Hosting a variety of events, workshops, and conferences can be a great way to market your business that can undoubtedly be hard work, but extremely rewarding. However, there is so much competition out there, and your business won’t be the only one holding events and conferences for marketing purposes. How can you ensure that your planning helps your business to stand out from the crowd and get one step ahead of the competition? We’ve put together a list of handy tips for getting the most out of your upcoming business event, whether it be conference, workshop, charity event or something else.
Start Marketing Early
Research has shown that for a lot of customers and clients, at least seven points of contact are needed with a company before they commit to buying a product or service. The earlier you begin marketing your event to potential attendees and customers, the more likely it is that your event will be a success. Creating a range of pre-launch content in order to give people a sneak peek into what they’ll be experiencing at the event itself is a great way to generate interest and encourage more people to attend, and is much more effective than simply advertising a date, time and venue.
Create Scarcity
Many people leave it to the last minute to buy things such as tickets, and however much most people might like the idea of attending your event, they are likely to leave booking a place to the last minute if possible. Although they will probably still buy a ticket eventually, this can be stressful for you if there is a need to pay costs such as venue rent (check out http://www.venuesearchlondon.com for great event venues) and catering upfront, and not having the money available for that could be detrimental to your event. For this reason, reduce the amount of time that your tickets are on sale – this will create a feeling of scarcity which can often be the motivation that people need to get out their wallet and buy a ticket.
Connect with Attendees Beforehand
Business events and conferences that really stand out tend to have a good idea of what it is that their attendees are looking to gain from being at the event. Rather than simply deciding to do generic activities that appear at almost all business events, instead speak to your attendees beforehand to conduct research in order to find out what it is that they’re really looking for and the kind of activities, talks and workshops that they will enjoy most. Doing this will not only put you at the top of your game for keeping attendees happy, it will also show that you put your attendees and customers first and want to make sure that they are satisfied with the service they receive.
If you have any great tips for getting the most out of a business event that you’d like to add to this list in order to help other entrepreneurs who are in the stage of planning, we’d love to hear from you in the comments.
