HOW TO PROMOTE EVENTS FOR YOUR BUSINESS GROWTH

Hands up, who wants to know how to promote your events?

Today we are talking about how to Master Events For Your Business Growth. Looking at one successful event at a time. There are six steps in the proven formula on how to create successful events, rolling them out one successful event at a time. We have talked about Clarity around our events (see this blog here). Then we've talked about planning our events (see this blog here). Today is all about promotion and this is probably the question that most people want answered: How do we promote our events?

Six Different Sectors Where We Can Promote Our Events.

Online

Where online/in the online space is your event housed? So that could be on a landing page on your website or that could be on a ticketing platform landing page such as Eventbrite, alternatively it can be on a dedicated event platform such as Meetup. And that's the first step to getting our promotion because we need to have it somewhere where people can buy tickets and are able to register.

Print

In today’s digital world people forget about the power of printing and yet it's really important to have some form of printed collateral. A great example of this could be; a flyer for your event that you can take to other events, a banner for yourself, your business and your events, some brochures that we can drop off in letter boxes especially if your event is close by or hang them up in in gyms or cafes. Plus having some printed collateral, like a registration form that you can take to other events you’re speaking at can help convert new attendees quickly and easily.

Did you know that people like to fill out forms? Something tangible that they can hold in their hands… plus, when they write on a piece of paper there is less resistance to payment because people don’t feel like the money is taken straight away…

Social Media

Obviously! To get this right, we need to know what social media platforms our audience hangs out so that we're able to promote on the right social media. However, for the majority of people that I work with, my recommendation is to use Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram to promote their events.

FUN FACT! Facebook is the only free event platform that I have seen where we actually have a pipeline for our event attendees on the event platform. On Facebook, we're able to; invite people directly, we're able to see if they are interested and we're able to see if they've ticked going. This means we've got a clear pipeline of uninterested or cold prospects, interested or warm prospects and going or hot leads. Not only do we have a clear pipeline but we're able to connect directly with every prospect through Messenger and make announcement and share information in the event discussion. So there's so many ways that Facebook enables us to be able to utilise their event platform to promote our events.

LinkedIn is another absolutely fantastic way to communicate, especially if you're dealing business to business. And Instagram, especially if you've got some pretty photos that you're able to put up. People who sell products just thrive in the environment on Instagram.

Although there are multiple options, my recommendation is to promote across all of them. Different people will engage with your promotion differently, so we might engage them on LinkedIn, but then we might be able to convert them on Facebook. Thus, it’s really important to have a social media strategy that goes across multiple social media platforms.

Face-To-Face

This is honestly the best way to rock your event promotion. Going to networking events  and going to speak at other people's events is probably the number one way to convert people to coming to your events. So the more opportunities that you're able to get your face in front of your audience and tell them about the great events that you've got coming up, the more likely you are to convert people to come. So my recommendation is to really utilise the face-to-face space as much as possible to promote your events.

To do this effectively we need to be ready. We need to have all the other elements discussed above; a landing page or a ticketing page so we can sell tickets, a registration form and social media presence there. Once we have these makes it a lot easier and faster to convert people in a face-to-face environment because you've built the "know, like, and trust". Stand in front of your audience and really showcase who you are.

Hands down, the next best thing to WOF (having other people recommend you) and better than videos we put on social media.

Email

They say email is dead, but email is definitely not dead. We need to get in front of our audience. And email is a great way to be able to do that. Even if people are just scanning the email, you're still Front Of Mind (FOM) because your details are popping up. So email marketing is key. The great thing about email is you can automate your email marketing process. You can have a pre-event nurture sequence, you have a post-event nurture sequence, you can reengage with people that have come to your previous events and potentially even engage them to promote your upcoming events for you to their audience. Email marketing is definitely, definitely important.

Phone

And finally the good old telephone! Picking up the phone and calling people…

On the phone is where we get a grip on whether someone's interested or not. Many people I work with dislike picking up the phone because they are worried about making people/prospect feel squeamish on the phone. However, if a person is sounding squeamish it’s because they haven't as yet made a decision and they are actually considering, so having a conversation with them can be the make or break in their decision making cycle. The phone call is what could get them completely over the line for your events.

The other thing the trusty phone is good for - SMS marketing.

Sending people a message, reminding them that the event's coming up and reminding them of the details enables us to having a bit of a conversation pre-event via text message. Having this pre-event text conversation means that post-event we're able to continue to connect via that text message system and not be quite so invasive for people.

So there you have it. This was all about event promotion, which is the third step in a six-step formula of rolling out one successful event at a time.