Are you in the midst of a promotional cycle and need to drive more RSVPs? Don't stress – you've got a lot of options to get the message out there and get people excited about your event.
In this new Run of Show video, we share our rapid fire event promotion tips – 20 promotional channels in under two minutes – to help you drive engagement and increase RSVPs for your next event.
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This Run of Show is a special one, and it should pulled out when you're at the beginning of your 8 to 10 week promotional cycle and you're really thinking about driving RSVPs. I'm hoping this can jog your memory on all of the different channels that you have available.
But if you're watching this video, my guess is you have very little time to listen to me. So as opposed to going into a long, drawn-out tirade of ideas, let's instead put two minutes on the clock, and I'll rattle some ideas at you. And hopefully, some of these work for your event strategy.
Okay, two minutes is on the clock. Let's do it.
First, and probably the best idea, is a host committee. Have you found people who know a lot of people in the industry, and have you incentivized them to drive RSVPs – maybe with a VIP dinner or some sort of special access or discount code?
Have you found a great community that you can actually go and speak to and promote the event live (and offer a discount to!)? These could be school groups, meetups, or any kind of group that actually congregates in person.
Have you pushed any SEO or SEM initiatives? You can enlist an agency to help you drive your digital efforts.
And be sure to think through a promotional strategy via email – one that has urgency through price breaks, or speaker announcements. Have you really thought that all the way through? And have you created an AB test that will allow you to track these people all the way through the funnel?
Have you pinpointed your event partners? You really want to hold your partners accountable, and make sure that they're driving RSVPs and helping to spread the word. For example, we often send our parters assets and language to use so they can post about the event on their own social channels.
It's also beneficial to reach out to press and PR, and really think about a story that you could release before the event. And ask yourself: have you reached out to individuals and PR agencies who are clearly connectors? Maybe they would be interested in being on the host committee, too.
Have you aligned with your sales team, outbound, BDR, and talent teams and enlisted them to actually put this in their cadence? And have you incentivized them with leader boards, or compensations or prizes for whoever drives the most opportunity into the room.
Have you reached out to your executive team? Have you really sat down with your executives and said, "Hey, I'm gonna watch as you invite or create a list of people to invite"? That's really powerful when it comes to getting them invested in your event.
Have you thought about your own properties? Like your website, chatbots, maybe even inside of your product, or your content – for example any newsletters you send out. Leveraging your own marketing communications is a really effective way to get your event in front of people's faces.
Have you said your event value proposition over and over again, but in different ways? That is the number one way to achieve an effective event promotion strategy.
At the end of the day, the most important thing you can do is remember that many of your RSVPs are going to come in the last two weeks before your event. So it's important to relax (at least a little bit). You're gonna sell this thing out.
I mentioned this before, but I've been thinking about the power of a clear value proposition, and so in the next video I'm going to walk through how some of the top event marketers think about building out their value propositions. So definitely be on the lookout if that concept is unclear, or if you just need a refresher on it.
And thanks for taking the time to tune in during your (likely hectic) promotional cycle. I know it's gonna all work, and best of luck at your next event – I look forward to my invitation.
