Running Your Own Event: Everything You Need to Know

Event marketing is the promotion of your brand or product through...well, events! Event marketing is the best way to build a meaningful connection to your customers. Events are a powerful tool for everyone - even if you’re also engaged in course or community marketing.

It may feel intimidating to add a whole new marketing strategy - but HeySummit is here with all the tools and resources you need to streamline the process and start seeing an impact fast.

Want to crunch some numbers to see if your event idea will pay off in terms of time and money? Our Events Marketing Formula will help you work out your cost-benefit in concrete terms.

You’ve heard the phrase, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, right? Well scrap that. It’s exactly what your customers will be doing on your landing page. Everything about your landing page from its headline to basic event details must be based on one call-to-action: registering for your event.
‍
It’s a balancing act to make sure that your customers know exactly what they’re committing to without bombarding them with details. But bear in mind that they’ve probably read the finer event details before arriving at your landing page. 

Here are some of our top tips for effective landing pages:

Keep it short and sweet

Your landing page needs to be eye-catching, on-brand, and most importantly, easy to understand. It’s one thing to browse various products, it’s another to consider purchasing. Your attendee needs to know exactly what they’re committing to - and feel excited about it! 

Your event title will probably be the first thing your customer reads, followed by your session titles. It’s unlikely that they’ll read more than two to three lines on each session or talk. 

Our templates  will help you build your landing page quickly and summarise your event as clearly as possible. 

Use your headline speakers

If one of your speakers is garnering a lot of traffic, consider including them in a featured content block on your landing page. Just a name, photograph, and brief bio will be enough of a push for many of your leads to convert.

Have a countdown timer

A live countdown timer builds a keen sense of anticipation for your event - and provides incentive for conversions. 
‍
If your potential customer is visiting your landing page, they’re already expressing an interest. The last thing you want them to do is think, “Oh, I’ll decide later”, and then forget all about it.
‍
One of the best incentives out there is urgency. There’s nothing like watching the seconds tick by to hurry along your decision making.

Be smart with your language use

This is another one about urgency. Instructing your potential customers to ‘secure’ their place or ticket, (instead of ‘book’, for example) tells them that they need to take action to ensure that they don’t miss out. 
‍
Show that your tickets, even if they’re free, won’t be there forever. 
‍
Take a look at [this article] for more tips on building your event (including the landing page!).  

Use your Attendee Persona
‍
When you’re pricing your tickets the very first thing you’ve got to consider is your attendee persona:
What can my audience  afford?
‍
What would they be willing to pay?

What’s their schedule?
‍
Think about what might stop your potential attendee from buying a ticket or reserving a free spot at your event, even if they got all the way to your ticket page. Find their pain points (be it financial, time sensitive, or an uncertainty about what your event offers) and address them.

Here are some hints to get you started with your ticketing:

‍
Be clear about what you’re offering

We have to respond to so many questions about tickets with, “It depends...”. But this one we can confidently say applies to all virtual events: be clear about what you’re offering.  

If your customers aren’t sure about what they’re being offered, they probably won't stick around to figure it out. Describe your offers concisely and clearly. Don’t oversell, don’t undersell, don’t complicate.

Offer discounts to increase your reach

‍‍Coupon codes and other discounts are a great way to provide an extra push towards conversion. You can also stagger your discounts so that last-minute buyers have an incentive if they missed out on early-bird tickets.
‍
There's a whole world of ticketing out there.  Check out our deep dive on ticketing for more advice on discounts, pricing, and more.

Start from your attendee persona. Yup, we’re never going to get sick of saying that (sorry not sorry).

1. Look at the community you’re engaging with in your event. Someone in that community will probably be interested in sponsorship.
2. Use your network.
3. Consider sellers of complementary products and services that your attendees are looking to buy.
4. Do research into companies that have sponsored initiatives similar to your event. Think small companies here.

As always, be clear and honest about what you’re asking.

Take care to show that you’re open to flexibility whilst making your initial offer clear. It’s very possible that your sponsors have something specific in mind.

There’s a lot to think about with sponsors. If you’re ready for more, take a look at our step-by-step guide on event sponsorship if you haven’t already.Start from your attendee persona. Yup, we’re never going to get sick of saying that (sorry not sorry).