I interviewed Shermin Lim, our occasions marketer, to learn how we marketed the convention and bought out all our tickets.
Right here’s all the things we did to advertise the convention. You should utilize these similar methods (or be impressed by them) to your personal occasion—huge or small.
Occasion individuals are notoriously last-minute consumers. Working early-stage reductions is an efficient technique to get them to commit earlier and cease your occasions crew from panicking.
For Ahrefs Evolve, we ran two sorts of reductions:
Early fowl pricing — We ran an early fowl low cost till a selected date (1 August 2024 to be precise). This clearly-stated deadline inspired individuals to purchase early.Group reductions — We supplied offers for bulk buys (as much as 20%). That is particularly helpful in case your audience is from companies or corporations that usually ship a number of staff (which is the case for our trade.)
You possibly can see our early-stage Evolve pricing right here:
Common ticket at $650; early fowl pricing of $570 (20% low cost for bulk purchases)VIP ticket at $980; early fowl pricing at $840
What low cost must you give? There’s no precise reply—all of it comes right down to your intestine, funds, aggressive evaluation, and a pinch of experimentation.
Your occasion touchdown web page shall be one in every of your most necessary advertising property.
In spite of everything, it’s a one-stop place for potential attendees to see every bit of occasion data and in addition the place for them to click on ‘purchase’. You additionally wish to create this web page early so it could actually rank excessive on Google when individuals hear of your occasion title and seek for it.
Right here’s what we included in ours:
Occasion descriptionValue propositionSpeaker lineup with biosEvent agendaPricing and ticket tiersInformation about pre-event workshops (audio system, bio, pricing, agenda)Sponsor informationVenue data with images and videosFAQsWhy attend conferences (with explanations from two extremely recognizable specialists within the trade)Native points of interest and journey suggestions
Make this web page early. Don’t fear if in case you have but to finalize any particulars. Simply go away them as “TBD”, then replace the web page steadily as you affirm the venue, audio system, and sponsors.
Beginning out of your viewers is essentially the most easy technique to acquire consciousness to your occasion.
We posted common bulletins and updates on LinkedIn and X, together with our crew members’ personal accounts:
We despatched focused in-app messages to our clients, asserting our occasion and letting them know tickets had been on sale:
We scheduled a number of emails to our 260,000-strong e-newsletter viewers:
We positioned show banners on high-traffic weblog pages to drive visitors to our occasion touchdown web page:
It’s okay to ship a number of emails or submit regularly on social media. Simply since you’ve posted as soon as doesn’t imply everybody has seen it. Nevertheless, don’t spam. Area them out and preserve your messaging recent.
So, no repeated “purchase tickets!” call-to-actions and use all sorts of messages—speaker teasers, new reductions, FOMO (e.g., “tickets are promoting out!”), venue introduction (like our video beneath), and extra.
Audio system are a large a part of any occasion. Many individuals will attend a convention simply to listen to an influential speaker.
More often than not, their affect is because of their following. So, you’d wish to faucet into that viewers to drive consciousness to your occasion.
For instance, we did this by creating individualized speaker “promo playing cards” for social media. We shared these mini-videos with every speaker and requested them to advertise the occasion to their followers. We additionally shared them on our personal social channels:
We additionally gave every speaker particular low cost codes to incentivize their viewers to return for our convention:
Your venue—town it’s in and the precise location—performs an enormous half in whether or not your occasion shall be profitable or not. Most occasion entrepreneurs know this; that’s why they spend a lot time on venue choice.
But, virtually none of them ever promote or characteristic the venue of their occasion promotions. Bizarre, proper? That’s why we determined to flip the script and spotlight our venue, Pan Pacific Orchard in Singapore. In spite of everything, it wasn’t any venue. It was a wonderful, award-winning one—one which was topped the world’s finest new skyscraper.
We promoted our venue by producing a brief video touring it, highlighting its excessive ceilings, fashionable structure, and open networking areas:
Whilst you wish to rank your occasion web page on Google, it isn’t the one web page you ought to be rating. There are many different alternatives the place you possibly can rank excessive on Google and insert mentions of your individual occasion.
For instance, with a view to acquire visibility for Evolve, we printed two weblog posts focused at “convention”-related key phrases:
Right here’s the way to discover such key phrases:
Go to Ahrefs’ Key phrases ExplorerEnter key phrases related to your occasion (e.g., advertising, search engine optimization)Go to the Matching phrases reportUse the Embrace filter to search for phrases like “conferences”, “occasions”, “meetups”, and many others.
Look by the record and discover key phrases the place you possibly can probably pitch your occasion. For instance, we naturally talked about Ahrefs Evolve as one of many search engine optimization conferences value attending final 12 months:
As you possibly can see, this web page ranked fairly excessive on Google and maintained its rankings (at the very least till many of the talked about occasions had been over):
The perfect half is that we are able to merely replace this web page this 12 months and it’ll doubtless regain its rankings once more—you possibly can see the spike in rankings each time we replace this submit:
Nevertheless, creating content material isn’t nearly rating. You may as well help your occasions crew. For instance, we wrote one for potential attendees on the way to persuade their bosses to permit them to attend Evolve:
We even gave them an electronic mail template they might use proper away:
If somebody is attending an trade occasion, chances are high they care and would spend money on attending extra occasions.
Since we had been concurrently organizing and operating smaller-scale workshops, panels, and webinars—Ahrefs Evolve was just one a part of our occasion advertising technique—we’d additionally promote our convention in these occasions:
We did this by having a roll-up banner of the occasion with a QR code individuals might scan to get the tickets. The emcee, one in every of our crew members, would additionally make sure that to say it regularly throughout the workshop itself.
If the occasion was held in our workplace, we’d show the occasion data and the QR code on a TV.
When you’re not doing occasion advertising, don’t fear. You may as well promote your occasion in different occasions or channels:
When you’re sponsoring a convention or operating a sales space in a single, have printed supplies selling your occasion too.When you’re talking at a convention or being interviewed on a podcast/YouTube, make sure that to weave in a related point out of your upcoming occasion.When you run your individual YouTube/podcast, even higher. Promote your occasion in your intro or as a pre-roll advert.
FOMO is a robust psychological set off that may assist construct consciousness to your occasion. Individuals wish to be a part of the in-group—they wish to attend occasions their friends are attending and get the “behind-closed-doors” data.
You’d wish to consistently remind your viewers that they’re lacking out. For instance, we introduced on social media each time tickets had been bought out or promoting quick:
We ran a beneficiant giveaway to construct hype for the occasion:
We made graphics displaying the worldwide profile of attendees (within the occasion that distance was an element):
We created social media playing cards for attendees to share that they had been attending Ahrefs Evolve:
At Ahrefs, we like to take dangers with our advertising. We find it irresistible as a result of it differentiates us from a sea of sameness the place each occasion promotion is an identical.
To advertise Evolve, we designed a large helium balloon with the occasion branding. It wasn’t AI; we truly flew it up, staged a photoshoot (with drones), and turned these photographs into eye-catching advert creatives.
Do you need to spend the identical amount of cash we did? You don’t need to—there are many low-cost, high-impact stunts.
For instance, whereas not particularly to advertise an occasion, Deliveroo Singapore used to have its workers put on kangaroo onesies and go across the Central Enterprise District at hand out flyers and different swag objects.
It’s all as much as your individual creativity.
That is fairly apparent, however if in case you have the funds, you can even run adverts on Fb, Instagram, X, or TikTok to your occasions.
For instance, we spent a complete of $8,000 on Fb and Instagram adverts for Evolve:
Closing ideas
Selling an occasion is like launching a startup. If you’d like consideration and visibility, you need to go all weapons blazing. If you wish to promote out tickets, you’ll want to mix most, if not all, of the techniques above.
As a result of that’s what we did to promote out a 500-person convention.
Wish to see how we’ll promote Evolve 2025? Enroll right here to be taught extra.