Event Promotion Tip: 5 Things You MUST do to get people to Come to your NEXT event

I know a guy who is in the communication field, and does conference promotion for his specialty. He’s got extremely high rankings in Google due to his SEO efforts. When we got together not long ago, I was quizzing him about his business and what he does to promote events. One of the first questions I asked him was: “How Many of the people who use your services come back for a second helping?”

I was SHOCKED by his answer! Virtually NONE of them. Holy Crap!

With stellar SEO rankings for a service that is IN DEMAND, he’s doing just fine. For mere mortals like you and me, this would be DEADLY.

Whenever I do a seminar or other event, I’m EXTREMELY conscious of doing a great job so that people will come back for more. I don’t have and I suspect you’re in the same position) an endless supply of people who will attend my events.

If you’re in the general field of “weight loss” or “making money”, this article may not apply to you. If you ARE in those fields, I’d suggest you TARGET your market a bit more carefully, so this article SHOULD apply to you!

1. Deliver a LOT of high quality content.

The problem with most people who do seminars is that they are obsessed with trying to sell their NEXT event. In doing so, there seminars and workshops turn into a sales presentation for next month’s “big event.”

To say this is misguided would be a dramatic understatement of the facts.

Like you, want 100% of the people who attend THIS event to come back to my next and every other subsequent event that I hold. To make this happen I want to make sure I deliver on the promises I made at THIS event. If I do that, everything will fall neatly into place.

2. Provide people with a ROADMAP.

People don’t want to just know WHAT to do. They want to know HOW to do it. Scared of telling people because you won’t get any coaching or consulting work? Your fears are misguided. My mentor, Howard Shenson, used to tell me to “give them everything you got!” IF I did that, he told me they would come back to me for more. They were right.

IF you give people the exact/precise way to do something, they will be thinking two things. First, that you haven’t told them EVERYTHING they need to know. It may not be the case, but their perception is their reality. Also, once you tell people how to “make the sausages” they may not want to make it. Many will ask you to do it for them.

3. Be Approachable.

There are MANY seminar leaders who set themselves up as the “guru on the hill.” A number of high profile marketing types pride themselves on this posture. Their thinking is: If I’m not accessible, people will have to pay me for my services to get access. In my opinion, this is FOOLISH.

You should be approachable but draw the line at where general helping ends and individual coaching or consulting begins. At an event I will fully answer any and all questions on general concepts. The specifics will not be germane to the entire group and will NOT help me sell future services. I leave those out.

4. Ask them to Attend Your Next Event

People won’t come back to your next event if you don’t ASK them! It may be an ADVANCED version of the seminar you just did. It may be tangentially related to what you just finished. Both of those are logical choices when asking people to sign up for your next event. But, they won’t know about it unless you ASK them to do so. Have a date and venue set before you pitch it to them as a group.

You’ll also want to provide them with an incentive for making their decision NOW! Give them a substantial price break for signing up before they leave your current event. Make it a GOOD deal. Put a deadline on your offer. Limit the number of spaces you have based on what makes good sense.

5. Be Yourself

Don’t try and be someone you’re not. People will SMELL the insincerity. Make sure that you are the best YOU you can be. Do this and some people may not like you. Don’t do this and many more won’t like you.

You’ll also end up attacting the “right” kind of people. The people that you get along with naturally. The people you’ll like and who like you as you really are. This will make any additional work you do with them simple and easy.

Conclusion:

I know what  you’re thinking. What about your choice of hotel or the food you serve? Meaningless to getting people to attend your next event!

Follow the above 5 steps and your chances for having people come back to your future seminars and events will go WAY up. Do it differently than I’ve described and you’re on your own. Over the more than 25 years I’ve been doing seminars, workshops and other events, this has worked very well for me!

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