Step 7: Market Your Event

In 2019, I witnessed an alarming number of clients and event organizers struggling to drive attendance to their events. When I jumped in to help, I noticed many of them were making the same simple mistakes over and over again. The advice I offered was simple but yet often overlooked: 

It all comes down to this riding principle: Don’t make assumptions and stick to the basic principles of a solid event (aka have a very clear understanding of your 5 Ws): 

1. Who is your target market?
2. Where do they consume their media?
3. What is your event elevator pitch (one paragraph that defines what the event is and why it’s being held?) 
    - What are the top 5-10 features that are going to excite attendees?
    - What makes your event different to any other event in the market? 
    - What problem does your event solve?
4. When are all of the industry and/or competitive events being held? Where possible, I always advise teams not to clash with established industry events that could be considered competitors.
5. Why should people care? This is blunt, but it’s important to ask. With more choices than ever, if you can’t identify your event’s “why” clearly and concisely, you might want to reconsider its existence. 

If you’ve been making your way through the activities listed in each step, you will already have a lot of the above completed. Before starting from scratch, take a look at the event scope you defined in Step 3. This will provide the platform to pull from when creating the foundation for your marketing plan. 

Once you’ve defined all of the above from the perspective of your target attendee, not your own, you will have the basis to create a targeted marketing campaign that will convert rather than getting lost in a sea of noise. 

PRO TIP: Before communicating any messaging to your target audience, make sure you put it through the Grandparent or Neighbor Test: If it’s not simple enough for someone outside of your industry to comprehend, you shouldn’t publish it. 

This article is from my 7 Steps to Event Success! 

To ensure you don't miss a step, sign up for our monthly newsletter and we'll deliver 7 Steps to Event Success! directly to your inbox.