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One of the main aims for event organisers is to have the right people attending your event and potentially translate this to a sizeable return on investment. Having a good marketing strategy is an excellent way to increase event attendance.
Why do event organisers have low event attendance? Event organisers may face low event attendance due to several reasons, some of the notable reasons can be mirrored against the marketing mix: product, price, promotion, place and people. Are people excited about your event? Is it priced appropriately or do attendees feel they are getting value for the price? Are you actively reaching out to potential customers on the right channel? Is it easy to get to the event and buy tickets? Are you providing the best service? Low event attendance generally falls under this category.
Now we know why event organisers face low attendance, how do we increase event attendance? Don’t worry we’ve got you covered, in this blog post, we go over the top 10 ways to increase event attendance.
Before we dive into the blog… have you heard about Quest Creator? Quest Creator is an event management tool that allows event organisers to seamlessly manage events, sell tickets, promote their events on social media directly from the app and manage sponsors. Get started today! It’s free!
Looking for an event planning template to help you stay on track? Here’s a free template!
Okay, back to the blog! Here’s how to increase event attendance.
Offer a Unique Event
The first step to increase event attendance for your event is by offering something unique or different. Attendees can always go to the next event or skip yours if you are not offering something different from your competition. Your event can be different in several ways such as the event theme, the type of music or the overall experience.
Choose The right Venue
Another key factor is choosing the right venue, you may be offering the perfect experience but if your event is being held at a remote location, attendees may opt out of the event, choosing convenience. As an event organiser, choosing the right venue should always be a priority when hosting an event. Things you should consider when looking for venues: How easy to get there, close to your audience, and access to public transportation and basic amenities.
Easy bird registration
One of the best ways to increase event attendance to your event is by offering early bird tickets or discounted tickets. The goal is to get your attendees to buy tickets NOW, the earlier the better. Waiting may result in them delaying or not buying tickets at all. The trick is to use discounts and early bird to encourage your audience to feel like they have to buy tickets now i.e. creating a sense of urgency.
Social Media
Another way to increase event attendance to your event is by leveraging social media to promote your event. You can do this by using an event management software that leverages some of the metadata provided by Twitter and Facebook to make your post more presentable. Some notable social media tool that offers this can be found in our “top event management software”.
Once you’ve chosen the right tool, promote it on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and much more. Learn how to promote your event on TikTok here but a quick tip is to create a content strategy and schedule posts in advance using Vivus Create.
Retarget using email and push notification
Another way of boosting event attendance is to engage previous attendees. Previous attendees are more likely to engage with your event than new ones and research has proven this to be a lot cheaper. How much cheaper? Research done by media venues shows that retargeting brings back 1 in 4 consumers to complete a purchase. You can retarget previous attendees by sending emails and push notifications to previous attendees or reaching out in person. An excellent tool to help you do this is Quest Creator.
Partner with Brands and local businesses
One of the best ways to increase event attendance to your event is by partnering up. There are two ways of doing this, 1) You can partner up with bigger firms to reach a larger audience or 2) Local businesses or organisations to form a more personalised approach.
Micro-influencers or word-of-mouth
People are more likely to buy a product based on recommendations. This is where micro-influencing comes in, micro influencer marketing way is an inexpensive way to reach your audience and provide a personalised approach.
Personalised experience and interactions
Another way to increase event attendance is to personalise your approach towards outreach, engagement and attrition. While generalised marketing campaigns such as media campaigns and social media have their place, there’s no match for a personalised approach.
To get the best response, be sure to send professional, engaging and personalised emails. To this, you can start by segmenting your audience into location, age group, interest and more. Based on this, you can send customised emails and offerings.
Important items to consider include the recipient’s name in the subject line e.g. “A special invitation to you, John”. The body of your email should contain enough information for the recipient to make an informed decision but not too long they get bored. Focus on the value your event provides and always include a call to action to increase event attendance or a ticket purchase.
Join Event Discovery Sites
Search engines such as Google and Facebook provide snippets of upcoming events when people search for things to do in nearby areas. Event websites such as Quest Creator regularly submit web pages so they can be indexed on Google and Facebook but you can improve your chances of your event getting discovered by submitting your event on event discovery sites. It’s an excellent way to increase event attendance. Examples of event discovery sites include Facebook events, eventful and much more.
Make it possible for people to register their interest without leaving the site when possible such as Facebook RSVP, include location so they can be easily aggregated by event discovery sites and use catchy and shareable hashtags.