5 Tips For Failsafe Online Event Promotion

All live events begin with an online presence. The majority of companies – 89% by one estimate – utilize some form of online marketing. You also have plenty of approaches, from social media to email newsletters. Diversify your approach to broaden your outreach. Here are some best practices for organizing an event marketing campaign.

1. Don’t Neglect Keywords
Contrary to what many people are saying, SEO is not dead. All online promotional content should be optimized with two to three longtail keywords. The keywords should include an industry term followed by a geo-location. If you’re hosting a tech conference in London, for example, then the keywords would be “tech conference in London,” or “IT conference in London.” Use the Google Keyword Planner to discover lucrative keywords in your niche.

Include your keywords in all written content, including blog posts and in the description of video content. Adhere to the basic SEO rules. Include the keyword or a close variation of it in the title, in at least one H2 title, and enough times in the body of the text to achieve a 5% keyword density.

2. Show Off Your Social Proof
Never heard of social proof? This is online content from your followers that you share with other
customers. This can be a post that you retweet, a testimonial, or a customer’s Instagram pic from a previous event. Social proof shows that other customers and event goers are active brand advocates. Showing off social proof may motivate others to follow suit. Just as you expect followers to spread your content, the reverse is also true.

The easiest way to show social proof is by reposting other people’s post. You can also get more creative and include a video compilation or slideshow of the posts.

3. Use Retargeting Ads Often
Retargeting ads are way underutilized. If you’re unfamiliar, these are ads that are shown to followers that went through a portion of the sales funnel process but fell short of purchasing a ticket. These people expressed some level of initial interest and are more likely to convert if you reach out to them again.

Retargeting ads may be directed towards those who, for example, clicked on the RSVP page link in an email newsletter but did not secure a ticket. The message in the ads should also apply FOMO, or the fear of missing out principle. FOMO are messages that convey a sense of urgency. An example may be “Only 20 tickets left,” or “Ticket discount offer ends in 12 hours.”

4. Get Creative with Ticket Sales
Don’t just set a ticket price and sell them via event page with a purchase link. Look for creative ways to part with them. How else can you sell or give away tickets? Consider these methods:
• Early bird pricing
• Discount for bulk purchases
• Give them away to those who perform a favorable action, such as refering X number of buyers

• Discount pricing for loyalty and VIP members
• Give them away in a social media contest, either as the winning prize or to everyone who participates.

5. Use a Social Media Wall
Online promotion continues even once the event is in progress. Even though you’re no longer selling tickets at this point, you still want to spread social media mentions. This helps spread brand awareness and helps promote any products you may be pushing at the event.

To drive in-event social media discussion, incorporate a social media wall. This is a digital signage that shows social media posts from various networks as they’re posted in real time. Seeing live posts should prompt other attendees to join in and submit their own tweets or Instagram posts. Encourage all posters to include the event hashtag with every posting.

The Web provides so many angles for approaching your event promotion. Achieve optimum results by exploring multiple methods and tweaking your strategy to improve analytics.

Dan McCarthy is an Event Manager at Venueseeker, an event management company based in the UK. Dan has 6 years of event project management under his belt. He has worked on many successful events, and currently, he shares his knowledge by writing on the company blog. Follow him on Twitter @DanCarthy2.

How to Promote an Event for Free

When was the last time you bought tickets to an event the old-fashioned way? Quite a tough question? Perhaps you bought tickets for your child’s school play. The reality is that, since nearly all ticket sales have moved online, event promotion has drastically changed. Whether you’re promoting a conference, music festival, training workshop or charity fundraiser, there are many free ways to promote events online.

These are our top tips and a few creative ideas to get you started;

Digital Media

Video can be expensive to produce but there are creative ways to whip up a video to draw attention to your event. Do you have footage from a previous event? If so, consider pulling out specific elements and freshening it up with a new background track. If you're hosting a music event, ask your acts for permission to use their footage to promote your lineup. Once you’ve got a video put together, embed on your event page, and share to your audience via social media.

Content Marketing

Create a unique content that ties into your event. If you’re organizing a conference, engage your speakers to answer a few questions for an interview style post or find out if they have content to share as a guest post. If you’re planning  a theatre show, ask actors to share their stories or engage your social audience to suggest questions. Tell the stories of those touched by your charity or cause, if you’re organizing a charity event.

Social Media

This is probably the most referenced method for promoting an event for free online. Just beware that over-promotion on social media isn’t well received. Promotional posts shouldn’t account for more than 10-20% of your daily or weekly updates. Find creative ways to plug your event by sharing a blog post like those mentioned above or an infographic related to the theme or topic of your event. If you’re managing a conference or business event, check out Evvnt’s post on using LinkedIn to promote events.

Get Fans to do it For You

Incentivize your audience and attendees to share the event with their friends. For example, if an attendee signups up 5 friends they receive a free drink, free ticket upgrade, free track of your headlining artist. Alternatively, you could giveaway tickets to your event to create shares and buzz around your event. Encourage your audience to share the contest in order to boost entries or chance of winning.

Email Marketing

Send event invitations to your existing database. If you don’t have an existing database, once you’ve started to receive registrations you can email them updates and news about your event as well as any special offers. If you are collecting personal information in order to create a tailored event experience, consider how you can start using this information through email ahead of the event.

We don’t profess to hold the secret formula to promoting events for free or argue that these ideas are revolutionary. We do however, focus on providing our users with the best possible, free-to-set-up platform, enabling them to create uncluttered, professional event sites, promote and sell tickets, register attendees and view the success of the event with at-a-glance analytics.

Create a free account and explore the platform in your own time. We’re just a click or call away to answer your questions and if you’re planning an event in January, don’t forget we’re still running our 50% off January promotion!