Outdoor Events & Advance Ticket Sales

Over the weekend, a friend of mine told me about an advertising package a local newspaper had (pressured him into) sold him. The newspaper sales person convinced my friend to buy into an expensive advertising contract. The sales pitch focused around the notion of - "if you're advertising - you NEED repetition to connect with your audience." The signed advertising contract NOW ties my friend into an expensive long term contract. This isn't a problem if the advertising works, but if the advertising fails to deliver results . . . He'll have to pay for advertising that isn't doing squat!

How does the example above apply to your event marketing and promotion efforts?

When you buy advertising to promote your event, it's important to be savvy on how you negotiate the deal. You have the right to negotiate advertising terms. More importantly you have the obligation to say, "no thanks" if the advertising deal isn't good for you.

After you’ve built (or started to build) your event marketing house list - There are some simple things you can do to quickly ramp up the effectiveness of your email marketing . . .
Break Your List Down - Segment It!
If you want to increase the effectiveness of your event list marketing, you need to better target your list. A great place to start is segmenting your event marketing list - This allows you to focus your event promotions to a very specific target market. As a result, you’ll get better response rates.

Social Media in Event Marketing is a double edged sword . . . It can be either a tremendous event promotion asset or a potential public relations disaster.

Here's a tenet to follow when it comes to social media and your event marketing . . . Be very honest with the online information regarding you event! It doesn’t matter if the information is on your own event web site, Facebook, Twitter, or a newspaper interview. People are keeping an eye on you. Let me give you a specific example I found online a few month ago . . .  It revolves around a post-event article in a local newspaper.

Yesterday, a coaching client asked me if they should pay $6,500 for a ONE-TIME email to a 55,000 person list. My first piece of advice to them was, "don't rush into things & be a healthy skeptic!" If a list broker wants you to pay a lot of money to rent their list, they should be more than willing to answer every question you have for them. What follows is applicable to both online and offline list rental.

by Eugene Loj

Really knowing a target market is the foundation of getting people to your event. Event organizers frequently call me in a last minute panic . . . They can’t understand why people AREN’T buying tickets for their event. After going through a bunch of probing questions, my response is almost always the same - “You’re having problems selling tickets to your event, because people aren’t interested in what you have to offer.” It sucks having to tell people this – especially when they’ve worked so hard planning their event.



Truth be told, it doesn’t matter how much work goes into planning your event. If people aren’t interested in what you have to offer, they’re not going to show up! If you want to pack your event, focus on finding a passionate marketplace that will automatically (or as close to automatically) attend your event.