10 Techniques We Used to Promote Out a 500-Individual Convention

I interviewed Shermin Lim, our occasions marketer, to learn the way we marketed the convention and bought out all our tickets.

Right here’s every part we did to advertise the convention. You need to use these similar methods (or be impressed by them) on your personal occasion—massive or small.

Occasion individuals are notoriously last-minute consumers. Operating early-stage reductions is an efficient approach to get them to commit earlier and cease your occasions staff from panicking.

For Ahrefs Evolve, we ran two varieties of reductions:

• Early chicken pricing — We ran an early chicken low cost till a selected date (1 August 2024 to be precise). This clearly-stated deadline inspired folks to purchase early.
• Group reductions — We provided offers for bulk buys (as much as 20%). That is particularly helpful in case your target market is from companies or firms that sometimes 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 chicken pricing of $570 (20% low cost for bulk purchases)
• VIP ticket at $980; early chicken pricing at $840

What low cost must you give? There’s no precise reply—all of it comes right down to your intestine, finances, aggressive evaluation, and a pinch of experimentation.

Right here’s what we included in ours:

• Occasion description
• Worth proposition
• Speaker lineup with bios
• Occasion agenda
• Pricing and ticket tiers
• Details about pre-event workshops (audio system, bio, pricing, agenda)
• Sponsor data
• Venue data with photographs and movies
• FAQs
• Why 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 when you have but to finalize any particulars. Simply depart them as “TBD”, then replace the web page regularly as you verify the venue, audio system, and sponsors.

Beginning out of your viewers is probably the most simple approach to achieve consciousness on your occasion.

We posted common bulletins and updates on LinkedIn and X, together with our staff members’ personal accounts:

We despatched focused in-app messages to our prospects, saying our occasion and letting them know tickets have been on sale:

We scheduled a number of emails to our 260,000-strong publication 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 publish regularly on social media. Simply since you’ve posted as soon as doesn’t imply everybody has seen it. Nonetheless, don’t spam. Area them out and preserve your messaging recent.

So, no repeated “purchase tickets!” call-to-actions and use all varieties of messages—speaker teasers, new reductions, FOMO (e.g., “tickets are promoting out!”), venue introduction (like our video under), and extra.

Audio system are a huge 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 need to faucet into that viewers to drive consciousness on 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—the town it’s in and the precise location—performs an enormous half in whether or not your occasion will probably 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 gorgeous, 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:

When you need to rank your occasion web page on Google, it isn’t the one web page you have to be rating. There are many different alternatives the place you’ll be able to rank excessive on Google and insert mentions of your personal occasion.

For instance, to be able to achieve visibility for Evolve, we printed two weblog posts focused at “convention”-related key phrases:

Right here’s learn how to discover such key phrases:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Key phrases Explorer
2. Enter key phrases related to your occasion (e.g., advertising, search engine optimization)
3. Go to the Matching phrases report
4. Use the Embody filter to search for phrases like “conferences”, “occasions”, “meetups”, and many others.

Look by way of the listing and discover key phrases the place you’ll be able to doubtlessly pitch your occasion. For instance, we naturally talked about Ahrefs Evolve as one of many search engine optimization conferences price attending final 12 months:

As you’ll be able to see, this web page ranked fairly excessive on Google and maintained its rankings (no less than till a lot of the talked about occasions have been over):

One of the best half is that we will merely replace this web page this 12 months and it’ll doubtless regain its rankings once more—you’ll be able to see the spike in rankings each time we replace this publish:

Nonetheless, creating content material isn’t nearly rating. You may as well assist your occasions staff. For instance, we wrote one for potential attendees on learn how to persuade their bosses to permit them to attend Evolve:

We even gave them an e-mail template they might use proper away:

Since we have been concurrently organizing and operating smaller-scale workshops, panels, and webinars—Ahrefs Evolve was just one a part of our occasion advertising technique—we might additionally promote our convention in these occasions:

We did this by having a roll-up banner of the occasion with a QR code folks might scan to get the tickets. The emcee, considered one of our staff members, would additionally make certain to say it regularly through the workshop itself.

If the occasion was held in our workplace, we might show the occasion data and the QR code on a TV.

If you happen to’re not doing occasion advertising, don’t fear. You may as well promote your occasion in different occasions or channels:

• If you happen to’re sponsoring a convention or operating a sales space in a single, have printed supplies selling your occasion too.
• If you happen to’re talking at a convention or being interviewed on a podcast/YouTube, make certain to weave in a related point out of your upcoming occasion.
• If you happen to run your personal YouTube/podcast, even higher. Promote your occasion in your intro or as a pre-roll advert.

FOMO is a strong psychological set off that may assist construct consciousness on your occasion. Folks need to be a part of the in-group—they need to attend occasions their friends are attending and get the “behind-closed-doors” data.

You’d need to continuously remind your viewers that they’re lacking out. For instance, we introduced on social media each time tickets have been bought out or promoting quick:

We ran a beneficiant giveaway to construct hype for the occasion:

We made graphics exhibiting 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 have 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 really flew it up, staged a photoshoot (with drones), and turned these photos into eye-catching advert creatives.

Do you need to spend the identical sum of money we did? You don’t should—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 personal creativity.

That is fairly apparent, however when you have the finances, it’s also possible to run adverts on Fb, Instagram, X, or TikTok on your occasions.

For instance, we spent a complete of $8,000 on Fb and Instagram adverts for Evolve:

Ultimate ideas

Need to see how we’ll promote Evolve 2025? Enroll right here to be taught extra.