This is a guest post from Gemma Nash at White Hat Media, an award winning digital marketing agency which specialises in web marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO) services. You can connect with them on Twitter here.
The average human attention span decreased from 12 seconds to eight seconds between 2000 and 2013
, making it an ever-more difficult task of convincing potential attendees that your event is the one for them. So how can we get around this?
If you’ve read a marketing article in the last month, no doubt you’ve seen the term ‘personalisation’ pop up. You may already be aware of it, but interestingly, marketers see an average increase of 20% in sales when using personalised web experiences.
Team this with the idea of using five to six marketing channels within your strategy and you’ll have a recipe for success.
For ideas on how to diversify your marketing channels, here’s 11 unconventional ways to send an event invitation to your audiences that aren’t email.
1. Create a Facebook event
It’s time to go old-school on your social media strategy. Research shows that Facebook is the most popular social media choice leading up to and after an event. Creating a Facebook Event will allow marketers the opportunity to build relationships and keep the ‘Maybes’ up to date with event information in a non-evasive fashion.
2. Create an objection-handling flowchart (and stick their name on it)
You might know that your event will be the defining moment of your attendee’s entire year, but by the time you reach your potential customer, they’ll already have ten reasons why they can’t make it.
Why not pinpoint five key influencers in the industry and make it impossible for them to say no with a personalised flow chart of all the excuses they may have? They’ll certainly admire your creativity, and even if they still say no, may recommend you on to a friend as a result of your efforts.
3. LinkedIn message
We all know LinkedIn InMail is a great way to reach potential attendees, but why not take it a step further and personalise your invitation? Make light of the connection between yourself and the recipient, and engage in a conversation about an interesting statistic you recently read, gradually building up to the invitation.
4. Tweet it out
This one applies to colleagues of previous attendees. Why not target five previous attendees a week and take a look at their Twitter Followers list, which may well contain social handles for their colleagues, and tweet hello?
There’s no need to jump straight into ‘hey come to my event’. Instead, why not build a relationship through the common ground that their business is already associated with your event, and eventually, word will get around the office once again.
5. Webinars
Webinars are an excellent way to place your business in the centre of the industry. If by convincing your webinar audience to trust your key insight, they will be more likely to trust that your event will be useful to their business. After all, 63% of B2B marketers cited webinars as their most successful piece of content marketing.
Take this a step further and personalise your webinar by providing online attendees an exclusive discount or benefit for attending your upcoming event as a thank you for their time. That way, you’ll be in their mind when they come to assessing their budgets.
6. Blog comments on industry websites
Looking for a new way to invite potential customers to your industry event? Why not take a quick look at the websites your current customers read (you can usually get some insight from their Followers list on Twitter) and get involved in the conversation by leaving blog comments on high-traffic blog posts?
Once a dialogue is created, you can then take this a step further by adding individuals on LinkedIn, and gradually leading them to your website.
7. Check-in with previous attendees using photographs
“Jill, remember that fantastic debate we had at the networking party last year following a packed day at [name of your event]?” It’s well documented that tweets containing a photo generate more replies and retweets than those without (128% more, in fact), so why not use this to your advantage?
Go the extra mile and delve into your photo archive and target previous attendees with a personal message of a photo of them at your event – you’ll catch them by surprise and they’ll appreciate the sentiment. Twitter also allows you to tag photos with the handles of those featured in them, which is a great way to get their attention too.
8. Arrange a lunch date
We all know approaching those who hold the key to a group of potential attendees requires a little more effort, so why not clear some space in the diary to meet them to discuss their current business needs prior to your launch date?
They’ll have the benefit of getting the inside scoop on your event and you’ll be laying the groundwork for some lucrative group bookings.
9. Send a postcard
Have a stunning image that represents your event beautifully? Why not create a small batch and send them in the form of a postcard to a small group of people? This idea could even be extended to point number seven where we discussed using this strategy on social media.
Quick fact – 40% of online searchers make a purchase after being influenced by an offline channel.
10. Guest post on an influential industry blog
Reaching an audience that is currently unaware of your event and are relevant to your industry can work wonders – it’s a win-win for both parties involved. Some may argue link building is dead, but by providing quality content instead of being obvious in your selling, you will have the opportunity to sow the seeds of interest and build traffic to your website.
11. And last but not least, business cards
Hands up if you don’t currently have a list of your event dates on the back of your business card. The events industry is built on a foundation of networking, so what better way to advertise your events than to include this information on the very piece of card that gets exchanged on a regular basis?
