Please stop allowing them to rip you off
In response to an email question, Miriam writes the following:
"The biggest fear is not getting people there after spending so much money on advertisements. You do all this promotion, and you don't know for sure if it's successful until those feet come through the door."
First, thank you for sharing Miriam!
What you shared is a fear felt by almost every event organizer. You spend a ton of money on advertising and marketing, only to wonder if that money spent will get people to attend your event.
(Miriam, if you're reading this ... I'm about to get very direct and a little angry. My angst is NOT directed at you. You're awesome!)
Let's start by framing the above fear as a question:
"How do I know if my advertising and marketing spend is actually getting people to attend my event?"
If you don't track ALL your advertising and marketing to a specific result, you'll never know. And the truth is most event organizers have no flipping idea what works and what doesn't.
Allow me to take the tracking recommendation one step further, "if you can't track it, don't do it!"
You might think the advice above to be some sort of cheesy answer. It is not! If you're bold enough to implement some basic tracking, you'll eliminate most, if not all, wasteful ad spend.
Every year, my gritty tracking recommendation is reemphasized to clients. And it does NOT go over well. Because when they hear me say "if you can't track it, don't do it," they get pissed at me. I don't blame them. But honestly, "why do you insist on spending money on marketing and advertising if you have no Earthly idea if it works?"
"Eugene, you sound a little angry!" Yes, I am. I'm angry because our world is full of too many charlatans who sell you dubious advertising and marketing. And those same hucksters know what they're selling won't do you a dang bit of good ... none, zero, zip, zilch!
Yet they are happy to take your money and get defensive when you ask to see tangible results. You need to hold them accountable for getting you the only thing that matters, money in your bank account!
Let's close my dust up with the following, if someone tries to sell you advertising and marketing, you as the buyer must say, "if I spend my precious advertising dollars on this, you need to help me track it to a result!" If they say, "sorry, we can't do that." Don't buy what they're selling and stop allowing them to rip you off!
It's your hard-earned money, you have every right to carefully consider where it gets invested and under what terms!
Allow me to back up my "big mouth" ... If you want something that works and you're serious about event marketing, the Event Profit Report is about to ship, and you should get on board.
Issue one contains a surefire tactic that generated millions of dollars of TRACKABLE ticket sales. Do "X" and you will clearly see "Y" is the result.
Want to get more info on how to track your event promotion and marketing? Check out the articles below: