If you are organising a smaller event and do not have the budget to use traditional marketing, please find below 5 free useful tips to get people interested in (and coming to your event).
1 – Ask your Keynote Speaker for help.
When you have sourced your Keynote Speakers they can help bring awareness, added value and boost potential audience reach in advance of the event. Ask the Keynote Speaker to spread the word on their social media platforms and to share blog posts as well as videos about your event. This is like having another key marketeer on the team!
2 – Engage with your audience in advance.
If you are involved in event management, you will know that some Keynote Speakers will be willing to do a meet-and-greet at the conference venue before the event with target audience members. The Speakers Bureau can often help with this. If this is done before the actual presentation it can increase the profile of your event by generating good well-being and publicity. You may also gain some expert insights and feedback that you might not have been aware of before. This was done at the recent event with Mr Steve Wozniak in Brussels.
3 – Connect and involve
As a busy event Manager who is short on time, sometimes it is useful to get followers involved in meeting programs upfront by inviting them to help steer programs. They will help you come up with an event marketing plan. Ask your followers to submit comments and suggestions, or contribute multimedia content via internal, online, social media, strategic partners, or other readily available distribution channels. This sometimes can be better than paid advertising, or even Facebook ads.
You can then use their submissions to help select program and track topics and incorporate their questions and insights into presentations. (This information can also be easily saved and re-purposed for other initiatives).
4 – Capitalise on content marketing.
Content marketing efforts should be an ongoing part of every company’s promotional efforts. You and your organisation are the experts in your particular field. Find ways of getting your own employees to write blogs, newsletters and podcasts.
Events provide a great opportunity to get your employees to share their expert knowledge. This will help awareness and will continuously develop added value. Keep updating new content to give your potential audience a reason to come back to your site. As time goes on you could even add more added value by doing up a new e-book or an audio of video podcast series about your event.
5 – Always respond to feedback (even if the feedback is not positive).
Event managers should always follow up with the audience before and after the event. In this way, you are continuing the promotion and marketing of your event online and on social media. Ask the relevant questions, such as how the event could be improved? Ask for their thoughts on future trending topics and the programme itself. This is another opportunity to build brand loyalty and keep your brand in the front of their mind.
Try and make your approach different and exciting, sometimes newsletters get lost in an inbox. Go to other social channels and find out what your audience loved (and disliked) and what they would like to see more of. Maybe there is a need for more motivational speakers, inspirational speakers, or business speakers? You’ll be surprised at what you find from listening to people’s input and chatter. This also gives people more reason to engage, get excited about your event, tell others about it and hopefully attend your next event!
The Speaker Bureau can then help source the exact Keynote Speaker you are looking for, based on this feedback.
