Promoting an Event

Promoting an event is fun - but it is also serious

For a company planning a special event - whether a tradeshow, a webinar, or any other promotional event, your strategy must be well planned. And that means contacting the right people to ensure maximum coverage and value for money.

This involves an anlysis of your potential market, and creating a large number of participants by using a combination of email, social networks, public relations,
and other types of paid promotions.

Create possitive contact with your audience early and frequently in the run-up up to the event by using press releases, emails, direct mail, and other means of communication. Here are a few tips for how to go about promoting an event.

Market Segmentation
It may sound obvious, but segmentation is critical to ensuring the right people register and attend your event. That means securing quality data and ensuring that  the lists can be used again in the future. Your focus should be on demographics such as job titles, industry, location in order to target top prospects.

Email
Email is a fantastic promotional tool - but the trick is not to overuse it. Research shows that people don't like receiving endless emails. Refining the timing and dispatch of email promotions for an event is vital. For a large tradeshow, you should ideally send a series of promotional emails starting about a month before the actual event, and spaced a week or so apart.

Telesales Outreach
Do you enjoy having badly organized and poorly informed Telesales people call you repeatedly? Neither do your potential clients - so don't waste time calling unqualified prospects. Use segmentation tactics to find what will become your target list.

Partner Promotions
For the past decade or so, using your partners has also become a highly efficient means of promoting an event.

This article was written by Moshe Elkayam, Managing Director of branding and web design company YCS Ltd (www.ycs.co.il).