How often do you update your blog? If you’re consumed by guilt at this question, then you need to read on to learn from your mistakes. If not, you should still read on to find out more about how to make the most of your blog.

1. Are you committed to your blog?

When you start off a blog for your company, it’s going to take some time to make a mark. If you thought that you would miraculously get overwhelming results and blog traffic that’s impressive in just a couple of days, you couldn’t be more wrong. Things like these take their own sweet time and impatience would only make matters worse. The trick is to stay committed even when the going gets tough. If you’re disappointed with the fact that your blog posts aren’t getting enough views and comments and you decide to give up halfway, you’ll be making the biggest mistake of your life. You need to put up quality content and remain dedicated to your blog.

2. Are you doing the best you can?

Have you done enough for your blog? Are you giving your customers something worthy enough? These are a few questions you need to ask yourself. Look at your blogs from another perspective – if you come across such blog posts like the ones you’ve published, would you read them? If not, how can you expect your customers to actually sit and read the whole thing? Some blogs make the grave mistake of publishing articles that seem like a press release. No one wants to waste their precious time reading that! You need to make sure that your blog makes your customers drop everything and make your blog posts their priority.

3. Have you maintained your blog?

This is the most important aspect of running a blog. You need to nurture it and maintain it so that you can make the most of all that it has to offer. You need to update it regularly, fill it with interesting content of top-notch quality and also optimize it for best results. If your blog doesn’t feature in the first page of the search engine results, customers are going to remain oblivious to your blog no matter how interesting it is. That’s precisely why retargeting your blog should be the next item on your agenda.

We’re not just talking about a few views and comments on your blog posts here, we’re talking of the bigger picture. The number of people reading your blogs would increase your website traffic. With more people taking an interest in your website, you’re going to be soaring higher than you ever imagined.

With Yapsody as your online event registration platform, you can start selling tickets online and also build content for your blog through our event marketing services.

The post How Company Blog Helps in Promoting The Brand? appeared first on Yapsody.

Event marketing isn’t as easy as it seems – it is not just about using the resources at hand, like social media, to advertise your event, it is about having a marketing strategy that is driven by a solid timeline and clever tactics. Remember, no two events are the same; never make the mistake of generalizing your event strategies, that would be a grave error on your part. If you’re still confused about how to proceed with event campaign, these pointers could come in handy.

Pre-Event Planning

The pre-event stage is critical since this will make or break your event. Most people make the mistake of starting the marketing campaign when the event is ready to be launched. You need to get the word out even before the details of the event have been finalized. So what if the trivial details haven’t been decided yet? You can still start a page online, and keep updating the page as and when the details are finalized. For example, you could have your page SEO optimized, and that would definitely increase the traffic to your page. Blog posts to the official page also form an important part of the marketing campaign.

An important part of pre-event marketing is partner outreach. You must reach out to as many companies and collaborators for partnership; that would amp up your resources which would be helpful in the next stage of the planning.

The Main Event

Just before the launch of the event, you could start an email campaign, that would reach out to your target audience. When people visit the page you’ve created, they get the option of signing up. You could send out an email blast to all those who’ve signed up, including your potential clients.

If you have some idea about PR, you’ll know how important a press release is. When your event has been launched, you could send out an official press release to all the eminent media houses to ensure maximum publicity. For more press coverage, you could even opt for search engine optimization which would bring your event into the spotlight.

It’s A Continuous Process

Paid promotion is a continuous process; you need to take every day into account and plan your strategy beforehand. For instance, you could make use of social posts and blogging to give your marketing a boost.

You have your attendee referral, don’t you? Keep that in mind while devising your marketing plans. Google adverts and Google AdWords would be a great way to promote your event in this particular stage.  This is a trying time for you as an event manager, you need to pull your socks up and give it all you’ve got!

The above roadmap could come to your rescue if you’re totally lost about how to plan your event marketing strategy. Official pages, blogs, email marketing, social posts, SEO, attendee referrals, paid promotion – there’s so much to take into consideration! Only a well thought out plan could help you with your endeavor. So go ahead, chalk out the perfect marketing strategy for your upcoming event!

The post How To Devise The Event Marketing Strategy For Upcoming Event appeared first on Yapsody.

1. Focus on quality. You have to keep your press release to-the-point, undoubtedly, but that shouldn’t disturb the essence of your article. Normal people are going to read your press release, and it might be the first impression you create in front of them. So, make sure the language you use is publish-worthy and appealing to the readers.
2. Find the sweet spot. Every event has a highlight, a sweet spot, which is responsible for roping in 70-80% of the target audience. Make use of this when you’re writing the headline for the press release. This may be an exclusive speaker, an exquisite venue, or a scrumptious cuisine – you ask around and see what interests people the most about your event.
3. Use bylines. A byline comes right under the headline and is not more than 15 words. The function of a byline is to enhance your press release and bring out a key factor of your event. For example, if your press release is titled “Wildhorse: Next Stop For The Tenors”, your byline could be a little elaboration of the title and could be something like: “The Tenors to continue their Under One Sky tour and perform live at Wildhorse Resort”
4. Cover the 5 W’s. As mentioned earlier, journalists are busy folks and definitely not big fans of long-form. Cut your press release short by addressing the 5 W’s – what, where, when, who, and why – in a nutshell.
5. Back up your body with quotes. Quotes are pretty impressive in press releases, so go ahead and put in words of your guest speakers, past attendees, or other mentions that your event has received elsewhere. This will boost up your event’s identity in front of your readers.
6. In conclusion. The last paragraph of your press release should be very crisp, where you wrap up the story and include contact information about your client and maybe your team as well. Also, put in a few details of what exactly your client does in this paragraph.

If you really want to excel in the art of writing press releases, you can adopt these habits:

1. Read plenty of good newspapers.
2. Refrain from using hyperbolic adjectives.
3. The press release should be written in the third-person format (no ‘I’, ‘We’, ‘You’ etc. unless it’s a quote).
4. Don’t exceed 300 words.
5. You can add a pitch letter along with the highlights of the story.
6. Place three “#”s at the end of the press release, center aligned.

The post 6 Tips To Write An Effective Press Release For Your Event appeared first on Yapsody.

Organizing and hosting an event are definitely big, BIG tasks. Often, these tire out presenters so much that once the event is done, they don’t care to look back and analyze anything; instead, they move on to the next event, looking for a change. This, I believe, is one of the biggest mistakes that event organizers commit.

Unless you evaluate your event, your success, your downfalls, you won’t be able to figure out the kind of mistakes you’ve committed, and what changes you should bring about in order to evade those mistakes in your next event. Hence, we have compiled a guide to the evaluation process for your event so that the next time you’re through with the event, analyzing it doesn’t seem like a big, BIG task.

Before we start…

There are a couple of things you need to have with you in order to start off with the evaluation process, and these include:

1. Attendee Feedback

This can be obtained through various means, and it is an absolute necessity if you want to know if your event goals have been reflected in your audience’s perspectives. You can ask them to fill out online forms in exchange for some incentives, or you can hand out hard copies during the event and collect them as they leave. If you have enough time on your hand, you could also create a focus group and have a meeting.

2. The Raw Data

Meaning, the initial information that you obtained before the event started. For example, if you asked a few questions to the ones who registered (why are you attending, where did you hear about the event), you could define the attributes of your target audience. At the same time, you could tally their answers with the responses you get from the event feedback and see if you’ve lived up to expectations.

3. Some Dedicated Time

Within 1-2 weeks of your event, schedule some time that your team can dedicate only for the evaluation of your event. Don’t make it longer than that, because with fading memories, you might lose important insights. At the same time, don’t keep it on the next day of your event because everybody needs time to settle, let things sink in, and do personal analyses.

I. THE BEGINNING

When you start working during the “dedicated time”, the first step is to analyze the basic questions, or the key questions that sum up the entire evaluation process. These questions are:

What went well?

It is only human to have the desire to jump on the improvement section first, but if you have to keep the meeting going and your team motivated, you need to start with your successes. Celebrate your accomplishments and make sure every team member, by the end of this session, has at least one thing to be proud of. Discussing this only gives you a reason to continue practicing the activities that were successful, and maybe make them even better for better results.

What can be improved?

Do. Not. Accuse. People.

Just don’t. Because, nobody is perfect, and if you pinpoint people for their mistakes, it will only demoralize them. Plus, it makes much more sense to discuss improvements in things and processes. Ask every team member to contribute at least one idea that could’ve made the event better (and can make the next one the best one) and appreciate the team’s efforts to learn and grow.

How can the ROI be increased?

ROI (Return on Investment) revolves around efficiency, of appropriately utilizing time and resources. A lot of things work in the favor of the event, but that need not imply that they were just as feasible. They might have taken up a lot of time and efforts to actually give required results. On the other hand, there may be tasks, activities, and practices that may have just consumed 20% of your total time, money, efforts, and resources, and given just as amazing results. You need to look into these, and avoid repeating or continuing the ones that are favorable as a whole, but not really efficient.

II.BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN STRATEGY AND EXECUTION

Did this event reflect your vision?

First, remind everyone about the mission and vision of your organization. Next, ask them these questions:

1. What part of the event reflected the company’s vision in its entire entirety and how?
2. What part, on the other hand, was distant from the company’s vision and why?
3. As a whole, was this event an embodiment of the company’s ideals?

Did this event go hand-in-hand with the needs of your customers?

Because if it didn’t, honestly, you practically wasted a lot of time right there. That sure sounds scary, so here’s how you evaluate this portion:

1. Who were your target audience, the people for whom you put on the event?
2. Did the list of attendees comprise of these people?
3. If it didn’t, why? What were the reasons for them to not attend your event?
4. And those who did attend, what were their goals behind it?
5. Did your event meet their goals? Were they content?
6. From attendee feedback, what was the one change almost everyone suggested?
7. Also, what aspect was the most loved one?
8. Would they like to attend your event again?

Every time you define your target audience, you need to have framed the persona (the attributes) of your ideal customer. Cross-check if your attendees meet the same attributes as that of an ideal customer. If no, then your demographics have been altered and you need to update the persona.

III. EVOLUTION OF A NEW STRATEGY

Now that you’ve successfully evaluated your previous event, you have to let the results of the same reflect in your strategy for the next event. For that, we’ll have four main aspects we’ll be looking into:

The Target Audience

Your strategy should revolve around your customer. Quite a lot of time, you base it on your customer demographics, while in reality, basing it on their needs can actually prove to be a lot more fruitful. Consider the following points-

1. What are their primary concerns and opportunities?
2. What is it about your event that they can’t find elsewhere?
3. How does it answer their concerns and offer them the opportunities they need?
4. What would be the repercussions if your event didn’t do the above?

Think about this – picture your attendee describing your event to a friend. Make your event something that would match that description. Once you’ve figured that out, you’re halfway down the road to a successful event strategy.

Your Needs

Of course, your customer’s needs are important, but not at the cost of the needs of your own company. You need to set a primary goal for the company that the event is supposed to fulfill, and 2-3 supporting ones. They can range from marketing to revenue generation, but you have to set them down clearly and not deviate from them while strategizing.

Measuring Your Needs

Once you figure out the needs of your customers as well as your company’s goals, you’ll have to figure out ways to measure them and track them. For example, if your company wants to generate revenue, costing should be your priority. On the other hand, if you’re looking at growth, you might want to consider the amount of sales and sideline the costing.

SWOT Analysis

The Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats Analysis is a classic that NEVER fails. This is how you can use it while creating your strategy:

• STRENGTHS: You could be the proud owner of the most brilliant sales department, or an amazing marketing team, and these pose as the strengths that make you different from your competitors.
• WEAKNESSES: Are you not able to retain your attendees? Are you running low on staff? These are internal issues that are inhibiting growth, and need to be rectified.
• OPPORTUNITIES: Identifying and rectifying your weaknesses definitely comes under opportunities, but there are other aspects like new technology warding off old competitors but giving birth to new ones, the availability of a new kind of location, and so on.
• THREATS: While weaknesses are within the company, threats are usually external factors that may disrupt your event. Global economic downturn, launch of a similar event, all come under this roof.

IV. EXTRACT GOALS FROM YOUR STRATEGY

Now that you know the needs and requirements, you need to aspire to meet them. Hence, list out some goals for your team.

The Bold Ones

Nope, not just the highlighted ones; I mean the goals that are audacious and strong in their spirits. You need to have one or two of these in order to keep your staff motivated. These include, doubling up the size of your event as compared to the previous year, inviting an influential celebrity, getting mainstream media to cover your event, etcetera. More of these may work negatively for you, as you may be exhausting your resources and asking for way too much.

The SMART Ones

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound – that’s what SMART stands for. Of course, having big goals is important, but they should be SMART in order to make sure you’re not putting your team up only to fall down and hit their heads. Your strong goals could be broken down into smaller, smarter goals that the team finds easier to tackle.

Milestones

Set up milestones and break down your goals according to a time frame to keep track of your progress. If there’s no progress, adopting this method will let you know when there should be a course correction.

V.THE FINAL PLAN

Once you’re done analyzing, strategizing, chalking out your goals, you need to have the final plan ready, which is basically the last step in the process before you actually start with the execution. For this, you need to consider three following factors:

Resources

The skillsets of your staff, whether you need more staff, or the existing staff needs more training, whether a new technology can be used, or content management system needs to be updated – these are all resources that are going to help you put your ideas into execution. Make sure you answer these questions before you start off.

Tactics for Growth

What are the ideas or tactics that people are suggesting that can bring about growth? These can include outsourcing, trying out a new technology, building a new website, a cool new campaign idea, and other related inputs. Sit together with your team, brainstorm, and list out these ideas to implement in the next event.

Improved Processes

Remember noting down your successes and mistakes in this event? Go through them and figure out if there are certain activities or processes that are responsible for whatever has gone awry, and modify them. Think about other workflows that can replace these and guarantee betterment.

VI. CONCLUSION

After almost two thousand words of strategy and planning and improving, it’s only fair if you’ve forgotten exactly why you were reading this. So, in conclusion, I’ll remind you why evaluation is necessary for your event. And for the same, I’ll quote James A Belasco – “Evaluate what you want–because what gets measured, gets produced.”

The post EV-ALUATION-ENT appeared first on Yapsody.

Firstly, grab the media’s attention by inviting them or sending out a press release. This offers two-way benefits because it also gives you an upper hand. Since you’ve initiated the whole coverage, you will get to decide what goes up and what doesn’t. At the same time, you can be prepared about the questions that may get asked of you and the information that has to go out to the public.

Oh, and for the record, this “media” also includes bloggers and influential online personalities (YouTubers, Tweeters, Instagrammers, most followed users on Quora, those with a popular Facebook page, etc.) and it’s easy to invite them to give your event an online coverage.

Now that you’ve involved the media, list out the shots that the camera crew should capture. Since it’s your event and nobody knows is better than you do, you can easily jot down the attractive factors and wow moments of the event that will define it. And since you know that there will be cameras, don’t be fussy and get some professionals to do the hair and makeup for all your team members who are going to be on the roll, including yourself.

If you’re planning to have interviews, or are expecting they might be taken, prep your participants, speakers, team members for these pop interviews so that they don’t panic or get cold feet when they’re on camera.

With the media, predicting what may or may not work is very difficult, but a little preparation can give you some assurance of the whole thing happening smoothly, and give you additional control over things that otherwise have a tendency of going really awry.

Being media-worthy involves a robust online event registration software like Yapsody where you create events easily and sell tickets online. Sign Up now.

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