Beyond the Buzz - Boosting Event Ticket Sales

A successful event with a packed hall and multiple sponsors is a dream of every event planner. Planning your event well is the key driver for a successful event & part of that planning means driving up your delegate/ticket sales.

Selling delegate passes for your upcoming B2B event is undoubtedly the most critical component for hosting a successful event. It is the most challenging as well! How many times have planners resorted to last minute tactical moves to fill up those empty seats which they weren’t able to sell as envisaged earlier? Sounds familiar?

It may seem easier than ever to reach a lot of people online these days using digital & social media platforms, but the question remains the same. How do you get people to come to your event? Below are a few pointers which will give us a better view of working effectively in this direction.

Early bird pricing and regular pricing

This is a tried and tested method of increasing initial sales as soon as your event is announced. But the key is that you need to promote the early bird prices with clear, tangible & distinct benefits over the regular pricing to the attendees. You can also have the option of multiple early bird pricings. This would be to entice the attendees with the most lucrative price currently available making it irresistible for them to book in advance.

Keeping a lid on the deadline for the offer on tickets currently available for your event is also a way to get people to book earlier, as they aren’t sure when the deadline is expiring. But this is more beneficial for the more looked forward to events in the market which already has created a lot of buzz and excitement.

Shower rewards on your repeat delegates from last edition.

Especially if yours is an annual (periodic) event, without any doubt you should reach out to your attendees from your earlier editions first, on priority. The fact that they attended your event means that they are sold on your concept / platform and the chances of them coming again is very high. Reach out to them with a personalized special discount offer for early registration as an appreciation of their support to you. You can also offer those special discounts or even free pass if they are able to sell 2 or more delegates at their end to their colleagues or network groups.

Tie- Up with your industry Organizations & Media

Especially in a B2b events, it is very important to garner support and backing from associations & official bodies relevant to your industry. Partnering with the specialized media serving exclusively to these target organizations/individuals is also equally important. They open up your reach to a wider segment of your target audience who otherwise would be very difficult to reach & time consuming to connect & convert. It is an important process in the early days of your planning to reach out to them.

You can request the associations to promote your event to their members in exchange for special discounted delegate rates & other benefits. You can iron out barter programs with them and the industrial media houses for cross promotional campaigns with your event. It could be in exchange for brand exposure for them before, during & after the event. Complimentary stalls during the event, Passes for exclusive programs within the event or opportunity for their top management personnel to be a part of important round table or award ceremonies (to handover the awards) are a few other options that you could explore.

Having said that, you need to always have one eye on the objective of your event. This will enable you not to commit to something which would compromise the objective of your event or influence the desired outcome of your event, especially keeping the interests of your audience in your mind.

 Paid Promotion on Social Media

All Social Media platforms these days offer paid options to launch targeted advertisements & reach out to your target audience. You can accurately zero in on the right audience with specific options like location, age group, profession etc.

One common and critical point that your event has in common with  LinkedIn is that both the platforms are primarily looked as an important tool for networking within your industry by the members. Leverage this - create your LinkedIn event page to facilitate promotion  of your event & to increase interaction between professionals from your industry. Create LinkedIn groups to keep in touch regularly with the members of your community during the various phases of your event.

FB allows you to Create a Facebook page of your event for your community here to keep them engaged. Create & promote branded event hashtags on Instagram and twitter. Chalk out an effective social media marketing campaign.

Update your social media accounts consistently. Update them regularly with information about your conference or any new developments. Your announcements should be compelling enough for them to decide to attend your event & when they do so; your link to the registration page should be easily available to them to take action. Carry links to the event's registration page on all your announcements to facilitate easy registration to your event.

Your Company Website

 This is very important tool for conversions. Especially your home page which should carry all your conference promotion details. All the other pages of your website should feature links to the event registration page. The link should be easy to find and navigation once they reach the registration page should also be simple, especially the payment process.

Leverage your Sponsors

Your event sponsors will be very keen to be part of a rocking & successful event. They will want to go that extra mile to help you with its promotion, but the fact is that you have to drive it. You need to be pro-active and help them with ready to use creative & promotional templates to reach out to the target audience through their available digital platforms and social media handles.

Negotiate various mutually beneficial promotional terms with them at the time of signing the sponsorship agreement. A sponsorship page on your website with a backlink to the sponsor website is a given. You could explore couple of guest posts from relevant senior management of your sponsors organization on your company blog. If they are repeat sponsors share their experience with your event on your media platforms.

Leverage your Speakers

 Ask your shortlisted speakers to write blog posts promoting their individual sessions. Since all speakers are domain experts & key opinion leaders from the industry, they command a large following across various media platforms. They have been roped in by you for the content that they create & are known for. Leverage this aspect. Reach out to them. Request them to contribute guest blog posts promoting their sessions and the event as a whole.

Create short video clips which you can use for promotion. Share these videos & also their customized speaker profiles in ready to use formats with them. This will make making easier for them to share it with their network increasing the reach of your event indirectly. This will definitely give a boost your ticket sales.

Influencer Marketing

This is a trending medium - something which can definitely be explored. Identify potential influencers within your niche, reach out to them and understand the potential of a possible paid promotional campaign with them to reach out to their followers. 

To cut the long story short – Delegates are the crux of a successful event. So as a planner you need to get into their shoes and really understand the reason why they would want to come to your event. Networking & Content are the primary drivers for them. If you can create enough activation & touch points to enable this, half the battle is won.

The other half is communicating these aspects of your event platform to the prospective attendees effectively. The above discussed points are just a few of the key ones. Be creative to explore other mediums too. Focus on the catalytic components of your event which the prospect is looking out for & go all over town with it. Explore all available advertising & promotional options available to you. Highlight the top attractions of your events. Shout out from roof tops about the terrific takeaways your event has in store for the delegates attending it. 

Promote your speakers, your sponsors, the special events within your event etc. Create a sense of FOMO amongst the prospective target audience.

However as I often keep repeating, the audience & the purpose of your event should be the driving force in shaping all your delegate promotional plans.

For all your feedbacks or for any kind of content/concept collaborations /training requirements please reach out to:

connect@nairarvind.com or 9870201422