Get to SOLD OUT!

This happened years ago, during a conversation with a client. During the client call, we discussed setting up UTM tracking links for their online advertising efforts. The client had mentioned that they had a series of online advertising buys that were scheduled to start, last week.

A quick look in Google Analytics showed that the scheduled advertising buys were not sending traffic to their website. The reasons for no referral-based traffic could be many. The simplest explanation is that the advertising isn't running.

In the end, I encouraged the client to call their advertising rep and let them know, "we do not see any traffic from you in Google Analytics. Can you please verify that our online ads are running?"

The wording above gives the advertising people a gentle nudge and lets them know you're keeping an eye on things. You can call it a diplomatic and data-driven approach.

More often than not, clients have paid for online advertising that simply wasn't running. It wasn't out of malice or deception, just that someone dropped the ball. That said, you must keep a watchful eye on your online advertising.

At the end of the day, it's your money. As my friend Phil Pacific is fond of saying, "inspect what you expect!" A simple check of Google Analytics is all it takes.

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

• An Important Event Web Site Statistic for Promoters and Event Planners
• Measuring Advertising Effectiveness
• Did You Buy a Snickers Bar Yet?
• Hold Your Event Marketing Accountable!
• Web User Traffic Trends to Your Event Web Site
• The Timing of Your Event Promotion

Before you think of me as some heartless bastard, I've had cancer take my Maternal Grandmother and my Father. No family should have to go through the ravages of such a horrible disease … let alone a child!

Now that I have your attention - let's get to the point. This might be the most important advice to date. It is also going to be brutally direct. If you're a not for profit event organizer, you need to pay careful attention to what follows! 

Years ago, I was told the following: "You need to buy a ticket to our event because we help kids with cancer." When I politely declined with a "no thank you." I was made to feel guilty. That’s not cool! Nor a way to approach someone about buying a ticket to your event.

Because if you think that 99% of the people are buying a ticket to your event to "help kids with cancer, raise money for scholarships, (insert something virtuous here)" ... you are grossly mistaken!

People are attending your event to serve their self-interest. Not who or what your event proceeds may benefit. The fact that you help a wonderful cause is the last reason someone buys a ticket to your event. You help no one if your event is not profitable!

"Eugene, you're such a heartless a$$hole! How can you possibly say that?!?!"

The self-interest motivator is not my opinion ... it's what the cold hard data shows. For the last 10 years, clients have received over 10,000 customer survey responses. Most responses were for non-profit events. The 10,000+ event ticket buyers were asked a simple question:

"What is the BIGGEST reason you purchased a ticket to this event?"

Ready for it? Less than 1% responded with anything along the lines of: "To help the kids … support the men and women in uniform … or, help raise money for scholarships." In some survey results, there were single digit (help the kids) responses – out of almost 2,000 responses!!! That massive disconnect between an event organizer and their attendees is a chronic problem. It is why event organizers fail to sell out their events. That disconnect is also the primary reason events die. They focus on the wrong customer buying motivations.

What's worse is that event organizers still insist on creating "help the kids!" advertising and marketing campaigns. All this despite years of their own attendee data. Then, wonder why their event is half empty. Simple answer. It's because you're not appealing to your ticket buyer's self-interest.

If you want to sell out your next event focus your customer’s real reason for buying. Not why you or your Board think they should buy a ticket.  After your attendee buys a ticket and shows up to your fantastic event. Then, you can remind them of the all good work that is accomplished (thanks to their support)!

If you've reached this point and are upset by the brutal advice in this email. I strongly recommended you ask your own customers "what was the BIGGEST reason you purchased a ticket to this event?"

Unfortunately, most event organizers don't have the spine to ask the question above. Don't be one of those people! Ask the survey question above and let me know what you find. Their answers will open your eyes to a whole new world, guaranteed!

Want to get more event marketing advice? Check out the articles below:

• Where should you focus to increase event revenue and attendance?
• Do you want 1MM or 20K people worth of event promotion?
• Why People Really Attend Fundraisers
• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• Turn Your Event Into an Experience

In 2019, I attended a marketing session on social media and using data analytics to drive ticket sales. Overall there were several great points.

During the session, one of the presenters shared their gross ticket revenue numbers and marketing strategies. The figure was around 7 million USD in event ticket sales. It was an astronomical number. And 10x-20x what most event organizers do in the field.

Fast forward to this morning. One of the people who attended yesterday's marketing session proceeded to give me feedback on their experience.

The person's main point of feedback to me on the presentation went something like this. "I can't believe that our conference organizers brought in a person who generated 7 million dollars of ticket sales as a presenter. We don't do anywhere near that number!" Clearly, they weren't happy and a bit jealous.

During the presentation, the person sharing their 7 million dollar success story was more than generous with information.

In my mind, if any event organizer came to me with $7 million dollars of ticket sales results. The question I would ask would be, "can I buy you a drink?"

A few days later, I asked the presenter if anyone inquired about the details of her organization's success. And not a single person inquired. If given the opportunity, always ask! It's amazing what you'll discover.

Want to get more advice on planning and promoting a great event? Check out the articles below:

• Hookers Host Wine Tasting Event
• The BIGGEST Secret to a Successful Event (Well at least One of them)
• Event Planning - The Customer Avatar and Your Event
• When to Start Selling Tickets to Your Event
• A Negative Question to Create a Better Event
• Automatically Generate Leads for Your Event Year Round
• How to Get Them To Your Event
• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• Getting Them to Buy Tickets Early

Contrary to what the media is reporting, it isn't all doom and gloom in the world. I'm not going to deny that many people are struggling. But it's important to remember that people still want to do things. Some events and industries are thriving despite the COVID.

Opportunities are all over the place for smart and savvy event organizers. One massive possibility that you can take advantage of is discounted advertising rates.

Advertising outlets are so desperate to get advertisers they are offering advertising at a discount. Everyone is discounting their services: television, print, radio, online, etc. especially now that the US election season is over.

It's far less expensive to buy advertising to promote your event. Even with discounted advertising, focus on negotiating your advertising packages even lower.

A trusted media buyer told me that 80% of online advertising goes unsold. Be vigilant in how you negotiate your advertising agreements. Never say yes to the initial price you're quoted.

Advertising advantages go beyond discounted rates. The current economic state has also prompted many businesses to reduce or even eliminate advertising efforts.

It's a psychological effect. Business owners think "other businesses are spending less, we should follow suit." As a result, you have less advertising competing for the consumer's attention. Make sure you don't follow the rest of the flock.

A down economy is an excellent time to gain market share on the competition. You can take advantage of less clutter in the advertising marketplace to position your future event with the public.

If you're thinking of holding an event, the current economy offers you certain advantages. People still want to be entertained, have fun, and learn new things.

It's up to you to provide them something unique and of high perceived value. The opportunity is out there, go and get it. You can get started for as little as $5 USD per day!

You know what it's like ... those days leading up to and through your event. My guess is that you would NOT use words like "relaxing, stress-free, or pleasant." Chances are it's a little more chaotic, dramatic, and stressful. What probably ends up happening is you get into execution mode.

And because you're in execution mode, you have to prioritize your time and energy against other efforts. What often gets neglected when prioritizing are your advertising and marketing efforts. It's the nature of the beast.

My question for you today is this:

"What's your marketing plan for the final days leading up to and through your event? And how are you going to execute on that plan?"

Being able to confidently answer both questions above is essential for maximizing your event attendance and ticket revenue. And it's rarely an easy answer. So, here are two simple strategies which all my clients use.

With clients, their marketing and advertising plans are usually discussed and finalized six to nine months in advance. There are even a few contingencies thrown in the mix for outdoor events (weather being the most common curve ball). If something unexpected comes up during a client's event, there are a series of standard operating procedures. Little is left to chance.

Now for the second critical cog! You might have a great plan, but who's going to execute it?

Because you know how busy things get leading into your event, you must have a dedicated team or person to implement your marketing plan. That's key! It needs to be someone you trust implicitly. That individual or group should have full authority to "do what it takes." And it's something missing for many events.

Make sure you have a marketing execution team leading into your event. By doing so, you'll sell more tickets and be able to focus your efforts on ensuring a great event!

Want to get more event planning / promotion advice? Check out the articles below:

• Event Planning - The Customer Avatar and Your Event
• When to Start Selling Tickets to Your Event
• A Negative Question to Create a Better Event
• Automatically Generate Leads for Your Event Year Round
• How to Get Them To Your Event
• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• Getting Them to Buy Tickets Early

"It's been two days, we haven't found anything decent, and they're still looking."

Thus, let me ask you ...

Do you have a set of high-quality photos of your event at your fingertips?

Even more important, if people are in the photos, do you have a model release or written permission to use your event photos for marketing purposes?

Yes, the questions above seem overly obvious. Yet, there is a lot of searching and digging for event photos on almost every project to date. Unfortunately, the photo search process becomes a giant time suck. And more often than not, when found, the images are less than ideal for marketing purposes.

Here are some quick suggestions ...

Ensure you keep a series of high-quality event photos on a USB drive or online cloud storage that you can quickly access.

If you have the funds, consider hiring a professional photographer for your next event. If you don’t have the funds, you might want to approach a local university for help.

Most of the cameras used by professional photographers also can capture high-definition video and audio. If you’re not using event testimonials, it’s something you might want to consider.

Last but not least, make sure you give the person photographing your event clear instructions. When combined with smart marketing and copy, there is a particular style of photo that can sell your event for you.

Without giving too much away, you want people to see a picture of your event and exuberantly say, "Look at how much fun those people are having; I want to do that!"

This quick nugget comes from an event marketing manager in the UK ...

As a whole, this outdoor UK event runs highly sophisticated marketing campaigns, both online and off. Honestly, some of the best campaigns in the world, with high production quality.

For all the great online content produced by the event organizers above, one content type outperforms all others.

It's dirty, ugly, and wreaks of used car sales person.

What is it?

It's telling people, "Today is the last day to buy, before ticket prices increase."

For the hundreds of pieces of content produced by the Brits, no other content comes close to driving ticket revenue like "last day to buy!"

If you're not leveraging last day to buy sales, give it a whirl and profit!

Want to get more event promotion advice? Check out the articles below:

• Event Planning - The Customer Avatar and Your Event
• When to Start Selling Tickets to Your Event
• A Negative Question to Create a Better Event
• Automatically Generate Leads for Your Event Year Round
• How to Get Them To Your Event
• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• Getting Them to Buy Tickets Early

By now, you're probably familiar with my "3% rule" targeting rule.

If not, here is a brief overview:

Accepting that only 3% (or less) of your local population is predisposed to attend your event is a good thing.

How so?

Because if you and your air show team focus on those most interested in attending your event, you will significantly boost the effectiveness of all your advertising. Think of the 3% rule as a precision targeting method.

One question that rarely gets asked, "what about the other 97%?" or more precisely, "shouldn't I try to target outside the 3%?" Yes, but please understand that the amount of ad spend is prohibitive for practically every event.

It is not a matter of spending thousands of additional ad dollars; it's more like millions or tens of millions of advertising dollars.

Most event organizers simply don't have that kind of money to invest in advertising. If you decide to target outside the 3%, you must carefully track advertising effectiveness!

In 2016, two clients ran carefully targeted and tracked online marketing campaigns. Both campaigns showed that the cost of capturing people's attention outside of 3% becomes astronomical.

The same ads (design and copy) were served to two different local audiences in the advertising test, the 3% audience and the general population. The advertisement presented to the general population was displayed three times more, at four times the cost, while generating 86% less revenue than the 3% campaign.

Thus, targeting outside of your 3% can be astronomically expensive.

If you haven't found your 3%, now is a great time to start! Let me know if you're interested in learning more.

Want to get more advice on planning and promoting a great event? Check out the articles below:

• The BIGGEST Secret to a Successful Event
• Event Planning - The Customer Avatar and Your Event
• When to Start Selling Tickets to Your Event
• A Negative Question to Create a Better Event
• Automatically Generate Leads for Your Event Year Round
• How to Get Them To Your Event
• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• Getting Them to Buy Tickets Early

A few weeks ago, a series of "professionals" deemed the strategy of waiting to sell tickets to one's event as "crazy!"

On the surface, that might be a fair assessment. Yet, as you dig deeper into delayed ticket sale strategies, things become interesting.

(As a side note, if you hear something you think is crazy, impossible, or improbable: always dig deeper with intelligent questions!)

I'll admit, delaying the sale of event tickets is a bit counterintuitive. So I ask you to consider the following:

If you have to sell tickets immediately to start generating money to pay your event bills, you're compromising your total potential revenue.

You might be thinking, "that doesn't sound right!"

Smartly delaying your event ticket sales gets down to leveraging a strategic pricing model. That means, to maximize ticket revenue, you need the right mix of ticket demand and timing.

Developing a strategic pricing model is a very complex and sophisticated process. So for today, we'll take a very high altitude view. If you'd like me to delve further into the subject of strategic pricing, reply to this email.

Here's a short intro on strategic pricing strategy.

Ideally, events should already have seed money from cash in their bank account or sponsors. When you have "money in the bank," you can be more methodical and systematic with your ticket sales.

If you don't have cash on hand, you need to have a proven system that allows you to precisely forecast and generate ticket sales.

Here's an example.

Years ago, an outdoor event client believed that they had to have tickets on sale for an extended period. In the client's case, 10 to 11 months of ticket sales before their event. Most event organizers falsely assume, the longer you have tickets on sale, the more revenue you generate.

That is not the case.

Previously, without a strategic pricing strategy, the client above sold $100,000 USD of tickets to their outdoor event over 73 days.

Last year, with COVID and a meticulous pricing strategy, the same client sold $100,000 USD of tickets in 23 minutes and 18 seconds. All without a dime spent on traditional advertising, as crazy as that sounds.

My advice to you. Never put tickets on sale, "just because." Always have a sound strategy in place, and it will pay you in spades!

If you have your own ticket sales start, please share it in the comment section below.

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

• Smart Advance Ticket Strategies
• Event Promotion: The Psychology of Ticket Prices
• Leveraging Huge Ticket Discounts to Drive Advance Tickets Sales
• How to Sell Even More Tickets to Your Event
• When to Start Selling Tickets for Your Event

Recently, while working with a client, I was reminded of the importance of efficiency as it relates to one's workplace technology.

Because of the technical aspects of the work being done, the client agreed to use a screen-sharing service. The client was at the tail end of cleaning up a lead generation campaign. With the screen-sharing service, I was able to guide the client through the final technical parts of the process.

As I watched through the screen-share, the sense of frustration set in. The client's computer kept hanging on a series of simple tasks.

Five minutes later, I asked, "how old is your computer?"

To which the client responded, "I was from before I started working here." (Over 5 years ago)

The waiting was absolutely brutal for both the client and myself.

Finally, I offered to help the client out and made all the necessary updates using my computer. Total time on my end to complete the data-based updates, less than 30 seconds, and three simple clicks of the mouse.

Unfortunately, three clicks can take five minutes or longer when you're working with ancient computer technology.

A slow computer can wreck one's productivity and is insidious. If you take five minutes a day and spread that over the course of a work year, you get over 1,100 minutes of waiting for one's computer. Or about 18 hours total.

Imagine going to work next week and waiting 18 hours for your computer to load, before starting any work.

My suggestion to you, look at upgrading your old tech. That said, there is no need to pay a premium or buy a new computer. If possible, stay away from tablets as your daily work driver.

A recent computer or laptop, even a used one that's one or two years old, with a solid-state (hard) drive, a decent processor, and memory is all most people need.

"No amount of money ever bought a second of time." -Howard Stark

Be productive where you can. An old computer is often overlooked and is one of the easiest places to regain productivity!

Want to get more event marketing advice? Check out the articles below:

• Where should you focus to increase event revenue and attendance?
• Do you want 1MM or 20K people worth of event promotion?
• Why People Really Attend Fundraisers
• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• Turn Your Event Into an Experience

Here's a recurring theme that bears re-emphasis.

Today, I received a telephone call from a client "needing to vent." Long story condensed, two primary groups responsible for producing an outdoor event are now feuding. It's a combination of hurt feelings, opinions, and politics.

To date, almost all the useless drama has come in the form of third-party messengers, text messages, and short but heated telephone conversations.

What's worse is that the two decision-makers upon which the entire event hinges have yet to speak to one another. An executive assistant insists upon trying to convey and communicate between the two decision-makers.

My word of advice to my client, "Go and 'break bread.' Sit down and have a face-to-face in-person meeting." Regardless of best intentions, the executive assistant is simply getting in the way.

To the best of my knowledge, there isn't a single serious issue that clients have ever resolved using text messages, email, or telephone calls. (Not to say it's never happened).

There is no guarantee that a face-to-face meeting will save the event described above. That said, I guarantee that meeting anyone in person will outperform telephone conversations, text messages, or email. It's important to remember that most humans can't read body language or tone via some digital message.

If you find yourself wrestling with a bout of useless event drama on a critical decision, please consider the breaking bread option.

Want to get more event planning advice? Be sure to check out the links below:

• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• How to Get Them To Your Event
• Why People Really Attend Fundraisers
• Leveraging Your Sponsor's Digital Resources

Today was a fascinating "kick in the head" kind of day. It was a day where government X was supposed to give updates on a set of federal regulations. The information was scheduled to be shared via an online meeting. The particulars of the information impacts thousands of individuals and businesses. Including, the guy writing this email.

About five minutes before the scheduled meeting start time, I logged in and entered my password. After that, meeting attendees are met with a "waiting for organizer to start the session" message.

At the 10-minute mark, I decided to call into the backup audio line. Then, more waiting and no action. Finally, after about 15 minutes, I started to make some telephone calls.

By now, you've probably guessed that the meeting was cancelled. And you are correct.

When I finally spoke with one of the organizers about the meeting, their response was, "we posted to Facebook that the meeting was postponed." Mind you; the post was published 13 minutes after the meeting's scheduled start time. And the post was made on a completely unrelated Facebook page.

Why am I bringing the above to your attention?

Should your event be postponed or canceled, you need to use multiple modalities to update your attendees, in short order! These modalities include but are not limited to your event webpage, all your event's social media channels, and contact lists. Depending on the size of your event, you might want to include local media outlets.

Here's one last crucial point. If something changes about your event. Please make sure that you let your attendees know first.

Attendees (especially ticket holders) finding out issues regarding your event from other sources diminishes trust and credibility with your customers moving forward.

Here are some additional social media resources you can use to market your event:

• Do You Make These Social Media Mistakes with Your Event?
• Measuring Your Social Media Event Promotion Efforts
• How to Leverage Facebook and Your Event Marketing
• Beware of the "Social Media" Event SMACKDOWN!
• Social Media, Your Event Marketing, and "Insider Info" . . .
• Social Media Comments and Your Event
• The Downside of Promoting Your Event with Social Media

A year later, there is a decent amount of COVID data for us to consider. One data point of near-universal agreement is that COVID transmission outdoors is very low. Consider this recent headline from the United Kingdom.

"Beach trips safe and 'have never been linked to Covid outbreaks', says government adviser."

Source:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-beach-holidays-safe-sage-uk-b1803367.html

Recently, I surveyed a few North American outdoor event organizers. With attendance of over 150,000 people across multiple 2020 events, there were zero contract traces back to any of the events. That said, when you get 150,000 people together, someone is going to have COVID.

As the world recovers, I believe that outdoor events will be some of the first to recover.

So my question for you today:

Would you be able to move your indoor event outside?

In some cases, there could be massive logistical considerations, and moving outside would not work.

Mash the reply button and let me know if moving your event outside is even feasible. And if not, feel free to share.

Get more outdoor event ideas, advice, and strategies here:

• Ethically "stealing" outdoor event ideas
• Outdoor events & record ticket sales
• 65 Minutes of Outdoor Event Promotion Insight

During these difficult times, several local restaurant owners have either shut down or severely restricted in-person dining.

While listening to the local news on the radio today, a restaurant owner indicated they are temporarily closing their restaurant due to COVID.

At the end of the short interview, the owner encouraged radio listeners to "check our Facebook page" for updates on reopening. On its face, the owner's statement above seems perfectly reasonable.

Any guesses on how you could significantly increase marketing impact?

Yes, Facebook is a great marketing tool. But merely posting to Facebook (without a comprehensive plan) is not a marketing strategy.

More importantly, Facebook suffers from a tremendous amount of messaging noise. If it's not a continuous feed of posts about family and friends, or politics, it's an advertisement for a website you recently visited.

If you're going to keep your loyal fans and customers up to date, send them to your website.

Because when they're on your website, you control 100% of the message with zero distractions! Last but not least, you own the data.

Click below and dive on in a short 5-Part Social Media Series:

1. Putting Your Social Media Mindset Ahead of Theirs
   
   
2. Focusing Too Much on Likes & Followers
   
   
3. Trying to Engage on Too Many Social Media Platforms
   
   
4. Avoiding Paid Social Media Advertising
   
   
5. Not Measuring the Results of Your Hard Work

Back in 2016, a client kept receiving numerous online questions and telephone calls about a night event. People were inquiring how to purchase tickets for the event at night. There was one problem, the night event happened in 2015, and there was no night event happening in 2016.

How could that happen? It’s good ole Google!

Next time you have a moment, make sure to do the following.

Pay the Google search engine a visit and type in "site:yourdomainname.com" (with no quotes) and with your domain name replacing the words "yourdomainname.com" After that’s in the search engine box, hit enter or the search button.

The "site:" command is a search operator to Google meant to return a specific result. In this case, a list of pages from your website indexed in Google’s search engine.

Why is this important?

Because the chances are that you have old web site pages in Google that aren’t helpful to a website visitor. In some cases, those old pages could be detrimental.

How so?

Suppose you have old information about your event that is no longer relative to your current event. Just this week, a client found hundreds of old pages in Google. A few years ago, an event organizer found over one thousand pages in Google.

Run the command above and let me know what you find. Chances are, you’ll find a lot of old pages with irrelevant content. If so, let your website developer know and get them cleaned up. That said, make sure you don’t block essential pages on your website.

By cleaning up your Google listings, you’ll get the right information to the right people while reducing customer service issues due to old outdated info.

Want to get more event search engine optimization advice? Check out the articles below:

• Why Create High Quality Content?
• Using Relevant Linking Throughout Your Web Site
• The SERP That Really Counts
• Are You Targeting The Correct Search Keywords?
• Why Invest In Search Engine Optimization?
• Getting Listed In Search Engines
• The Importance of Organic Search

Here's a relatively quick tidbit for today ...

During a recent review of event websites, there was a noticeable trend in websites with prominent event cancellation notices. Obviously, if your event has been canceled, you want people to know. You might also want to consider keeping the event cancellation notice for a week or two after your scheduled event.

That said, if your event was canceled weeks or months ago, please take off the cancellation notice.

During a review of dozens of event websites, numerous sites still had their 2020 cancellation notices in place. Those same sites neglected to put a year with their previous cancellation notice. How is that bad? Because those same event organizers are planning on having an event in 2021.

In other words, how are people supposed to know if the next planned event is canceled or not? Without an associated year, this is unclear.

Your best bet is to focus on your next event. If you're unsure of your next event, given the circumstances, just tell people. Here's an overly simplistic example, "Thanks for your interest; we're not sure when XYZ event is going to happen. Once we know something, we'll let you know. Check back here for details! (DATE)"

Stay positive and keep trucking forward. Just be sure not to confuse people in the process.

Want more event promotion info? Check out the links below:

• P.T. Barnum on Advertising
• Online Marketing Like P.T. Barnum (Part I)
• Online Marketing Like P.T. Barnum (Part II)
• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• How to Get Them To Your Event
• Getting Them to Buy Tickets Early
• Turn Your Event Into an Experience

During a client data mining project, the following gem came to light.

A client was conducting a customer loyalty assessment. In short, how many customers return to an annual event over five years.

If you have never run a loyalty assessment, I strongly encourage you to do so!

During the data mining process, the client organized their customer data year by year. One of the cross-checks to verify the integrity of data involves gross revenue. You add up all the individual customer transactions and compare them with the reported gross income.

By now, you might be thinking, "come on, Eugene, you mean to tell me events don't have a firm grasp on their own customer data?"

Unfortunately, they do not. And what's worse is it's a chronic problem.

In the case above, almost $500,000 USD of customer data went missing. Yet, every year the client insisted that their data was properly backed up. In this case, it was nowhere to be found.

My goal isn't to rag on clients here. It is to emphasize the point that your customer data is precious and needs to be securely guarded with vigilance.

Fortunately, there is a silver lining to the story. Thanks to NDAs and such, I had a secure backup of the client's missing data and provided them with a copy.

So, I ask you – "Is all your customer data really backed up? And are you absolutely sure?"

Here are some additional articles on event marketing and promotion:

• Your valuable customer data is dying!
• The Importance of Market Research in Planning Your Event
• An Extremely Dangerous Event Planning Mistake
• Event Planning: The Customer Avatar and Your Event
• You Don't Want Your Event in the News for THIS ...

In the fall of 2020, an event organizer reached out to their 10K+ Facebook followers and database of over 30,000 supporters. At the time, the idea was, "since we're not having an event, let's try to raise scholarship funds online." That previous thought seems perfectly logical.

During a "normal" year, youth programs and scholarships are almost wholly funded by an annual event. Obviously, with a global pandemic, that was not possible.

After a few days of the online scholarship drive, the event organizer had raised a few hundred dollars. Unfortunately, the final result wasn't much better and horribly short of the scholarship fund.

What you've just read happens far too often. You might have had a similar experience.

With just a few exceptions, an event that's financially well managed is the best fundraiser for any cause.

Think of your event as a conduit to raising funds.

Asking people to give to a good cause rarely works. Juxtapose that against an event that people can't stop talking about and will provide you with their hard-earned money.

If you want to give mountains of money to a good cause, a phenomenal event is the way to go.

Want to get more event promotion advice? Check out the articles below:

• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• How to Get Them To Your Event
• Why People Really Attend Fundraisers
• Leveraging Your Sponsor's Digital Resources

In 1736, this well-known polymath said the following:

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" -Benjamin Franklin

Ben said the quote above regarding the fires in Philadelphia (USA) some 285 years ago.

Fast forward to 2021, and too many events are in serious trouble. The reasons are far-reaching. If you're local, provincial, or federal government won't allow you to have an event, there's not much you can do.

With that said, here's a simple question for today:

"If you can't hold an event, how is your organization generating revenue?"

Yes, every event should have a substantial cash reserve. In some cases, depending on where you are in the world, there is government assistance.

But if all your options for assistance are exhausted, where does that leave you and your event?

Alternative revenue sources are your "ounce of prevention!"

If you don't have alternative revenue options, now is a great time to start! There is a multitude of avenues, from collecting donations to online paid events. Those revenue options should be explored now and in place for the next global catastrophe.

Want to get more event marketing advice? Check out the articles below:

• Where should you focus to increase event revenue and attendance?
• Do you want 1MM or 20K people worth of event promotion?
• Why People Really Attend Fundraisers
• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• Turn Your Event Into an Experience

If you have a Netflix account, I recommend watching "The Queen's Gambit." The Queen's Gambit is a look into the world of competitive chess combined with the struggles of drugs and alcohol. The series was just awarded two Golden Globes—one award for Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Movie and another award for Best Limited TV Series.

What's even more fascinating is the series creators' ability to turn chess, a game that's not easy to understand, into compelling entertainment for non-chess players.

After the series premiered in 2020, there was a notable increase in people's interest in chess. Then yesterday, you add in a few awards, and the Internet goes abuzz about chess, yet again.

"Netflix wins big at Golden Globes as 'Queen's Gambit' keeps fueling chess sales: Monday Wake-Up Call"

Source: https://adage.com/article/news/netflix-wins-big-golden-globes-queens-gambit-keeps-fueling-chess-sales-monday-wake-call/2317636

"What does a TV series about chess have to do with my event?"

Quite a lot. The Queen's Gambit highlights the power of compelling storytelling. Specifically, how to take something foreign to most people (chess) and get them hooked. This is similar to the process of getting new attendees to your event.

Is there a story you can tell, as part of your advertising and marketing process, that gets people to say, "I want to see/do that"?

Even better, is there a story your event attendees can tell their family and friends that makes it difficult for people not to attend your event?

If you can provide a compelling story that goes along with the questions above, it's almost impossible not to succeed with your event.

Related Event Marketing Advice:

• Great Story of Bottles and Your Event Promotion
• Turn Your Event Into an Experience
• How to Get Them To Your Event
• Why Well Planned Events Fail