Useful Tips For Holding A Memorable Small Business Event Part III

Useful Tips For Holding A Memorable Small Business Event Part III

Memorable events do not just happen. Organizing and hosting an event takes planning. Whether it is a corporate conference, business seminar or a customer appreciation day, and whether you only have three weeks to plan or longer enough like an entire year, your event’s success is all in the details. We have collected 42 small business event planning tips from the professional experts. This one is all about Useful Tips For Holding A Memorable Small Business Event Part III

Useful Tips For Holding A Memorable Small Business Event Part III

Useful Tips For Holding A Memorable Small Business Event Part III

Marketing: Getting People to Attend

18. You will need a DETAILED marketing plan.

Write a marketing plan for the business event you are hosting. The more organized you are, the more professional your event will be and thus higher chance to succeed.

19. Be tireless in your efforts or your event will fail.  

If you do not want to be at your event alone … then you should do marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing … and market some more.

20. Give people good reason(s) to show up.

What is the draw for attendees? You have to define WHAT you are doing at the business event that can bring those target guests in the door. For a consumer product it could be a party with entertainment and product demos and freebies. If it is for a business crowd it perhaps could be educational content or an exciting, well-known expert speaker showing up. Whatever it is, please do not lose the connection with the reasons you want this particular audience clamoring to get in.

21. Outline in writing why your target market should attend – do not assume the benefits are obvious.

When you are promoting an event, please make sure to tell your target market attendees what they will learn, who they would meet and why they should be there. Do not just assume your friends will tell their friends. Also, if you are using speakers, give them advertising copy so that they could promote the event to their audiences.

22. Study how to talk to the media.

Journalists are very busy and on deadline all the time … they do not have enough time to hear a sales pitch. Just let them know that the information exists and — for future information — that you are a professional expert in that field. Remember to include that information when you reach out.

23. Use Twitter hashtags. Twitter is great social platform for promoting events and for creating a sense of online community around a business event. Set up a unique hashtag early on. Search Twitter first to ensure that it is not already in use by others. Put the hashtag right on the event website, and if you can use the Tweet button for sharing on the webpage, work the hashtag right into the premade verbiage. When users tweet, it promotes the event automatically on Twitter.

24. Apply online social pre-events to promote the main event.

To build up interest in your event, trying to start a Google Hangout or a Twitter group chat a few weeks before the day of main event. Invite some of your speakers to get involved the online social event. Give a preview of what is to come at the primary event, by having some discussion of what speakers will cover, or highlight the activities. It would generate anticipation.

25. Buy advertisements on social media networks.

Buying advertisements on social networks is often ignored by small business events. Social advertising platforms (for example, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter above all) provide in depth targeting options that could significantly help to reach out to our target audience in our geographical location. The good news is that no big budgets are required and ticket sales could be easily measured.

26. Use YouTube to advertise your event.

YouTube is the second search engine worldwide right after Google. By uploading videos from our previous events or interviews with our speakers/ performers, you can convince prospective attendees to click on buy. Video gives significant visual cues thus have a big impact on our decision making process. With those events which we always feel the risk of not knowing what will happen, video can ease that tension.

27. Make an awesome low-budget promotional video.

A little creativity as well as some poster board, a royalty-free music clip, and a good smartphone video camera can make a funny video to help promote what is to come.

28. Get local bloggers to participate.

Be smart with bloggers. Involving local bloggers to participate at the event is normally a great strategy to get people’s attention before, during and after the event. Bloggers normally count on a wide reach and do not always follow traditional media rules.

29.. Leverage event registration platforms like Meetup.

Make use of existing platforms. If this is your first attempt at hosting an event and you lack of the skills to marketing it, have a look at Meetup.com. Other than giving a suite to manage events online, Meetup is a great platform for referring relevant audience in your area. It also has registration  and RSVP management capabilities that could be very handy if you are inexperienced.

Useful Tips For Holding A Memorable Small Business Event Part IV continue:

30.. Use online registration.

It  scare people away easily by having analog registration (like faxes, bank draft or at the door only). Make online registration available to secure as many attendees as soon as possible and that would  definitely help to estimate numbers and release budget soon.

31. Have listed on sites catering to your group.

After you know who want to attend, the next thing to do is to put yourself in front of them. There are websites that are specializing in listing events nationally and locally so start from there and do some research on which are the most appropriate to get listed on.

32. Give local partners incentives to promote you.

Press releases which are sent to the relevant media outlets can help to generate news buzz and you can look at getting media (both online and offline) to participate as partners. They can get exposure at your event in return for publicizing the event. If they do not want to get involved at that level, then try to approach them with the idea of holding a competition for their readers to win entry tickets.

33. Make it easy on your guest speakers to publicize to their followers on social media.

If you have any expert/ guest speakers attending, remember to encourage them to publicize their attendance to their social media followers/email subscribers.

34. Offer early bird discounts.

Early bird tickets at a discounted rate are a great way to get early sign ups by offering people an incentive to act now rather than wait till later and forget.

Useful Tips For Holding A Memorable Small Business Event Part III to be continued…