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Are you planning for an event? Is Less or no ticket sales one of your worst nightmares? Dread no more, with right things done right, you will never go wrong. We have compiled a list of things you should keep in your checklist before launching/announcing your event. So you can plan your event marketing better.

1. Target Audience

What sort of crowd do you want to gather at your event? Create a persona explaining their interests, where they hang out (socially), their age, demographics and any other information relevant to you. You will be clearer on who should you promote your event to and where. This will help you create and develop content for exactly those people falling into that persona better and all your marketing efforts must turn out fruitful.

2. Save the date

The date and timing of your event is going to be a deciding factor for your target audience to attend it. Adjust the date and timings according to your persona’s availability. It will not make sense if the majority of your audience is busy in other priorities during the time of your event. Let them save the date to your event in their calendar a few days prior to the event.

3. Questions are good (Survey)

Ask your potential guests about what would they expect in an event like yours, you can also leverage this survey to know about a suitable date for them to attend. Give incentives like discounts on your event tickets for their survey replies. Later on after the event, thank them for being a part and take their feedback about what would they have tweaked about your event.

4. Email Marketing

Never buy an email database to bomb them about your event. A good way to reach out to those potential guests are by emailing your already existing subscribers and asking them to spread the word to those they think would be interested in your event. Make your email forward-worthy.

5. Social media engagement

Social media marketing for your event starts right before you plan on launching your event. Go creative with your event hashtag, create your event on Facebook and invite your guests from there. Promote your event on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Make sure you engage your guests on social media right at the time of registration as well. Provide them links to your event social pages and ask them to share and engage. Social media is a great way to inform your guests about your event updates, educate them beforehand about the event topic and announce incentives.

6. Paid advertising

Paid advertisement done right will bring the exact target audience you want to crowd at your event. With target location, age groups, interests selected right, your campaign should increase a minimum of 9% more ticket sales. Play smartly while leveraging paid advertising though, you don’t want to waste your money on low quality leads(those who click on your ad without converting). That said, invest time and brains on creating a very lucrative ad that speaks with your target persona. Make sure the landing page you use for the ad has a ‘Registration/Buy’ process right there so your lead doesn’t bounce easily.

7. The face of your event (event page)

Your event page/website is the face that everyone is going to see before attending your event. Work hard to give out a good first impression with that face. ( Consider using a little make-up 😉 ). It Should communicate everything about the event clearly. Make sure it is mobile friendly too because on an average, more than 50% of your audience is going to check your event from their mobile devices. You can also use Townscript to create your event page under a minute and start selling tickets online.

8. Easy registration process

Don’t loose guests because of complicated online payment systems for your event. Getting a good registration solution should help you increase your guest list since no one likes to stand in queue to buy tickets these days. A good ticketing partner will provide you not only with a hassle-free online payment system but also with a lot of ticket management features. The whole process of buying tickets to your event should not take more than 3 minutes, do not redirect them to a lot of steps, cut them out as much as possible. Chances are more that a happy ticket buyer will recommend buying your tickets online to other friends.

9. Give Incentives to your guests

Talk about discounts, it always makes your guest feel special. Offering discounts always increases your sales. Offer Early Bird Tickets at lower prices and give away special discount codes to attract guests. Also, discounts influence your potential guest’s ticket buying decision. They would want to grab the deal before it is sold out.

10. The little birdie told me

Let your guests spread your word: Humbly make your guests invite their peeps to your event with a single click. The process should be easy. Make sure you include a “Invite your friends” link at the time of the registration process or buying ticket whichever is applicable.

11. The Big birdie told me

Flaunt your VIP guest and speaker list. Build your schedule early on and share socially. Invite your industry influencers to be a part of your event. Your event schedule and list of speakers will attract a lot of attendees who already know them-influencers.

Request your speakers/artists/industry leaders to share your event within their community too.

12. Fun sells more

Even if your event is a serious workshop or conference, try hard to include some fun activities in your event schedule. While building schedule, leverage free time slots for meet and greets, mixers, free snacks etc.

13. Key Takeaways

What will your event give to its attendees? What will they learn? Communicate the key “takeaways” of your event early on in the event promotion (Social media, registration page, etc). It should be clear in the message. This attracts your potential guest to buy the ticket as soon as possible.

ADVANCED MARKETING TIPS:

14. Use your web analytics data

Never underestimate the power of data. Make sure you integrate google analytics or any other web analytics tool with your website to study these things:

a. Check your demographics to know what are the locations to target better.

b. Which day/week is better for your ticket sales.

c. Which is the best platform for your event.

This will not only help you create your user persona (target audience) but give you insights on who to market your event to and where exactly, what channels could you leverage more and what all are not worth spending your time and energy at.

15. Use PR

Six to four months prior to event, reach out to the industry dominating blogs and websites to release your PR. If you can’t go for paid Press release services, you can still send out to free PR websites, distribute among your communities and there is a chance your PR will catch up from there. Creating buzz is the key here.

Hope these tips help you market your event better. We will be posting out more detailed tips and cover each tip in depth to help you in your event planning. Keep looking out at this space. If any of these tips worked well for you or even if it did not, let us know in the comment below. Would love to discuss more.

Happy event organizing, may your event be a huge success! 🙂

About the Author Alka Gupta Facebook Twitter A curious amalgam of the traditional and the modern, Alka is free-spirited in her thoughts. Digital Marketing is her passion and events are her interest. At Townscript, she combines her passion with interest to bring out the best for event organizers in India.