past events, the venue, speakers and so on. Remember to be informative, and use compelling content and imagery. This sales page can simply sit on your website. You can also make use of an event ticketing site if you don’t have a website. Or use both!
Your main goal is to keep people on your event page until they purchase a ticket or alternatively enter their details showing interest within a lead capture form.
A dedicated sales page not only acts as a way to capture leads and provide key information, it also allows you to show up in google search helping with that all important SEO (search engine optimisation).
Get Creative with your Ticket Sales
There are many ways to help build a flurry of ticket sales by offering special pricing models. Here are a few of Evolve’s favourites:
- A discount for group tickets, which are perfect for people who want to bring someone with them (and people usually do).
- Bundle your event tickets – if you have more than one scheduled event you could create an offer for example ’buy three tickets for the price of two’.
- Offer early bird pricing – offer an initial discount for any tickets sold in the first few days for example.
The above strategies can help to build excitement and urgency, helping you along in a spike of ticket sales.
Use social media for a bigger audience
Using social media is one of the best event marketing strategies to promote your event to a bigger audience than your own. You can create striking, branded graphics, and videos to promote your event and make memorable impressions across social media.
You could even run a competition to build further awareness and excitement by asking people to share, like and comment on your post who they would love to bring to win a free ticket for themselves and a friend!
Using Instagram? Create a unique event hashtag and encourage people to share their event images and feedback!
There are many ways to use social media to promote your event, the above are just a few.
Reach out to Partners who could benefit your attendees
Event marketing partnerships and sponsorships can be crucial to your event’s success. To secure great partners you need to start reaching out to potential collaborators, and complementary brands before your event has officially launched. This way, they can help you spread the word from the very beginning.
Not only can a collaboration or partnership provide added value to your event, it can also help you further raise brand awareness by sharing their audience.
Email marketing
Email is a crucial tool in your event marketing plan. With your event now ready to be launched, you should get your first email campaign out to any past attendees, potential attendees, or anyone else who showed interest in your event from your sales page sign up form.
You can also build a sequence of emails in the lead up to build excitement, and remind attendees about your upcoming event.
Use past attendees as a referral generator
It is easy to focus solely on bringing in brand new event attendees, forgetting that your past attendees may have a strong network of potential advocates that they can already tap into on your behalf.
Word of mouth is proven to be an extremely powerful and effective marketing tactic. So why not reach out to your existing/past attendees and incentivise them to promote your next event?
At Evolve Together we have years of experience in planning, marketing and launching events, as well as hosting the Leading Ladies Membership events we regularly hold for women in business in the Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire area.
We would love to help you make your next event a huge success, or indeed see you at one of our own!
To get in touch or find out more: claire@evolvetogether.co.uk
