Outdoor Events & Advance Ticket Sales

Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Both days are full of discounts, occasional poor consumer behaviour, and seemingly "once in a lifetime" deals. In total, it's a massive day for online and retail revenue generation.

Retailers offer consumers something to buy with a discount, value-added proposition, or other unique combination to incentivize a person to buy immediately. You must buy on Black Friday, or else ... wait until Cyber Monday. After that, some other arbitrary sales day that is sure to follow.

Ok, Eugene. That's very nice. But what does Black Friday or Cyber Monday have to do with my event?

When you peel down through all the layers of advertising and marketing madness, you're left with a few essential selling components. One of the biggest drivers of Black Friday sales is an offer. And that's the dirty little secret ... an irresistible offer.

My question to you is do you have a surefire offer that ticket sales like crazy for your event?

The above question is one of my favorite questions to ask of event organizers. And most event organizers don't have an answer. A usual response goes something like, "we've tried a bunch of different things and nothing seems to work." As a result, a mountain of potential ticket sales are left on the table.

To maximize your advance ticket sales, you need to have your own irresistible ticket offer.

Over the last 11 years, clients have used one ridiculously simple offer. The offer used by clients was directly borrowed from the dating industry. That modified dating industry offer has generated millions of dollars in advance ticket sales and has an unbelievable track record of success.

Some outdoor event clients now enjoy the confidence of selling 89% of their tickets, before a single person walks into their event. With two days of rain in the forecast.

If you don't have a super-duper ticket sales offer, use the marketing lessons of Black Friday as a template. Look at what's being offered, the results (using Google News), and insights you can integrate to create your own irresistible offer.

Additional Ideas for Marketing Your Event:

• Event Marketing Idea: Blocking Your Tickets
• Leveraging Huge Ticket Discounts to Drive Advance Tickets Sales
• Event Marketing Ideas for Advertising on the Radio
• Get Great Ideas from an Event Marketing Field Trip
• Measuring Your Social Media Event Promotion Efforts
• The Importance of Market Research in Planning Your Event

Here's a friendly reminder as we approach the year's end.

If you haven't already, please make sure to take some time to put all your advertising and marketing under the microscope. Take a look back at advertising and marketing that worked and what failed to meet your expectations.

If you're unsure of the effectiveness of your advertising efforts, here's an overly simple rule to follow.

"If you can't track it, don't do it!"

It applies to all advertising, marketing, and the vendors who support those activities. Some would argue the advice is too simple. And they might be correct.

Thus far, every client that has implemented the simple rule above has gone on to reduce their advertising costs and increase ticket revenues.

In 2016, one client eliminated at 27,000 USD advertising buy. That client was asked a straightforward question, "how many tickets sales did your 27,000 dollar investment produce?"

Their answer, "we don't know." (And to be fair, I'm positive some ticket sales were generated as a result of spending $27K.) So my recommendation, "if you don't know, then stop doing that!" The client eliminated the $27K advertising buy and increased their online ticket sales past one million dollars. A nearly 40% increase in ticket sales!

There is no doubt that there will eventually be an exception to the recommendation above. That mean's it's effectiveness will be reduced from 100% down to 90-95%. And that's fine!

Want to get more advice on tracking your event advertising and marketing? Check out the links below:

• Advertising and Marketing that Sells
• A "Must Follow" Event Advertising Strategy
• Get Your Audience Involved Through Their Emotions
• Web Copy Argument: Short or Long?
• Promotional Headlines for Your Event Marketing
• Is Your Text the Right Color?
• Two Amazingly Powerful Event Survey Questions
• Proofing your Work On Paper

After reviewing dozens of event websites for an upcoming project, the following deficiency kept creeping up.

Depending on the event, the amount of time between announcing your event and your event occurring can vary significantly. Anywhere from a couple of years to a few months. If you have a recurring event, what follows is vital to consider.

My question to you is, "what are you doing with your event website in the meantime?"

Especially in the critical time after you announce your event and before tickets go on sale.

At a minimum, most event organizers update their event website with the dates of their next event. Yet there is one essential element that is missing. That element is the collecting of warm ticket leads. Not a single website I reviewed had any form of lead generation.

A closer look at Google Analytics will clearly show you that most people (60-70%) of people only visit your website once. Additional of all the people visiting your website, 40-50% spend less than ten seconds on your websites. If you haven't already, please take a look at your own website engagement metrics. Chances are your jaw will hit the ground.

Because of the above, it's paramount you have an effective method to collect leads on your event website, 24/7/365 even while you sleep.

If you're not collecting leads for your next event, you're missing out on significant amounts of advance ticket revenue! This particular topic was featured in my first issue of the Event Profit Report and has been worth millions of dollars to clients.

You can start with something as simple as asking for an email.

Here are some short articles on getting the most from your event website:

• Simple Tracking of Your Online Event Promotions
• Measuring Your Social Media Event Promotion Efforts
• Shocking Event Web Site Stat
• Simple Event Advertising Tracking with Google Analytics
• Do I Need to Redesign My Event Web Site?
• An Important Event Web Site Statistic for Promoters and Event Planners
• How Big Should My Event Web Site Be?
• What Happens When Your Event Web Site CRASHES?

Back in the day, I heard an advertisement for a local drive-in event. The piece of advertising was a 30-second radio spot. The radio ad emphasizes the importance of keeping your marketing message relevant, short, and easy to remember.

One of the biggest mistakes event organizers and promoters make is trying to deliver their target audience too much information all at once.

Event organizers logically think, "How much information can I get into this one ad?" The result is that so much information goes into a piece of advertising that people get overwhelmed.

Too much information can be as bad as too little advertising. Are event sponsors, dates, times, and headlining performers important? Absolutely! Yet, if people aren't at least interested in finding out more information about your event, they're unlikely to attend.

If your target audience is unlikely to attend your event, all the superfluous information such as sponsors, dates, times, and your main attraction, becomes irrelevant.

I'm a firm believer that if event organizers focused more on hitting people's emotional hot buttons upfront, they would get more people interested in their event.

When creating advertising for your event, regardless of the medium, concentrate on getting people interested in your event first.

Keep your advertising simple, straightforward, and easy to remember. Consider some of the ideas below:

>>> Create an attention-grabbing headline or hook that hits their emotional hot buttons

>>> What are the benefits attendees will enjoy by attending your event?

Use the above ideas in your advertising.

When getting your marketing message across, focus on keeping things as simple and straightforward as possible. I can't recall who came up with the axiom, but you need to "get out of your ego and into their ego." In short, give the people what they want, not what you think they want.

Include a simple call to action, send them to your web site that has more information about the event. If you can get people to take a simple action, like visiting your web site, you'll have a greater chance of selling them on your event and hooking all the details.

Want to get more event promotion and marketing tips? Check out the articles below:

• Advertising and Marketing that Sells
• A "Must Follow" Event Advertising Strategy
• Get Your Audience Involved Through Their Emotions
• Web Copy Argument: Short or Long?
• Promotional Headlines for Your Event Marketing
• Is Your Text the Right Color?
• Two Amazingly Powerful Event Survey Questions
• Proofing your Work On Paper

Back in the early 2000s, I spent a significant amount of time in web usability consulting. What the heck's that?!?! The process involved live testing of how users interact with a website. Clients included everyone from small business owners and publicly traded corporations to the United States Air Force. The overall experience was a huge eye-opener.

After you get past the emotional reactions and harsh testing comments, the feedback provided by users was invaluable. User feedback helped clients identify severe flaws in the design of their website. Including, serious marketing issues.

One of the most common points of confusion during testing was the inability of users to find information on a given website. To which designers and business owners would angrily respond with, "what are they talking about? It's right there in front of them!"

Right there in front of them ... That's a critical point. Because it illustrates how what you see and what your website users see can be completely different.

Having reviewed hundreds, possibly over a thousand event websites, I can tell you with absolute conviction that most event organizers are not connecting with users. If users don't connect or understand your website, how are you suppose to compel them to attend your event?

Here's a little suggestion. You need not be a web usability expert to take advantage.

If you really want to improve your event website, do a little live website testing. Get people (not family, coworkers, or friends) to give you honest feedback on your event website. Put a person from your event's target market in from of a computer or mobile device, and get them to go through your website.

Ask the person to talk through the process out loud. That's key, they have to verbalize what they're seeing and thinking.

Is this suggestion going to take a little work? Yes. But the improvements you can make to your event website will result in more people attending your event. I promise you, you'll be amazed by the actionable feedback you receive!

Want to get more info on improving your event website? Check out the articles below:

• What is Web Usability? And Why You Should Care . . .
• Web Usability: The Importance of Balancing Content and Graphic Design
• Hitting a HOME RUN with Your Web Site
• Don’t Pollute Your Web Site
• Do You Make These Usability Mistakes?
• Objectivity Paves the Way to Online Success
• LCU (Least Competent User) Usability Testing
• Web Usability - ALERT! Dominant Users and Focus Groups

Hopefully, all the emails about your event are positive. But there are always a few people that are a little harsh and even sometimes downright offensive in their feedback.

As you know, a small number of people complain "just because." In certain instances, you’ll received event feedback from some very angry people. You are best served by trying to address every piece of feedback even from unreasonable people.

Here are two quick tips for delivering excellent customer service online despite a potential deluge of negativity:

#1 Step back

It's important to try not to take negative feedback about your event personally. When you organize an event, you're emotionally invested in that event. So, it is always personal to you. But see if you can objectively take their criticism.

The initial response to a harsh email might be to respond with an equal tone. It is just not worth it. Make sure you don't react defensively. Give yourself time to cool down. Then, do the opposite of what most people would do ... use "The Magic Phrase."

#2 "The Magic Phrase"

Use the following phrase to diffuse any harsh feedback about your event. I use this all the time with clients for email complaints.

It works amazingly well:

"Dear (first name): Thank you for your email." Then continue your email in an understanding and appreciative tone. Make sure to acknowledge the reason they are writing to you in your reply. Someone who just wrote you a very harsh email is probably not expecting a thank you response.

I use the "thank you" email all the time to diffuse big customer service issues. Its track-record for turning frowns upside down is impressive, to say the least!

It's amazing how that simple "thank you" approach calms people down. Event patrons – who have submitted a harsh critique – have written back apologizing for their initial email after getting the thank you email.

Make sure you make it about them through positive acknowledgment. Give it a whirl and let me know how it works.

Want to get more info on event customer service? Check out the articles below:

• Event Web Sites: Saving Money and Time with a FAQ
• What to Do After You’ve Sold a Ticket to Your Event . . .
• The Mystery of Online Customer Satisfaction
• Dealing with Harsh Event Feedback
• Your Event Web Site as a Customer Service Portal
• Event Marketing: Do You have an Online Champion for Your Event?
• Event Promotion: Are You Interacting with Your Target Market?