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

Comments

[Andrew Wilson]

In all my newsletters, I try to stay relevant to my subscribers. I agree that you can spin off one message in so many ways without sounding too redundant.