Business Event Promotion Best Practices

Are you planning on holding a business event? Whether it is large or small, watch this video for some business event promotion tips.

Whether you’re planning a small to mid-sized MeetUp or a large seminar or conference, if you want people to fill the seats, you’ll need to promote the event. When your promotional efforts are effective, you’ll experience high attendance rates, great buzz about the event and guests who are excited and energized about being there. However, if your promotional efforts aren’t so effective, you’ll experience so-so attendance (or worse), a general indifference about the event and guests who are wondering why they are there.

As with anything process, you don’t want to put the cart before the horse. So, you need to make sure that you are doing the right steps in the right order so that your message will get out loud and clear to your target audience.

Simple, right?

However, perhaps business event promotion may not be so easy. So, here are some best practices for developing an effective promotional campaign for your business event.

Step 1: Save the Date

A save the date notification is simply a way to alert your target audience about the date of your event, along with a couple of teasers about what to expect. It is a way to get the event on the minds of your audience and on their calendars as well. It also starts the buzz machine.

Step 2: The Invitation

Now that you’ve piqued your audience’s interest with a Save the Date, you need to send out the actual invitation. This can be an email to your list, a Facebook Event notice, a postcard to a list of local residents, or all of the above.

The invitation should include:

• The date and time of the event
• Specifics about the event
• A link to the event’s website

This website will have all the information an attendee will need to make an informed decision about the event. It will also have the means for an invitee to register and pay for it.

Step 3: Social Media

Now it’s time to create a buzz about the event on social media. Use the sites where your target market hangs out. For example, for most entrepreneurs, Facebook and LinkedIn are probably your best bests. However, adding Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest to the mix might also be a good idea.

In addition, you may want to create platform-specific campaigns. Just make sure they complement each other.
Social media is also an excellent way to create a buzz about your event and keep it in the minds of the people who have already registered to attend.

Remember to include a link to the event’s homepage with every social media post you make. This will allow any other interested parties, who weren’t included in the initial invitational e-mail list, to get information and register for the event.

Business Event Promotion Outline

Of course, these are only broad strokes. Depending on the size, location and target audience, the details within these steps will be different. You may need to use a different style of copy, or choose different social media platforms, or off-line advertising, and so forth.

However, this should give you a good working outline to start developing your event marketing plan.