At InfoTrust, event planning and event marketing is a task that is ongoing. With monthly breakfast and digital marketing events (now with our new webinar option!), we are constantly promoting, marketing and recruiting potential attendees to attend and listen to our own Michael Loban. After helping the marketing team with promoting and planning my first event, I realized there is a lot more to event planning than I had originally thought.
I know what you’re thinking, by now we should have the promotional aspect of event planning down, considering we have an event every month. But that’s where the title of this blog comes into play. Unfortunately, many people believe that the most important way to measure the success of an event is by quantity- or how many people show up. Wrong! If you spend time preparing a presentation with specific content, information, and meaning, wouldn’t you want it to be heard by people who will actually use it? If your event is focused towards digital marketing, having 100 musicians in attendance isn’t really going to get you anywhere. Wouldn’t you rather have about 15 qualified, interested, and motivated digital marketers be in attendance instead? Thought so! That’s why I want to emphasize quality not quantity. Hint: Quality also makes the transition from lead to customer a much quicker, easier process.
Now, how do you measure quality? While there are many different ways, there are a couple I’d like to highlight:
- Job Title and Company– Obviously, having a CEO or another head honcho from an incredible company would be the ideal attendee. But let’s be realistic. When looking to attract attendees, you want to target the companies and, more specifically, the people within those companies who will benefit from what you have to say. Actually getting their attention, though, is the hard part. This requires a little bit of research. LinkedIn is a vital social media outlet that can be taken advantage of in this respect. This portal gives you access to thousands of professionals and groups. If you’re putting on an event, you most likely are already a member of LinkedIn groups relevant to your event topics and services (and if you’re not you should be!). Why not promote in these group pages? That way, other individuals who are interested in the topic will see and hopefully consider attending. Promoting your event on other sites and event pages where you know it will be seen by the right people is critical. While these may vary from event to event, The Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce and Cincinnati Business Courier are two that may be more attractive than say, your local news’ events website. Reaching out to an individual in your network that fits your qualifications may be a good idea as well. Put your marketing and recruiting skills to work!
- ROI– When it comes to events, we see a multitude of different faces. First, there’s the regulars: Those that come to every event but never seem to be affected by the information or services offered. Maybe they just really like free coffee? Then there’s the networkers: Those that come for the sole purpose of, well, networking. And of course, the ones that bustle out of the venue before the event is even over. These attendees may generate the majority of your turnout, but how much reveue are they bringing to your company? How many of these people are actually having a conversation with you after the event? How many can you consider a qualified lead? If you leave a promotional event with zero prospects, then you may want to reconsider your marketing strategy. You don’t want to put a lot of time and effort into an event that doesn’t have any sort of positive outcome for the attendants and, of course, for YOU!
While this may take a little bit more time than cold calling, blasting emails, or promoting on free local sites, the payoff will be worth it! Event planning is all about communication. Knowing how and where to communicate, as well as who to communicate with is a skill that, with practice and some time, will be a huge asset in your event marketing. Hubspot is another beneficial tool to utilize for event planning- marketing automation is all the rage these days. Not only can you promote the event, but it also allows you to easily maintain contact with past and future attendees by sending automated emails. It takes event planning to the next level!
So, the moral of the story: Focus on who’s coming to your event, not on the numbers. Of course, you don’t want to be so specific that only one person shows up, but there’s nothing wrong with being a little picky!
Article written by Jill Schmidt
