Any smart subscription site owner knows the need to diversify revenues — and live events can perform double duty by providing strong branding and marketing opportunities while also generating revenue. But only if you can get the word out. Our HOW-TO: Program Events, from Market Research to Speaker Management is an in-depth discussion of how to target an audience, manage speakers, and program and brand an event. In this How-To, we focus on getting butts in seats through 3 marketing must-haves for any live event (including specific website features), 6 best practices for pre-event marketing, and 5 advanced tactics for selling tickets. We also review the 4 reasons to host an event, the 5 types of events, and 4 post-event marketing reminders.

4 Reasons to Host Events

An event can help you:

1. Promote branding and awareness
2. Generate leads
3. Engage with prospects and existing customers
4. Educate attendees about your industry, products or services

In fact, tradeshows and events were cited as the most effective marketing tactic after websites for B2B companies by Forrester Research:

And of course, B2C companies like TED have made a whole business out of events, and Match.com recently started hosting live events under The Stir.

There are 5 main types of live events:

1. Tradeshows
2. Conferences
3. Seminars
4. Breakfasts, Lunches and Dinners
5. Happy Hours

Our HOW-TO: Program Events, from Market Research to Speaker Management is an in-depth discussion of how to target an audience, manage speakers, and program and brand an event for tradeshows, conferences and seminars. Breakfasts, lunches, dinners and happy hours are relatively easier since there’s usually less need for a formal type of program, but more organization needed to coordinate food, invitations, room set-up, etc. (although these events also lend themselves more easily to having attendees pay for their food or drinks).

NOTE: For tradeshows and some types of conferences, the bulk of the revenue comes from selling exhibit booths or other relatively high-priced sponsorships. In these cases, the need is to maximize attendance, so registration is often free. Despite this difference, most of the marketing approaches described below still apply.

This How-To focuses on how to market your event to the right people and get people to attend.

3 Event Marketing Must-Haves

#1. A separate, easy-to-find webpage with

1. An email capture box and overlay (see example below).
   
   

   

2. Sections to post the agenda, list of speakers (with photos and bios) and list of companies/organizations attending, and location and lodging information.
3. A shopping cart (with a great button)

If you’re offering a discount to subscribers, make it easy, either by syncing the event site with your CRM or offering a discount code or checking a box. Don’t worry too much if non-members check the member box and buy a discounted ticket; you can always call them to “remedy” the mistake by either asking them to pay full price or take the discount but start a complimentary trial of your site. Thus, your event marketing is also generating subscriber leads, too.

#2. Email blasts on a regular basis and to remind prospects of key milestones (last day for Early Bird ticket rate, etc.). You should create two lists — one for prospects and one for registered attendees, since you’ll also need to email the latter with reminders or in case of an emergency (such as when Hurricane Sandy delayed the MediaNext conference). For a larger conference or tradeshow, you should send a series of promotional emails starting about six months before the actual event, spaced about a week apart, with more messages in the week leading up to any deadlines (such as the last day to get early-bird pricing). Remember, the average prospect needs about eight “touches” before conversion.

#3. Partner promotions: You’re going to want to cast a bigger net than your existing subscriber base for any event (unless it’s an intimate, members-only events like HDI holds through its local chapters). The best way to do this is to seek partner promotions. B2C and B2B sites can look for media partners or friendly competitors that might be willing to host display ads or swap email lists. And if your event has sponsors, you should definitely ask them to promote the event on your behalf via their Website, Twitter, Facebook or any other social media. NOTE: Always pre-write these types of promotions so all your partner has to do is post on your behalf. Make sure to include your Twitter handle and any relevant hashtags.

Media partners have the additional benefit of adding prestige and credibility to your conference as they are implicitly endorsing it, and media outlets may also want to attend your conference as part of your media deal with them, which can result in post-conference publicity that will strengthen your prominence and brand for future years.

6 Best Practices for Pre-Event Marketing

1. Target people already engaged with your content or similar products.
2. Invite people with the right qualifications. This is especially important if you have group subscriptions or site licenses — not everyone on a site license is a good event prospect.
3. Avoid giving a discount to someone willing to pay full price. This means that your discounts should be offered through email blasts, not perpetually available (the one exception is a members-only discount since that can help you convert event attendees into subscribers).
4. Create urgency in your promotions. Deadlines for special discounts (e.g. early bird) are particularly powerful — you are fighting a powerful tendency for people to procrastinate when it comes to event registration, especially if your event date is many months away. Many events do up to 50% of their registration sales in the 30 days before a conference for annual events.
5. Promote both speakers and topics in promotional materials — sometimes it helps to alternate between the two in email subject lines. Don’t ever forget that attendees come for the content; other benefits such as networking are distinctly secondary.
6. Avoid desperate email blasting near the drop dead day for ticket sales. Instead, follow-up with phone calls. If you can’t sell enough tickets to fill a venue, you should work your way through the following offers as you near the event day:
   1. Team discounts to attendees who bring others from their company.
   2. Local discounts (since it’s easiest for prospects located in your event city to attend at the last minute since they don’t need to make major travel arrangements).
   3. Free last-minute “raffles” to fill seats and absorb the cost. (You’re really not raffling anything — just getting names of people who are interested in coming and will feel privileged to be a “winner.” If, however, you are overrun with raffle entries, you may want to pick people you’re looking to build strategic partnerships with or will give your event more street cred.)

5 Advanced Tactics for Selling Event Tickets

1. Telesales: In order to avoid exhausting your email list, you should try to conduct a telesales campaign to convert prospects to event attendees. Be mindful of time differences and locations when targeting prospects (). Also, make sure you can close a sale on the phone — don’t make them go to your website if they’re willing to give a credit card number over the phone.
2. Direct Mail: While digital publications seem to think postal direct mail is dead, it can still help with event marketing. Read our in-depth How-To on Direct Mail for how to pick the most powerful list and measure success. Events also lend themselves to unique creative, like calendars, save-the-date postcards (or magnets), and location-themed ideas (like a poker chip for an event held in Las Vegas).
3. Social media: Social media can help you spread brand awareness and your event’s reach far beyond your attendees. It can even help launch another revenue source of your event business, as TED did earlier this year. If you have the staff resources, you can create separate Facebook and Twitter handles for your event, or you can simply create a hashtag. You should create this hashtag well before the event and email each of your speakers with a line they can tweet that includes your Twitter handle and the hashtag. Also, have guests post it with a message that they’re attending (it’s best to pre-load this tweet or Facebook post through the Thank-You page after they buy their ticket). In fact, make sure to include social-sharing buttons across all your event marketing assets, including invites, updates, and landing pages. You can also create video trailers and promos that are posted on YouTube. 
4. Paid promotion: If you’ve got the budget, a display ad on another niche publication’s site can help expose your event to a new audience.  Often this can be part of a swap, but other forms of paid promotion are also worth exploring, such as PPC campaigns, print/radio/tv ads or outdoor advertising for location-specific events.
5. Showcase your registration list. The best conferences are those where, in addition to a great program, someone wants to attend because “everyone else is going to be there.” You can help build this type of appetite by posting your registration list on your website, updating frequently if not in real-time. It’s a best practice to give attendees a privacy opt-out option, however.

4 Post-Event Marketing Reminders

Your marketing efforts don’t end with your event, especially if you’re hoping to generate leads for potential subscribers or sales after an event. Here are some basic post-event marketing to-dos:

1. Email all your attendees on the last day of the event (after it closes) and ask them to take a survey. For the most immediate responses, make the email and survey mobile-friendly, so that you can capture your attendee’s thoughts as they travel back home.
2. Email the same group at least a week after an event and offer them a chance to take a trial of your site or join your free mailing list for prospects.
3. Follow up with any subscription or one-off sales leads.
4. Use the feedback from the survey and the event itself to inform your editorial content.

Related Links:

HOW-TO: Program Events, from Market Research to Speaker Management

[Sample Contract] Unpaid Speaker Agreement for Virtual and Real-world Events

CASE STUDY: RFID Journal Makes 7 Figures By Mixing Paid Subscriptions, Live Events and Advertising

CASE STUDY: HDI Keeps Membership Organization Going with Online Training and Local Offline Events

SAMPLE: Promote Events With Numbered Lists — and Highlight Best Numbers in the Subject Line