Outdoor Events & Advance Ticket Sales

I’m going to present a great marketing concept from two of my mentors, Eben Pagan and John Carlton.  A few years ago Eben Pagan came up with the concept of a customer Avatar.  An Avatar is the personification or manifestation of your ideal customer.  In the event marketing world your Avatar is the ideal prospect for your event.  You use your customer Avatar to better plan and market your event.

Your Ego = a Surefire Way to Sink Your Event
A cardinal sin committed by many event planners, organizers, and marketers is planning an event around their ego.  When planning your event keep in mind that people attend your event to satiate their wants, needs, and desires. I’ve seen far too many events fail miserably because an event planner or marketer thought they were smarter the people they were trying to serve. You can avoid the “ego” mistake by utilizing a customer Avatar.

Simple Questions to Build Your Event Avatar
Below are some quick questions that will help you in creating your customer Avatar for your event.  The questions below are derived from John Carlton’s Simple Writing System.

• Who is your ideal customer? (Demographics & Psychographics)
• What are your customer’s wants, needs, or desires regarding your event?
  (Do they have an irrational fear or desire?)
• What message can you present to your prospect that drives them toward action?

By answering the questions above you will put yourself into a position to better understand what someone attending your event wants and how best to serve them.

Do a Survey
It has never been so easy to find out what your customer or prospect wants. The Internet gives you the ability to quickly collect information from your target market.  With a few hours of work you can quickly find out critical information about your customer and your event. Minus the details, here is what you can do . . . find online search phrases related to your event, start a PPC campaign, drive traffic to a landing/survey page, collect the data, and then compile the results.  If you have a recurring event, do a follow up survey before you start to plan your next event. 

An Already Done Avatar
If your market or industry has survey data on potential customers be sure to reference it.  You can build a very good Avatar from industry data. Most of the research might have already been done for you.

When you build your event around your customer’s wants, needs, and desires, you can’t go wrong. Having a customer Avatar to reference for your event planning and marketing is a huge step in the right direction.

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

• A Negative Question to Create a Better Event
• Turn Your Event Into an Experience
• How to Get Them To Your Event
• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• Getting Them to Buy Tickets Early
• Leveraging Your Sponsor's Digital Resources

• The Event Promotion System
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