By replacing ‘marketing’ with ‘efficacious marketing’. You can go crazy with your promotional activities,
Click To Tweet

#1 A Pint With Old Friends 

A golden rule of event management is the 80/20 rule, which establishes that 80% of your business will come from 20% of the past attendees. Of course, it is important to reel in new attendees, but your old and faithful attendees deserve special treatment for two major reasons – one, because they are already aware of your brand and have shared an experience with you, it is a lot easier to get them to buy the tickets and two, because rewarding them and giving them incentives will mean that they’ll get the word out in their circles along with a positive feedback about your previous event, directly bringing in more audience. These free incentives could range from special discounts on event tickets to little gift hampers.

#2 Mentors Give You Perspective, Sponsors Give You Opportunities

Event marketing services come in forms other than financial support. It is perfectly alright to feel awkward while approaching your sponsors for promotions when they’re already paying you. Overcome this block that makes you think “sponsorship equals charity”. Remember, sponsors are paying you because you’re endorsing them, so it makes sense if you approach them as a part of your marketing strategy. Also, your sponsors will usually be big companies, so these event marketing strategies will expose you to a whole new audience.

#3 Invitees Become Investors

Now that you’ve gotten over that mind block with your sponsors, it shouldn’t be difficult to broadcast a similar message to your attendees. A lot of event presenters have been trying “referral schemes” to increase ticket sales because $29 for 2 always sounds better than $15 for 1. Your referral scheme can be something really unique to your brand, and it could have a two-way advantage for you – by increasing online ticket selling of events and promotion of your brand. For example, with every referral, you could give away free products of your company.

#4 Because No Feeling Is Better Than Feeling Special

Sometimes uniformity doesn’t work out, and the event industry stands witness to it. This business relies so much on customer satisfaction that you cannot turn them down. Often, you will come across attendees who would be willing to attend your event for one or two seminars, or people who would be wanting to attend but will have time and place constraints holding them back. For them, you could have different ticket categories so that they pay for what they’re interested in. Also, for a nominal amount, you offer live streaming or online feeds of the event for those who cannot be physically present. This will not just ensure more participation, but also cement you as a considerate and thoughtful planner.

#5 Give Them A Chance To “Earn” Their Tickets

Remember the tagline – “You don’t just buy a Bournville; you earn it.”
Though, in this case, your attendees may not have to buy the tickets in the first place. Social Media Marketing is a very, VERY powerful tool (which is why it is ALWAYS there on every marketing blog) and if all you’re doing on your social media accounts is posting content, then you’re not using it optimally. Build a more interactive platform by hosting contests on social media, and reward the winners with free tickets and goodies. And when you’re designing the contest, keep in mind that it’s not only aimed at branding but also building a rapport with your potential attendees.

#6 EVENT-CEPTION

The concept is very simple – have a smaller event a few days before your main event, wherein you could have glimpses of your main event to get people excited hyped. For example, if you have a big concert coming up, your band could go and perform a small gig at a café or a park where you are most likely to find your target audience. After you have their attention, you can inform them about the upcoming concert and set up a small registration desk for people to buy tickets right away (without really giving them a chance to change their minds after that big impression you’ve created).

#7 Less Is More

You can always use the ‘HURRY UP! ONLY 15 TICKETS LEFT!’ (and then the counter decrements to display 14) tactic for selling your last minute tickets. Awakening a sense of urgency always works when you’re trying to sell tickets to those who are doubtful. It’s a process that goes like this:
“Oh, I’m really not sure if I should be attending this event. They do have some good speakers, but is it really worth the time and money? I should call up Joey and ask if he’s going, too… ONLY 2 EVENT TICKETS LEFT?! *registers* *buys ticket* *checks out* Phew, that was close!”
You could install a countdown widget on your website and social media platforms, but NEVER lower your price because it is downright unfair to the attendees who bought your tickets way back at the standard rates. You will lose a lot of your faithful attendees if you make that one wrong move.

CONCLUSION

Of course, your ticket sales speak about your revenue, so it is important to try whatever you can do to maximize the online ticket selling of your event. But, overthinking might actually result in things going haywire. So, keep calm and trust these 7 marketing tactics for boosted sales, and don’t be scared to take risks. If you know of other methods that have worked for you, do share them with us in the comments below!

The post Marketing Tips to Increase Event Ticket Sales appeared first on Yapsody.

I see presenters spending so much on advertising and marketing campaigns that have zero (why am I using this word, or number, so much!?) effectiveness. What they don’t realize is that the conversion rate (percentage of website visitors who end up registering for your event) should be their prime focus. For example, if a 1% conversion rate meant 600 attendees, 2% will directly imply 1200 registrations. Now that you know how serious this is, let’s go ahead.

Oh, and I totally forgot, all these methods are going to cost you zero (again!) money, just like Yapsody’s General Admission events (that’s how marketing is done, folks).

CONTENT

The primary rule of website content is that all of it should aim at selling your event, directly or indirectly. All. Of. It.

Once you’ve fitted that in your head, drill these rules, too:

• Start with your conclusion
• Use headings
• Keep the content crisp and brief
• Bullet and number information
• Summarize
• Highlight important information
• Respect privacy and copyrights

Now that we know the rules, let’s play the game. The kind of content that you could put up on your website includes:

• Information related to top speakers, previous participants, and also feedback that previous attendees have given, celebrity endorsements, press mentions, pictures from your previous events etc. in order to build trust.
• Up-to-date information i.e. always keep an eye on prices and discounts that your website displays. You could also embed a Twitter/Facebook feed or run an active blog.
• Nothing that doesn’t serve the purpose of getting people to register for event. This is usually the annoying banners selling foreign products, newsletter subscriptions, or auto-playing videos that can be really distracting and ward off potential registrants.

CALL TO ACTION

This is how you have to actually provoke website visitors to register for your event. To the eyes of the audience, it’s just a button, but to a presenter, these four elements actually build the button:

Offer your registrants something that’s beyond good speakers, food, venue, and agenda. It’s only when you offer them discounts or free coupons that you actually grab their attention.

Create a feeling of urgency to persuade them to register immediately, or they might exceed the time limit or the event might sell out. Limiting the time and quantity makes people who are probably not even interested get in the flow and register.

If you’re hosting a great event, you shouldn’t be hesitating in assuring registrants that they are guaranteed complete refund on cancellation or in other similar scenarios. This makes you more dependable and eradicates double thoughts from their minds.

Your call to action statement should be a strong imperative verb that invites the viewer to perform a task immediately, almost subconsciously. Verbs like “Buy Tickets” or “Register Now” possess the characteristics of a strong call to action.

COSTING

Start off with chalking out the average price of your ticket, and construct all ticket categories, special offers, and discounts around that price. For example, if your average ticket price is $30, your tickets should range from $25 to $50. Make use of these tactics to maximize sales:

• Have a minimum of two categories always (VIP and Executive, for example)
• Have at least three ticket types that trigger urgency (Earlier than Early Bird, Early Bird, Standard)
• Special offers can comprise of discounts for tickets amounting to more than $100, group discounts for 5 people and so on.
• Code discounts are yet another way to offer discounts that can be made exclusive and limited in time/quantity so that people feel the urge to use them.

NEVER offer tickets at a lower price than you did before for the same event. This is highly frowned upon in the events industry because your attendees will be infuriated if they purchased tickets to your event 3 months prior to the event, and people are availing “last minute discounts” to get them at a cheaper rate.

CHECKOUT

Your advertisements and promotional gigs may have lured people into visiting your website, but if your registration and checkout process is not impeccable, your conversation rate may take a dip. Make sure you keep the following points in mind when you craft your registration process:

• Make your registration form as simple as possible. If you have fields that may be unclear, don’t forget to add help text.
• Make it concise. Don’t ask for irrelevant and unnecessary information.
• Account registrations seem to lengthen the process to visitors, so try to avoid them.
• Localize language, currency, and payment methods depending upon the market and your target audience, because this is said to boost registration by up to 300%.
• Restrict the registration process to your website and avoid redirecting your visitors to another webpage, as this discontinuity and inconsistency may tamper with your brand’s identity.
• Use the right event registration and ticketing software that caters to all your needs. Yapsody offers you a ticketing platform that is user-friendly and professional at the same time, and has a number of other features *embed a link to the features page here* at your disposal that can help you plan out your event efficiently.

CONCLUSION

Your marketing campaigns are bound to fail if your website, which is practically the face of your event, isn’t up to the mark. Make sure you incorporate these four C’s as you work on your website, and your conversion rate is very likely to boost up.

The post Ways To Sell More Tickets With Zero Budget appeared first on Yapsody.