Though online channels pumped new life into publishing ventures – and even gave birth to some – many publishers are now outgrowing their digital strategies. In fact, numerous online media companies are finding their survival is in question.
The smartest publishers are diversifying with events and working with partners to throw great ones. By doing so, they not only facilitate and grow relationships with readers, sponsors, media partners, and advertisers, they also increase their brand reach, get more subscriptions, and close the gap between advertisers and readers (for hard-hitting proof, check out these stats).
But events aren’t easy, and knowing where to start and what to focus on is key. Here are best practices we gathered from the top event marketers in the publishing game:
When working with your advertisers or sponsors, it’s important to set expectations early and engage them effectively. Make sure to:
1. Understand what your partners expect. Survey your advertising partners and event sponsors beforehand to learn how they will measure success. This will help you ultimately prove the value of your event.
2. Determine the sponsor or partner presence. How involved will your sponsor or partner be? Make sure to establish early on, to allow for negotiation. (It can be anything from hosting a panel to a speaking engagement to branding).
3. Present a plan. Make sure everyone involved is on the same page.
Want to get tips on collaborating with the right partner? Learn more on how to pick, pitch, and execute with downloadable partner templates.
Everyone wants to sell out their event. And while your ticket sales can depend on a diverse list of factors, the most important thing to start with is to ensure you're reaching the right audience. Work with your audience development or circulation team ensure you reach the audience you want.
Second, price your tickets in a smart way. We analyzed a ton of event data around ticketing. Here's what we found:
• Early-bird tickets tend to generate a 12.5% increase in ticket sales.
• People purchase tickets on the weekdays between 12:00 and 1:00 pm, on the weekends, between 3:00 and 4:00 pm.
• 50% of ticket buyers will purchase based on the first email you send – but they won’t always buy immediately. The remainder tends to purchase in the final two weeks leading up to the event. In fact, the day of the event is the number-one day to sell tickets.
Third, promote, promote, promote. Here’s what works the best for promotion strategies, according to our customer data:
• Plan a five-email series and stagger announcements. We discovered that announcement language -- like new speakers -- triggers spikes in ticket sales (The most effective email subject lines for events include the word “announcing.”).
• Capitalize on early ticket-buyers. Incentivize those who bought via the first email to invite more people to your event. Immediately after the event, send an email inviting attendees to purchase tickets for next year’s event.
It’s always the last thing we think about (and arguably the most important). We asked event marketers at top publishers on how they form the events team of their dreams. Here's where they staff from:
• Event operations. Whether an in-house resource or third party, this person can find the venue, handle negotiations, and deal with on-site issues like technical AV, etc.
• Business development or inside sales reps. They tend to excel at engaging others in conversations, and sometimes bring past experience attending or working trade shows and conferences.
• Ex-military personnel. They are extremely disciplined and follow orders to a T.
• Professionals from the non-for-profit world. Look for people with existing event experience. In most cases, they are used to working on a small team with a tight budget, so they often shine when supported by a bigger budget and team.
Have a central place for all your event data -- invites, RSVPs, and attendees -- so you can track the status updates of all your attendees. After all, if you don’t know how your audience is engaging with your events, you won’t know how to engage with them better over time (i.e. for segmenting, targeting, prospecting, etc).
Want to take your productivity, efficiency, and collaboration to the next level? Integrate with the rest of your systems so all your technologies can talk to each other.
Gather event feedback by surveying attendees as they are leaving the event (via email, event app, or social channels). Deliver customized reports to each partner. This is important and worth asking your data science team (if you have one) to help tell a story with tangible numbers.
Include “fun” numbers in your recaps (like“11,000 hamburgers served”), or social media posts and photos, to complement the quantitative results with qualitative ones.
For example, here's a fun one from one of our own parties, Cloud Wine:
The event planning role is changing across all industries. Want to make sure you're keeping up? See the crucial skills you need in 2018.
