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This blog post is a part of this series and inspired by the book "Top 21 marketing methods for sites for membership" by Samantha Northcutt, the Subscription Coach.
The entire collection is available for download as a book
Opportunities for marketing creativity are plentiful at conferences and trade shows: purchase booth space, buy sponsors via the organizers organize an event that can be a part of the conference or show or the conference, and so on.
If you're lucky enough that someone else within your field is organizing an annual event where your target audience is together, it is your responsibility to be present.
In the case of arranging your own party, going to an event which someone else is putting on is like pressing a button that is easy. However, if all you do is attend, without strategy, it's best to remain at your home.
There are often conference/event/trade show sponsorships available for purchase, booths, and other opportunities to get amplified exposure to attendees over what you can accomplish on a one-to-one basis. A Holy Grail of event engagement in a different event is the opportunity to speak. I'll address speaking engagements in the future however, as challenging however it can appear at first, the public speaking experience before your audience is powerful as gold. This is a simple method to establish credibility and trust, provided the speech you give is informative, relevant, compelling, and memorable.
Think about sponsorships in the same way as you do the case of advertising that you pay for. It should be measurable as well, and this is an enormous burden of responsibility for an event sponsor. Your presence at the event, your brand experience you create and calling to action that the event sponsors make can determine their effectiveness or ineffectiveness. Your strategy for your event should include pre-event prep as well as a site-specific plan and a follow-up plan. It's the same for the occasion, regardless of sponsored sponsorship. However, this is much easier in the event you've already got one.
Prepare: If you can get access and exposure to the attendance list before the event, then you'll be able to move individuals through the sales funnel quicker. If you're a sponsor for a company and event organizer, ask the organizers how you can make the most of the sponsorship. Ask for more than what is provided in the offer of sponsorship , if you are able to come up with a method to give value to participants and help the organizer appear attractive.
If you're not sponsored or aren't an influential local person, you're unlikely to get the attention of the people that are coordinating this event in any meaningful way. Join Twitter as well as Instagram and then using the hashtags to locate others who are coming. Meet them and think about having a party dinner, or even a mini-workshop offsite during the days and hours surrounding the event.
The time to Promote or not find a way to get leads. This could be done on a one-to-one basis with an appropriate resource, or by offering prospective customers who would like to exchange contact information, or the permission to interact with the person on social media. Be attentive and be respectful, not pushy, or convincing. If you're able to assist somebody, let them know you're able to help and ask for permission to get in touch with them. Making an outline of each person to ensure that you send a contextual follow-up can put the bar higher than the ones who send generic reminders that don't contain any particular details regarding the individual.
Find the hashtag used for the event via social media at the time of the event. You can then utilize it to promote yourself. This is an excellent way to boost your exposure and to make yourself more noticeable to your guests. It's also a fantastic method to identify potential customers as well as influencers during and after the occasion.
If you're thinking of having an exhibit in a convention or event, you'll need an opportunity to stand out. Although I'm not an expert in this area, you can go to Pinterest to search for creative ways to get your ideas. Make yourself known and if you're industry is a good fit for fun and lighthearted entertainment and entertainment, you should play it up. One way to do this is by organising the event in a way that's themed and in which employees or their assistants are dressed in a specific way.
One thing I've seen done successfully is to have employees wandering around asking guests if they'd prefer to go to a secluded bar or restaurant for cocktails at the end of the evening. Following that, guests must come to your booth in order to learn more about the services your company has to offer, and then register (lead capture) to be invited. When you're doing this, it is essential to make sure you've got an enjoyable group of people on your stand, those that your prospective customers want to spend time having drinks with. Rent out an area or bar that is popular in a nearby restaurant, and pay the bill towards the end of the event. Something like this can create a buzz (no implied) on the night, allows potential clients to have an enjoyable experience as they interact with your brand and acts as a lead magnet.
Follow-up: All your prep and work on site will be lost if you don't monitor the follow-up plan. Be aware that lead capture at the time of the event is essential because otherwise you'll be left with plenty of people to follow-up with. Oops.
After the event, send them an individual email with contact details which you took note of when you met them (you have done that, didn't you?) Make a connection to them via the top social media site for the double-edged punch. Do not put off this. It's crucial to make money from the hype about your event's momentum and excitement so if you put off the process by an entire week, you've been missing the mark. Once the custom email, you can activate the drip sequence that you designed prior to your event. This can be done through your email service provider (you have permission to email your customers, right?) and move them through the sales funnel in the same manner you would anyone else who visits your website. You've actually met them in person. Your calls to action (CTAs) must have more importance (attend an informative webinar, start your trial, or even buy) rather than one who is just beginning your drip sequence after visiting your lead magnet site.
If you are only able to hand out cards but you are not able to gather names and details of contact information due to an reasons, you may make your own landing pages and include an offer for leads specifically for people attending events. Make a distinctive collection of business cards that include the website's URL, as well as short explanations of the free resource that you've designed exclusively for your customers on the page. Then have your form for email capture in that landing page in exchange for downloading and a nurture sequence to be adhered to.
There's an infinite number of possibilities to use however the main point is to have prior, post-event as well as a plan during the event that can be measured.
Webinars
Webinars are 45 to 90 minutes of value-added online seminars which can be broadcast live on the internet for the audience to be recorded and played on demand. Webinars make excellent top-of-the-line sources and email list building instruments. They can also be used toward the end of the marketing funnel to encourage the purchase.
Webinars can be created by you in a single event, or in a sequence of meetings referred to the summit. They can be held with or without guests, or even as an invitee to someone else's. Whatever the case, they can and should be utilized to showcase your skills and also to establish trust and credibility within your field. You can use them for a single event or to create evergreen webinars, with the same content they should remain relevant over the course of the next 12-24 weeks.
If you operate in a closed-model with members (meaning that you only open your site to prospective members a few times throughout the course of the year) An individual event or summit could serve as a fantastic closing technique. It is recommended to offer this kind of live webinar and mentioning an extremely exclusive limited-time offer for the marketing material that you employ. The offer will be made available only to those who participated the live event but not to those who are watching the replay. You can still send the replay to those who don't participate in the live event however you could increase your participation in the live event and your closing rate by letting your guests know that there's something exciting happening at the final minutes.
Hosting a summit is one of the best moves you can make to become an authority/influencer. You must have an extensive email list to get professional guests from other fields If you are able to succeed you will definitely be well-rewarded. This can be a significant amount of work. It's not something I recommend in the absence of the necessary time to have your tech as well as your summit's marketing guest and guest lists, your content plans as well as scheduling and follow-up done.
Participating as a guest speaker at a webinar of another's and inviting viewers to join will give you the chance to get your feet into the water and become at comfortable on camera, without putting in the time and effort needed to host your own. If you're working alongside other companies on cross-promotions, and have an effective influencer program in place then you'll be most prominent on the list of guests when hosting summits or webinars.
As with fully harnessing the potential of an industry convention or event planning a marketing strategy, as well as a strategy for follow-up is essential. As webinars and summits offer an abundance of knowledge for your intended audience (not to mention the huge effort required on your behalf) make sure you are able to reuse the knowledge you gained from the event: transform the webinar into a blog collection, an ebook , or podcast series, YouTube videos, or a lead magnet, etc.
One of the most important things to consider when hosting or hosting is that you provide incredible worth to webinar participants. Be careful not to be drawn into keeping your secret recipe - this is the moment to show that you've created a recipe that's effective and that there's more to it than came from under the cover of your payment.
Meetups or events in person
Meetups and events in person could be anything from having a happy hour, classes in-person or classes to workshops. organizing events that are held in person within cities where the majority people live in addition to any other area where it's possible to bring people together with real-life interactions. These events could be for non-cost or no cost and are informative in nature, or just fun to participate in gatherings which build community.
The majority of membership websites we work with include an online community component within the membership. Since a community is the biggest difference between a membership and a class. If you're able to get your members together in person and put on an event that your members (and future members) are excited about and later praise on the internet it will increase sales, cLTV, and convert rate, and the strength of your online community.
These kinds of gatherings can be a wonderful opportunity for members, both current and future to connect and discuss. Allow your members to perform their "selling" for your prospects by engaging in conversation. If you're able to show that a couple of people in your membership who value the benefits of your membership, and you can make it clear that they'll show up at some point in the future, then talking about your membership is likely to be a natural part of the discussion.
For industry events and trade fairs , it's important to prepare prior to the event. Make the event live up to its hype. Also, you should include a strategy for follow-up. How you plan and the follow-up depends on the type of event that you are hosting.
If it's a workshop, you're likely charging people to attend, and will need to prepare marketing materials, and then the workshop details themselves (workbooks, handouts, a slide deck, your presentation, guest speakers/instructors). Follow-up materials should comprise surveys of the attendees along with bonus material, as well as the opportunity to purchase other items. If you've met individuals in person and earned the trust of the attendees, then turn that confidence into an opportunity to upsell them.
If you're planning to host events like happy hour, only an amount of preparation task is required. Be sure to select a good venue, providing drinks or appetizers in addition to getting guests there. After you've arrived, you should interact with people who are there as well as ensure that everyone is present. Inviting existing members to invite a similar-minded person along is an easy method to boost the amount of attendees. go to the event.
While a happy hour is not the best venue to promote sales, you're inviting potential new members it is essential to have a clever way of making sure you follow-up with those who have joined. Lead capture may be the entry into a contest for an unrestricted membership, things. It could also be something more subtle like handing prospects cards that have a promotional code which is included in them.
What ever the event be, you must have an effective strategy to collect leads as well as follow-up with potential customers who are attending. In the same way that your marketing materials for memberships have to be in line with the material that pay members receive behind the paywall, your marketing of the event should be in line with what you're able to deliver on the spot or you'll be at risk of being branded with a bad reputation online. You must ensure that you have rave people who support your events, rather than naysayers to ensure that you are able to succeed in hosting future events. This is the ideal time to take advantage of the concept of underpromise, overdeliver.
Speaking engagements
Perhaps this is even scarier than direct sales for certain, but it's enormously impactful in the right way, carefully documented, properly, and used. If you're still new to public speaking, don't worry about this. Activities like guest blogging, guest hosting or being the guest speaker for webinars, making videos, etc. These are all excellent practice for public speaking.
There's no need to set your sights on the moon as you're beginning your journey. Find a local organization of businesses and present an appearance at the meeting or present the seminar in person to small groups. You can also think of going to the town nearby in which there are no people you're familiar with and presenting a presentation if you really want to reduce the stress. Start small, and when you're confident and proficient then you'll be able to move on to a higher level job.
Offer to lead the breakout session at events, or hold an unofficial breakout session either during or following the end of another's conference or event (in ethics clearly). Once you've done those things successfully, start to harness your organic influencer, guest blogging/podcasting/webinar hosting strategies to move further up the speaking ladder. If you're in a position to gain avail speaking opportunities relevant to your needs because you have a strong network and have put in the effort to create the social capital of that particular category, you'll be more likely to get an appearance even if you isn't a household name at the moment.
Talking gigs that have a better reputation can pay as well as writing your own novel, hosting a conference, or even a conference alongside other professionals in the field with respect to impact and reach. No matter the size of the speaking gig, make sure that you make the most of your talk by repurposing it into different media. First make sure you have the ability to record a high-quality video footage of the talk you gave. Then, you'll be able to post your video on your website both before and after the paywall. You can then upload it on YouTube and then use it for a blog series or as a podcast, or make it a topic for discussions in your paid and free communities Include an embedded video under your website's "About" as well as the "Resources" tab on your website.
In addition, make the video recording in order to qualify to speak at different events. Once you've proven yourself to be a valuable speaker and market your talk accordingly, by recording videos of your speech as well as some proof of social evidence (positive feedback from the audience) and your public speaking experience will be much easier.
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