Event Marketing Ideas: Sell Out Your Event in 5 Days! 😎
In this video we tell you EXACTLY how we used epic event marketing to sell ATOMICON 2019 tickets, and pretty much sold out within the first 5 days!
It was mental! We only expected to sell 40 tickets in that first week, 100 in total for the event, but instead we sold 280 in the first 5 days!
So we wanted to share what we did. If you’re looking to put on an event then this is a must watch, but actually there’s a lot of sales lessons in here that you can apply to anything you’re trying to sell.
Watch the video…
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In this video 👆 we tell you EXACTLY how we used epic event marketing to sell ATOMICON 2019 tickets, and pretty much sold out within the first 5 days!
It was mental! We only expected to sell 40 tickets in that first week, 100 in total, but instead we sold 280 in the first 5 days – you guys are AMAZING!
So we wanted to share what we did, and if you’re looking on putting on an event then keep on watching, but actually there’s a lot of sales lessons in here that you can apply to anything you’re trying to sell.
The birth of ATOMICON… we maxed out the promotion!
We recently announced that we are doing our very first LIVE event conference, and we had the most crazy week of our career so far when we put those tickets on sale.
Here’s the thing… we were nervous nobody would want to come, so we made sure we maxed out the event marketing and promotion, and boy did it work! 💥 By the time this video comes out we don’t think we’re gonna have any tickets left… so if you wanna come make sure you’re on the waiting list for next year, and if you do have a ticket and you’re excited… let us know in the comments 👇
But, what does maxing out the promotion actually mean? Well we’re gonna break it down for you and tell you the 9 things we did to market ATOMICON that you can do it too!
Launch based on demand
We launched ATOMICON based on demand. Doing this event wasn’t a full stab in the dark.
We surveyed our ATOMIC members recently and in the question where it said, ‘Do you have any other suggestions?’, a whopping 25% of them said ‘we want an event!’
25% of people UNPROMPTED asked for it.
Now you might not have a membership, but before you launch ANYTHING, an event or otherwise, make sure people want it.
That small sub-section of people gave us the initial traction to run with it!
Brand it BABY
Branding is SO important when it comes to selling anything – including an event.
Depending on how competitive the event space is in your industry, the brand can be the main differentiator.
Not only did we literally want to make sure it LOOKS GOOD, we wanted to make sure ATOMICON stood out with the design of it, so people got a sense of what the event was going to be like.
If you’re in Year 1, you don’t have anything else to go on! We didn’t have photos of a previous event so we put a lot of time not only into getting the logos, colours and themes right, but also the wording, the tone of the whole landing page and experience after buying – more on that later!
Sell your Speakers
This can be selling your speakers or, if you don’t have speakers, whatever it is that people are coming to your event for.
Although there may be some well known names in your industry, don’t assume people know who they are and that just having ‘a name’ is going to move tickets.
Tell people why your speakers are blooming awesome, why you’ve picked them, and make sure people know that you have picked awesome people!
Pre-launch
The fourth thing we did as part of our event marketing, was a pre-launch. We told people about the event wayyyyy before they could actually buy a ticket and we got them to join a pre-launch email list.
We’re going to do the exact same thing for next year too, so this isn’t just a tactic for year 1.
Because this is your buzz period and where you get people excited you want as much excitement built as possible before the launch that the day you launch, it’s crazyyyyyy!
You want to start with a bang out the gates, not a whimper.
Do a Flash Sale at Crazy Price
To make that buzz explode we held a crazy flash sale with a discounted ticket price.
Now next year when we do this we’re gonna take the whole week off to dedicate to this FLASH sale – because you don’t get much work done!
In this flash sale, it should be all hands on deck. Utilise ALL your marketing channels – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn… resurrect Google +, Blab, MeerKat – STOP AT NOTHING! 😁
Set the price so people are getting a good deal and set a short (no more than a week) window to get it in.
Make it EASY to share when you bought a ticket
The next thing to do once you have this buzz and people buying tickets, is to maximise your ticket holders… they are your marketing champions!
Make it super easy for them to share! We simply created a branded GIF for them to use, and some easy Clicks to Tweets – but we have some stuff up our sleeves to make this next level.
The buzz on social was heartwarming – so thank you to everyone who shared it!
Make it easy to share for the speakers to get involved in the event marketing
Also don’t forget about your lovely speakers, make it easy for them to contribute to the event marketing and promote the event for you.
Here’s the question you need to ask them…
“We’d love it if you’d help us promote the event in this time period, what can we do or create to make that super easy for you?”
Of course, do the standard speaker graphics, but basically if your speakers have audiences, be on tap to help them promote it to them.
Whether that’s bespoke email campaigns, or Instagram graphics, or joint Facebook lives… whatever they need.
Bonus tip here, if you’ve nailed all the other previous points mentioned the speakers are more likely to want to share the event far and wide because it makes them look good if your event looks good!
Max the Email Promotion
Next up in your event marketing strategy is email promotion. Email marketing shifts tickets. Our sales spiked on the days where we sold it via email.
Here’s the key… the flash sale gives you an excuse to email maybe a bit more than usual because your subscribers should know it’s not the norm to email them every single minute.
In the flash sale which ran from Monday to Friday, we did 3 emails on Mon, Wed and Fri… we could have maybe even done more.
After the Wednesday email we got 1 or 2 complaints and that ALMOST put us off sending on Friday to everyone again… but we didn’t, we segmented the complaints out and went again on the last day, and actually sold more on the Friday than any other day.
So, sell with your email list maybe a bit more than you feel comfortable with is the lesson there.
Build Your Audience and Reputation
Our final tip on event marketing is actually something to do prior to selling tickets, and that is to build your audience and reputation.
Believe us it is wayyyyy easier to sell something once you have built an audience with useful, valuable content, and if you want to know how we approach that, check out our free online workshop Content Marketing Decoded!
Thank you SO MUCH for everyone who has supported us to put on this event… it is our mission to make it the BEST Digital Marketing Conference that those attendees have ever been too.
We are gonna have so much fun, and learn so much from all the speakers… we are STOKED!
There are no tickets left at this point for 2019, but you can get on the wait list for any drop outs here.