As most event marketers know, promoting an event can seem like a full-time job in and of itself, and the various tactics and methods that can be employed can be overwhelming. However, with a little planning and minimum effort, you can find ways for your attendees to do much of the heavy lifting for you.
We live in a viral age where a single meme or social media post can rack up millions of views and foster robust engagement in no time at all. These viral phenomena can, on occasion, even make international news. But unfortunately, you can still spend hours or even days sending out email or mail invites with only a fraction of people ultimately RSVPing, and an even smaller number actually attending. How then, can you leverage that word-of-mouth viral power to not only spread the news of your events, but also incentivize more people to attend?
In this article, we’ll explore six strategies you can use to skyrocket attendance, create a buzz around your event, and keep attendees coming back.
Harness the Power of Personal Invitations
With a platform like InGo you can make the registration process quick and easy and keep attendees connected along the way. Once an attendee has registered, InGo makes it easy for them to share your event with their networks. Real posts from your guests will appear in news feeds rather than sidebars, and they can even send personal messages directly from the platform, helping spread authentic word of mouth.
InGo believes that your current attendees hold the key to your future ones and we empower them to invite their colleagues and friends in just a few clicks. InGo also helps keep everyone connected before the event by keeping everyone informed as their network registers, and sends suggestions for more people they should invite.
Offer Group Pricing
While this may be one of the more obvious strategies, it’s also proven to be incredibly effective. Offering a discount to attendees if they can convince a few friends or colleagues to attend with them, is a great way to incentivize your audience.
Shoptalk, the world’s largest retail and e-commerce conference, uses this strategy to boost its ticket sales. The standard rate to attend is $2,500 per ticket, although qualifying attendees can receive a 26% discount on this. However, should attendees purchase three or four tickets at once, the per-ticket price drops to $1,750. Five or six costs $1,700, and so on.
It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that there’s a real incentive there for the single person you’ve invited to share the news of your event and find eight or nine more people who would also like to attend.
Create On-site Incentives
Creating special incentives and experiences for people who refer others is another great way to incentivize your audience.
Examples include exclusive panels for those who come in groups, access to a VIP lounge, the opportunity to meet and greet with speakers, or even gift bags. Most people like to feel like they are getting something special that others are not, so offering these incentives provides a great way to sell that idea of exclusivity and incentivize your guests to book in groups.
The UK-based Ashford Designer Outlet offers a range of exclusive benefits for pre-booked groups, including VIP packs, a voucher for a 10% discount in participating stores, exclusive discounts, and special meal vouchers, which demonstrates just some of the special incentives which can be offered for group bookings.
Utilize Competitions
Competitions have become increasingly popular, especially on social media, with hundreds of brands offering competition entry in exchange for some combination of liking, commenting, sharing, or uploading a post.
The UK’s biggest dance event, Move It, runs a competition on Instagram where users can win a pair of VIP tickets for the event, by completing an activity and sharing it appropriately on their social media channels. A single winner is then chosen at random from all those who enter and for the price of two tickets, they generated a huge amount of social media buzz and promotion for the event.
Leverage the Power of Your Speakers
Speakers who frequent the conference circuit will come complete with their own army of passionate fans who follow them on social media. If you have any of these heavy hitters on your agenda, make sure to encourage them to promote their attendance to their own audiences. Again, InGo makes this a breeze for your speakers. Rather than creating social media posts and contacting your speakers individually, you can leverage the ease and efficiency of the InGo platform and empower your speakers to share their appearance at your event.
Ask!
Don’t underestimate the power of simply asking you guests to help promote your event. Most people are happy to help and will jump at the chance to share what they’re doing with their friends and colleagues. It’s a well known fact that word-of-mouth can be a powerful marketing tool. In fact, 92% of consumers trust peer recommendations over advertising, and with InGo, it’s easy to leverage the power of peer-to-peer referrals for your next event.
Conclusion
Promoting your event doesn’t have to be challenging or time consuming. Whether you choose to employ referral marketing, create competitions, or offer group discounts, there are many ways to ensure your event is a success. With InGo, you can empower your attendees, speakers, and sponsors to help market your event while also showing off their own activities.
If you’d like to see how the #1 referral marketing tool can work for your next event, contact InGo today to schedule a demo!
