by Heather Myklegard on
Every event planner wants to sell more tickets. Selling more tickets not only increases your revenue and helps to pay for supplies, meeting space, food, etc., but it also builds morale for the attendees and speakers. Attendees want to be at a full and busy conference. You, as a conference planner, want as many people as possible. No one wants a small crowd. How do you fill that room and increase your ticket sales? Here are a few action items that you can take:
Popular Venue: Find a venue that is well known and popular in your industry or your town. Perhaps there is a fancy hotel and conference center or a local college. Attendees like recognizable venues or exotic destinations with opporuntities for new experiences. A warehouse by the airport probably isn’t going to attract many new attendees.
Social Media: Social media is a free and easy way to promote your event. Create a Facebook business page for your event, and let people know that you are on Facebook. From your business page you can entice followers to go to your conference. It is a great platform for creating conversation and engaging with your attendees. You can also connect your website to your Facebook page and vice versus. This will create more traffic and more opportunity for people to see your event.
Press Release: Write a press release 6 months before your event and then a few more times leading up to your event. Capitalize on your amazing venue, the dynamic speakers, and all of the ways they can learn more about the event (Facebook, Twitter, your website, etc). Send it to all major news outlets. Many news channels also have free online community calendars where you can promote your event. Go to their website and see if you can add your event to their calendar.
Email Blasts: By now you should have a solid list of email addresses from your customers. Create an email blast to send out to your contact list with details of the event. Include a link to buy tickets and make it as easy as possible. You may even want to include an incentive for your contacts. For example, get two friends to purchase tickets to our event and receive 40% off your ticket! People love a discount and word of mouth is great for you!
