Consumers have a lot of options when it comes to classes, workshops, and events to attend. As a retailer, how do you make your event stand out in the crowd and persuade people to actually sign up for the learning opportunities you offer?
We found some great tips on Hubspot that will help you promote your upcoming events and sell more seats. Check them out below:
1. Reward Previous Attendees
The people who attended your previous classes may be your biggest supporters and are more likely to sign up again. Cultivate customer loyalty by showing that you appreciate them with a special discount for signing up promptly.
2. Offer Early Bird Specials
Offer two prices: early bird and regular.You might even want to offer more than one type of early bird pricing to further encourage people to sign up for your classes before the prices increase. Creating a sense of urgency will motivate people to register sooner.
3. Ask Previous Attendees to be Class Ambassadors
As we mentioned above, previous attendees will be among your biggest supporters. This makes them good candidates to write reviews, social media content, and even blog posts to help promote your classes. The reason this method is so effective is that instead of hearing from you why your class was so great, hearing that it was a “can’t-miss-opportunity” from actual attendees is the equivalent of having word of mouth endorsements.
4. Take Advantage of Your Location
Is the location of your store close to awesome restaurants, trendy boutiques, beautiful parks, or national landmarks? If so, you can use that to your advantage! Promoting other attractions near where your class, workshop or event is being held will help increase interest for attendees. Negotiating discounted rates to some of those attractions will be even more of an incentive for people to attend your event.
5. Ask Industry Organizations to Help You Promote
There are professional organizations in every industry who would be happy to help you promote your classes, workshops or events. You simply need to contact them and request their help. Describe your event, provide them with email copy, and do everything you can to make it easy for them to help you promote. Doing so will help you get your event in front of thousands of people you wouldn’t normally have access to.
6. Target People in Your Industry With LinkedIn
Contact people in your industry who may be interested in your event with LinkedIn Company Pages, LinkedIn Events, and LinkedIn Groups. LinkedIn has the ability to target relevant people in your industry—the ones you really want to promote your event to.
7. Offer Employees Incentives to Promote
Take advantage of the social network you already have at your disposal—your employees. Encourage them to promote your classes, workshops, and events to the leads and customers they talk to through some friendly competition. Offer prizes to whoever sells the most seats or tickets. You could even reward a full team for working together to sell out seats at your events.
8. Pepper Your Website With Calls to Action
Include a promotion to your event on the homepage. If you have a login page, it should have a promotion to your event as well. Additionally, put promotional banners on your blog pages. You basically want to make it as easy as possible for people to find information about your event and register.
9. Don’t Forget to Mention the Fun Stuff
Announcing a local or national celebrity will drive registrations, as well as getting people excited about more than just the learning sessions they’ll be attending. While the primary reason people attend conferences is for the beneficial content, promoting meals, social gatherings, or other fun activities definitely helps. Who doesn’t like to have a good time?
10. Turn Event Promotion Into a Game
Host contests or games to promote your event and encourage registrations. For example, you could offer a few free seats to whoever tweets the most with your event hashtag. People love a little friendly competition, and you’ll from the free promotion!
11. Ask Event Speakers to Write Blog Posts
Reach out to guest speakers and ask them to write a blog post that promotes the class or workshop they’ll be presenting at your event and give a sneak preview of what they’ll be discussing. They’ll probably be happy to do it because they get more attendees excited about their session. Plus, you’ll get free content for your blog that also serves as a promotion to drive sign ups.
Use Dive Shop 360 software to run your classes and events.
