Event Marketing and Event Promotions

The "Event Promotion System" Sneak Peek . . .

The Insider Information you're about to learn was used by one event to generate $21,270.00 of Advance sale tickets in just 60 minutes. Within 24 Hours, $43,793.00 of advance sale tickets were purchased to an event that anyone could attend for FREE!  Don't take my word for it - read more Success Stories and Testimonials.

Sign-up Below and Discover How to Sell More Advance Sale Tickets, Pack Your Event, and Stop Worrying about Attendance . . .

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Two Amazingly Powerful Event Survey Questions

Using the right questions in an event survey is an extremely powerful way to position your event with a target audience.  Yet very few event promoters and organizers use surveys. Event surveying can be done both before and after your event. As with any survey, the focus should be solely on your target market.
Below are my two absolute favorite survey questions for event planning purposes. Don’t disregard the potential for great feedback because of their simplicity.

It's far easier to pack an event when you know what your audience wants and you go out of your way to give it to them.  Few things are as powerful as surveys in terms of honing in your target market's wants, needs, and desires.

What is Your . . .
Let’s start with a pre-event survey question.  The following question will better help you understand your audience, including their wants and needs. The question goes like this - “What is your biggest fear, frustration, challenge with (BLANK)?  Fill in the (BLANK) with something related to your target market. Here’s an example question for sales training, “What is your biggest fear, frustration, challenge with cold calling?”  You can modify the question accordingly to fit your marketplace.  The survey feedback you collect can be used for multiple purposes.

Look for the Trends
First and foremost, you should use the survey responses to plan your event.  Go inside the survey feedback to identify the trends and your target market’s hot buttons. Build and plan your event accordingly. Another great thing about surveys is that they allow us to let go of our "I know best" mindset. Event promoters who think they know better than their target market - set themselves up for failure.

Secondly, you can use the results to help you create laser focused marketing campaigns. Compiled survey data makes for great headlines, hooks, and advertisements. As with any advertising, your event marketing must specifically appeal to your target audience.

A Negative Survey Question - Polls Great!
My favorite question to ask, yet the least favorite question for event planners to ask is - “What didn’t you like about the event?” (Credit to Dave Petrowski from the World’s Largest Disco.) On the surface it looks like a negative question. Yet the survey respondents don’t take it that way.

Some of my clients have used the “what didn’t you like question” and gathered super helpful feedback. People respond in an amazingly cordial fashion to a seemingly negative question. I’ve seen survey respondents actually complement event organizers who’ve used the question.

When conducting an event survey, you need to stay as objective as possible. It’s really easy to get caught up in passionate survey feedback. Always look for the trends in any survey. If you stay highly objective the data will serve you well. In the end, it’s hard to go wrong with an event if you’re giving your target market what they want.

Want to get more great info? Check out the articles below:

• Event Planning - The Customer Avatar and Your Event
• When to Start Selling Tickets to Your Event
  
• A Negative Question to Create a Better Event
• Automatically Generate Leads for Your Event Year Round
• How to Get Them To Your Event
• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• Getting Them to Buy Tickets Early

• The Event Promotion System
  Get Your Free Event Promotion & Marketing Video Training

An Extremely Dangerous Event Planning Mistake

This is a really important post, so please carefully consider the information that follows . . . 

One HUGE mistake made by event organizers and event planners is holding an event that’s “never been done before.” The previous statement should always be followed up with the following question, “WHY has that kind of event never been done before?” When it comes to planning events, being overly ambitious or even too creative can be very dangerous to your pocketbook.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
My suggestion to you is don't try and reinvent the wheel - especially if you're new to event planning or event promotions. Look towards events that are easy money makers as opposed to being a cool event.

In my experience cool / fringe events are the most difficult events to get people to attend. That’s why I love doing air show and beer festival event marketing. There is already “a starving crowd” for air shows and beers festivals. The deck is already stacked in my favor.

Event Modeling
Instead of trying to come up with something brand new - model your event after another successful event. Keep the emphasis on modeling other events. You should NEVER steal someone else’s event idea and run with it. Ideally you want to model events that are outside of your local area. Most event organizers are very willing to share their insider secrets, provided you're not in direct competition with them. In terms of types of events – look for recurring events and those that have a proven track record.

Use the Inter-Webs (Internet)!
Start with a Google search. Look for other events that you know to be successful (long track record). You might need to cross reference the event on news sites. Successful events typically get good press. It's important to do comprehensive research. As part of your research, find contact information for the event organizer. If there isn't any information on the site, look at the domain's WhoIs record. Press clippings might also prove useful in finding an event organizer. When you find the information, email or call the event organizer.  Go for the top of the food chain - find the people / person in charge. My other recommendation is to call up people, instead of emailing. You'd be pleasantly surprised how willing successful event organizers are to talk with you regarding their event.

The whole idea behind the above premise is to try to find a successful event and model it. I'm all for innovation and creativity in the event industry . . . but you need to start with very strong foundation first. Creativity can bankrupt you in the event business. You can try something completely different when you get a few victories under your belt.

Want to get more great info? Check out the articles below:

• Event Planning - The Customer Avatar and Your Event
• When to Start Selling Tickets to Your Event
  
• A Negative Question to Create a Better Event
• Automatically Generate Leads for Your Event Year Round
• How to Get Them To Your Event
• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• Getting Them to Buy Tickets Early

• The Event Promotion System
  Get Your Free Event Promotion & Marketing Video Training

Last Minute Event Marketing and Promotion Strategy

Every few weeks I get a telephone call from a frantic event marketer looking for last minute event marketing strategies. The situations can be pretty heart-wrenching. Usually there isn’t much that can be done . . . But that doesn’t mean that I won’t try and help. One of the first questions I ask is, “do you have an email list?” Very few people respond with, “yes.” A house email list is about the closest thing to an event marketing silver bullet, especially when your event is right around the corner. If you don't have a list or a ton of advertising cash reserve, your last minute options are fairly limited.

Go to Your House Email
Your email list is one of the most lucrative places for ticket sales when you're down to the wire. Unfortunately, too many event promoters and organizers DON’T email their house list ENOUGH prior to their event. You can’t just send one email asking people to buy before your big event.

Email Reality - Not Everyone Opens Your Email (Even Those Interested)
It's important to remember that a majority of the people you're emailing WON'T open your email. Don't take it personally, it's just the reality of email marketing. How many times have you skipped over an email? If you’re getting a 30%-40% open rate on emails, which is typical, that means that 70%-60% of the people aren’t seeing your message. The easiest way to overcome the previous statistic is by sending more emails.  But you don’t want to copy and paste the same email. Find a happy medium.

Be Authentic and Balance
When you sell with email - write your sale pitch in a genuine and authentic manner. Gary Vaynerchuk (WineLibrary.tv) said it best in one of his keynote speeches, “people have awesome bull shit detectors.” Sell people using some end of the world scenario isn't the best of ideas . . . “If you don’t buy right now the Earth is going to EXPLODE and the Universe will fold in on itself.” Obviously you're not going to write that, but hopefully you get the point. Ideally you want to find the right amount of balance between selling and being authentic.

Send the Same Email (Basically) Several Times
There are several different ways to get people to buy other than, “Buy Now!” Consider using scarcity to let people know that advance sale tickets are going fast. Another angle you have at your disposal is “buy early and save.” But you need to spell out the benefits to your reader. Let them know how much they’re going to save if they buy now. If you have a deadline for advance ticket sales let people know that’s coming up. The idea is to mix and match your sales argument.  You don’t want to send the same email to people multiple times in a row. That being stated, you can still send the same basic message various ways.

If your time is ticking down . . . don’t be afraid to leverage your house email list.  Those last few days before your event is when you want to really sell to your list.

List Building Articles:

• Event Marketing: Start Building Your List Early
• Automatically Generate Leads for Your Event Year Round
• Keeping Your Event List Engaged
• Don't Neglect Your Email List
• Event Marketing: Multiple Ways to Engage Your List
• Simple Customer List Building Suggestions
• Start Building Your List Early

Shocking Event Web Site Stat - Most People Only Visit Once

A common misconception of event planners and organizers is that people are religiously visiting their event web site. As a result, event organizers continuously update their sites with new content . . . in some cases it becomes an obsession. In my humble opinion, their efforts and resources are being wasted. Don’t get me wrong, updating your web site with relevant and timely content is very important. Keep in mind - event web sites aren’t like news web site. People don’t come back multiple times a day to check for updates on an event web site. Consider the following . . .

Most People Only Visit Once
Recently I crunched Google Analytics stats for 11 very different web sites spanning a 13 month period. The web statistics were drawn from a variety of industry segments. (Three of the sites were event web sites.) Traffic numbers from these sites were anywhere from a few hundred visitors a month all the way up to 24,000+ visitors a month. After the data was compiled, there was one shocking statistic that stood out . . . 71.67% of people visited these web sites ONLY ONCE!  A stunning 86.11% of people visited these web sites THREE TIMES or LESS. There might be some slight variances to the previous statistics, depending on industry, but it’s something you should mind carefully. Most people are only visiting your event web site once. You don’t have to take my word for it! Take a look at your own web stats. Look under the Visitor Loyalty tab in Google Analytics and select the Loyalty link. Most event organizers never consider the visitor loyalty when they look at their web statistics.

What are You Doing to Capture Their Info?
If a majority of people are visiting your web site only once, you need to do something to capture their information. By capturing the user information of your target market, you have a powerful tool to lead people back to your web site. A qualified target list of prospects is also a tremendous asset for selling advance sale tickets to your event. The easiest starting point is attempting to collect a visitor’s first me and email address. Don’t focus on quantity, but quality. Take a look at the resources section below for additional information. 

Those Annoying Pop-Ups
You might want to test a pop-up to collect visitor information. A note on annoying pop-ups . . . they’re only annoying when you’re popping up information that’s irrelevant to the person visit your site. That was always to problem with old school pop-up advertising. Present a value based proposition that the visitor actually cares about and the pop-up stops becoming an annoyance.

Knowing that most people only visit your web site once gives you the opportunity to do something about it. My strong recommendation is to try and collect email addresses right on your home page. To many people the recommendation probably seems highly counter-intuitive, but it works amazing well. Building a targeted list of prospects and then market to that list is the closest thing to an event marketing silver bullet.

Want to get more great info? Check out the articles below:

Event Web Statistics:

• Web User Traffic Trends to Your Event Web Site
• The Timing of Your Event Promotion
• Hold Your Event Marketing Accountable!
• Reading the User's Mind and Then Doing Nothing About It
• Web Page Statistics - "Hits" versus Visitors

List Building Articles:

• Event Marketing: Start Building Your List Early
• Automatically Generate Leads for Your Event Year Round
• Keeping Your Event List Engaged
• Don't Neglect Your Email List
• Event Marketing: Multiple Ways to Engage Your List
• Simple Customer List Building Suggestions
• Start Building Your List Early
• Late Event Promotion - Big List Growth
• Building Your List Above the Fold
• Are You Opting-In Above the Fold?
• Form Placement and Growing Your List
• Turn Your Event Into an Experience

• The Event Promotion System
  Get Your Free Event Promotion & Marketing Video Training

Get Great Ideas from an Event Marketing Field Trip

How much time do you spend looking to other events or industries for marketing ideas? Borrowing ideas from other events and industries is one of the quickest ways to add dollar signs to your bottom line. If you don’t spend much time looking outside your own event looking for marketing ideas, you need to start today.

Get Over It . . .
One large (self-imposed) roadblock that most people have to overcome is the “that won’t work for me” mindset.  How many times have you heard business people lament the “that won’t work, my business is different” line? Too many event planners and organizers fall into that same trap.  It’s like a broken record . . . “That won’t work because my event is different.” That’s a bunch of B.S.! Proven marketing ideas can be adapted and modified from one industry to another. In some cases adopting ideas can be unbelievably simple. 

60 Seconds for a $500,000.00+ Idea
Over the last three weeks I’ve attended the Rochester International Jazz Festival, Red Bull Air Race Championships (Windsor/Detroit), and two ethnic festivals (Ukrainian and Turkish). There were tons of great ideas floating around. One simple strategy I picked up put $500,000.00+ into an event organizers bank account,  months before a single person showed up to their event. Discovering the $500K+ strategy took all of sixty seconds with a few quick questions to the right person.  There is no reason why you can’t do the same.

Go Fish for Ideas
Make it a point to venture out and attend other events in and around your area.  Competing or complementary events to your own make for the best field trips. When at other events be on the lookout for things that you might be able to integrate into your own event.  The most observant you are, the more you’ll be able to take away. Find out who’s in charge of then event . . . are they on site? Most important - Don’t be afraid to ask smart questions!

Don’t be afraid to ask organizers questions. Keep it short and sweet.  Always remember to use a little couth . . . if an organizer is crazy busy at their event, you might need to follow up afterward. Follow up with them a week or so after their event. It's important to remember that you don't always need to speak to the actual organizer to get good information or ideas.

Validate the Information
One important point to remember . . . you’re going to need to do your homework and dig into details. It isn’t wise to take everything at face value. If something sounds too good to be true, do a little research to validate an idea or strategy.  Why should you do this? Even event organizers have egos that need to be stroked. As a result, they might exaggerate their numbers or certain claims. You don't want to integrate an event or strategy into your own event that has been proven to work.
  
Next time you go out to another event, bring your thinking cap, a small notebook (plus pen) and an insatiable curiosity.  Look for things that you can integrate and ethically borrow. Never dismiss another event's promotion idea(s) as irrelevant or stupid until you’ve dug into the details.

Want to get more great info? Check out the articles below:

• Event Planning - The Customer Avatar and Your Event
• When to Start Selling Tickets to Your Event
  
• A Negative Question to Create a Better Event
• Automatically Generate Leads for Your Event Year Round
• How to Get Them To Your Event
• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• Getting Them to Buy Tickets Early

• The Event Promotion System
  Get Your Free Event Promotion & Marketing Video Training