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5 Ways To Promote Your Events Business WITHOUT Promoting

Gone are the days of overt marketing and hounding potential clients until they give in and hire you. It’s time to start thinking about the bigger picture – the relationships. Let’s face it – relationships are the only way for you to sustain your business. If you guilt-trip a client into using your services, they probably won’t use you again or introduce you to their friends unless you do a STELLAR job. ANYTHING that goes wrong will likely be the end of your relationship. On the other hand, a friend of yours is happy to introduce you to everyone they know. Why? Because they know that you won’t risk their relationships. So – here’s a few tips to start making those relationships that will rocket your business to the next level and never require you to sell yourself.

It’s All About Focus
The power of being known for a specific skill is often overlooked by start-up event planners who just want to get their name out there. You can’t just start using social media to get out there. You have to make sure that you have a consistent message that reflects your strengths and experience. Not sure what your message is? Think of the 3 things you want your company to be known for that will set you apart from all other event planners. Focus on improving those techniques in your company and begin to send a unified message to the world about those strengths you have. The more simple the message, the easier it is for people to catch on.

Get LinkedIn!
A well organized LinkedIn profile will do wonders for your business. Highlighting yourself naturally draws attention to your company and the types of events that you do. They provide you with the opportunity to connect with people in your industry and with your clients. You can ask clients to recommend you on LinkedIn. 

Show People What You Do
Event planners can make great use of services like Visual CV because it is a great space to showcase your work. Visual CV is a free, online portfolio where you can upload event photos, charts that show how much money you saved a client and many other visually pleasing displays of your work.

Tweet Away!
The #eventprofs community on Twitter is unbelievable. Start by creating an account and searching for some event planners already tweeting away. Take some time to see what they tweet and then begin to comment and share your thoughts. Does a colleague have a question that you know the answer to? Share it! Once you’ve begun to make relationships on Twitter, begin to post some event-related content. Post things like articles on hot new tabletop designs and then begin to mix in a "Tip of the Day" or other tidbits that you have learned in the event planning business. Finally, once you are posting good content that others are retweeting and commenting on, feel free to use the forum to ask for help and ideas. The community is amazing on Twitter, but you must give a little before you can expect to receive. Don’t use Twitter to market – just use it for professional, mutually beneficial relationships. This will provide you with a great platform to form partnerships and ULTIMATELY promote you business.

Meet With People
It is really important to be active in the professional event planning world. Join an association or take some time to meet with other event planners and attend their events. Not only can you learn from other professionals, you gain access to important resources and other small business owners who understand the need to support each other’s businesses. This is an invaluable resource.

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Liz

Liz King is a social media-integrated event planner and award winning blogger. As the owner of Liz King Events, she runs an innovative firm that creates dynamic branding events integrating the use of social media. Planning events from soup to nuts, she works with her team to create and sustain your event brand and enhance attendee engagement. Liz is also a co-founder of the Event Technology Showcase PlannerTech. As the owner of Liz King Events, she has been featured as a speaker at the International Association of Exhibitions and Events, National Association of Colleges and Employers, ExpoWest/Supply Expo and several other events as an expert on the topic of social media and events. She has also been featured in Connect Meetings Intelligence and Convene Magazine, among others.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 at 11:10 am and is filed under Branding, Event Professionals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://Www.gallusevents.co.uk William

    Top tips! I would also recommend speaking at industry events. We are crying out for organisers who have been there and done it. A lot of event industry slots are taken up by suppliers and agencies; so there is fertile ground. I’ve spoken at over 10 events in the UK over te last 18 months and this has led to several contracts and loads of contacts. Hopefully this is a sixth!

  • http://www.quintstrategies.com Wendy Parsley

    Great post – very informative.

    William – I am curious to know more about your success as speaking at industry events. Which events? All based in the UK? I’m looking to do the same thing at events in the US and would love to compare notes with you. Thanks!

  • http://www.chiceventproductions.com Amy Ford

    This was wonderful!

    I am so happy to see an article on the hands-on the approach to marketing your business. I have seen too many articles that promote social media like facebook, twitter, or others, who ignore the face to face work that also needs to be done. As an event planner I know how invaluable face time is and what it can do. We must remember that we are in the relationship business, so we need to close the laptop and get out there and network sometimes.

    Call me old fashioned, but I would rather stick with the old ways of making contacts and growing my business. My clients know that I am more than just an email address or webpage. I am a real live professional and you won’t have to press 1 though 20 on your telephone to speak to me.

  • http://www.marketart.com Ed Baker

    Liz – I love “a friend of yours is happy to introduce you to everyone they know. Why? Because they know that you won’t risk their relationships.” So true!

    An additional thought to share in regards to relationships: Many preach “It’s all about who you know.” I’ve always disagreed with that. It should be “It’s all about who knows you.” Even if you only have an interaction with someone & never build a relationship – as long as you are sharing good things, helping others as much as you can, & being an active professional, good things will come!

    This is a great example of that: You don’t know me, but I know of you. It’s who knows you that will bring the new opportunities through the door, be it for an event or not.

    Cheers!

    -Ed

  • http://www.lizkingevents.com Liz

    Thanks for your comment, Ed. I completely agree! It’s all about sustaining relationships. I often tell people on Twitter that it doesn’t matter how many followers you have. If you don’t make an attempt at getting to know them, they might as well be robots. It takes time and effort to meet and interact with all of the social media connections, but it’s extremely important! I think you have done a great job of using a social media relationship to make a connection – like now! Really appreciate your comment!

  • http://www.akinsevents.com Oye Akintan

    Liz,

    Thank you so much for sharing what some of us discovered by chance. This definitely cements what it really takes to promote your business without really marketing. I agree that LinkedIn can do wonders. I’ve developed many relationships through LinkedIn groups. I liked your advice on how to use Twitter even more and I think it’s the most sensible one I’ve read so far and I’ve read a lot.

    My only addition is that developing relationships with industry professionals through speaking engagements as William stated, volunteering for industry related charities, becoming a member of your local chamber of commerce, attending networking events can help build the much needed relationships without even marketing.

    Remeber, nothing comes easy, so people have to remember each relationship built requires some work to maintain it.

    Thanks for sharing :)

    ~Oye

    Again, thanks for sharing.