How to Promote and Sell Out Live Events

If you want to fill the seats of your next event, whether it be a boardroom style conference, multi-day speaker summit, product launch, awards night, function or membership retreats you need to master your promotions in the lead up. Luckily we've worked with the world's best event promoters and have the tips you need, shared right here.

Large Scale Speaker Summit.

THE EARLY BIRD

You know the saying right? 'The early bird gets the worm'. That rings very true when it comes to the promotion of your event, in fact you can start promotion from the very moment you have the idea.

That might sound crazy to you because, how can you promote something with no venue picked? No speakers or special guests booked? No schedule or date in place?

Well, part of hosting a wildly successful event is bringing your audience on the journey with you, and you may even discover some hidden gems of ideas via your audience recommendations. So make sure you capture and share during the ideation and planning phase.

Not only will you be getting your audience invested alongside you with the success of your event, but you'll be warming them up for the first and vital ticket sales known as the "Early Bird" sale.

Small scale membership function.

20% to upwards and above 50% of all ticket sales can happen during this 'Early Bird' promotion, so it has to be unbeatable value and stacked with all the options you can possibly pull together (a few of which we'll talk about in a moment).

You should be costing these tickets at the absolute minimum price, think of these as your most sincere thank you to your potential attendees, for your most loyal fans who have been following the journey of the event and give them an offer they can't refuse...in the most genuine sense.

Ensure you drive that FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and set a short but practical end date to the promotion. And importantly, you must remain firm that these deals, at these prices, WILL NOT be available again.

THE VIP BENEFITS

Every event, no matter how big or small will have the ability to provide special value to those willing to pay more, from front row tickets to the nosebleed section. These deluxe offerings become a major piece of your marketing funnel and will give you so much more to use during every phase of promotion and help provide extra money in the tank.

So what are some ideas to consider and how can they be utilised during promotions?

Seating Maps

If you've ever booked a concert or sporting event ticket, you'd have seen these before. And the difference in cost for you to provide any difference in this seating can be either free or very minimal.

Audience members will pay more simply to sit up front and centre and will be happy to sit way up back for the most affordable price. But you can change things up to bring simply but worthwhile changes to those who purchase the "VIP option".

Many venues will have the option to bring in 'classroom' style tables, so your first row's can have that extra comfort to write notes, place their bags underneath and have some glasses and water in front of them.

Goodies Bags

It's amazing how many events I've been to where something as simple as the colour of your lanyard will set audience members a part from each other and give those who purchase the highest priced tickets that elite feeling.

Platinum, gold, silver or bronze? Of course I want to be the "Platinum VIP".

But generally you can't simply stop there. Special pins, exclusive offers and discounts from speakers or partners of the event, custom workbooks, notepads, pens. All can be very low cost but effective means of making your attendees feel special.

Meet and Greats

A shake of the hand and a quick photo right the way through to private lunches or even post event special sessions. When you're booking your speakers or guests for your events it's important to discuss what options you have to provide that extra value to your audience.

I can tell you from experience that people will pay handsomely to line up and have a photo with Arnold Schwarzenegger, have a lunch break with Gary Vaynerchuk, or sit in a private mentoring session with Richard Branson.

Your lineup of speakers, guests or performers will have their own star power so utilise it in the best way you can to make your event a standout.

Special Deals

By no means is the above a comprehensive list of what you can offer, but it's to provide an idea of what can be utilised during promotions to either entice a higher ticket price, stack more value into your advertised offer or to be used throughout your funnel as add ons.

For example, with your 'Early Bird' sale. Could you offer the platinum level goodies bag for free as part of that deal? Are there special additional item/s that could be added for that limited time only? Could the VIP seating and Meet and Great be discounted by 50% or more? All of this needs clear video marketing that delivers the right results.

Mid size Speaker Event

THE FUNNEL

If you've been around the marketing industry at all you've most likely heard of a 'marketing funnel' in some form or another. We're not here to break your brain with yet another formula of how this funnel should work but there is one hugely important step to marketing funnels that a lot of people forget.

That is to support it all with video.

You may have experienced what it's like to land on a funnel website, it's often stacked with information, deals, offers, reviews, testimonials, words on words on words. And people don't like to read, at least not right away.

So it's important to use video to hook them in and get across the key information needed to lead them to either a direct sale, or to find out more.

The simple way to look at this is that the paid and/or organic video marketing has led them to your site, but now you need to be there to guide them in the right direction. Which is more than just providing them with a landing page video.

Do you have the ability to share video testimonials or highlights of previous events? That VIP pack upgrade, that'll require a video to sell it. If someone clicks onto your funnel but doesn't make a purchase, don't just send an email, link them to a video to highlight what they'll be missing out on.

This is where you really need to plan out the complete marketing effort, and utilise video throughout as it's much simpler to get someone to watch a 30 second video that encourages them to take the next step then it is to ask them to read through yet another website.

At Meister Creative our team has worked at some of the biggest events in the world with some of the top event promoters, capturing big names like Russell Brunson, Gary Vee, Richard Branson, Robert Kiyosaki, Grant Cardone and more.

We've also worked in collaboration with private membership retreats, industry conferences and local hotel room functions and events and we know how to successfully promote events of all sizes from the ground up.

If you want a video production team that will go above and beyond to work side by side with you to promote and capture your event in the best light possible, we are that team.

Whilst we've aimed to provide as much value as we can in the text above, that's only scratching the surface of what you need to know and what is possible. So fill out the form at the bottom of this page of click the button below to chat with our team today and let's create some magic together!

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