«
»

A Penny For Your Thoughts: Marketing Your Events Business

Hello, faithful readers! As you know, this blog is still fairly new and there are a few things I’d like to try out. In the last two months, I’ve run a series, interviewed event professionals and had several amazing guest bloggers. This time, I’d like to try a conversation starter that hopefully each of you will feel you can contribute your thoughts to. I hope to do this every month as a resource to new event planners. If you have thoughts about the topic, please feel free to add them into the comments section and begin the conversation. If you have other questions you’d like to have answered, please email them to me and I’ll add them to the line up. Also, please let me know what you think of this idea!

Over the past month, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about branding and the importance of it in your personal and professional life, but I’ve also had a lot of questions from readers about direct marketing and how event professionals can better market their services. I think it holds true that relationship building is the main conduit for new clients, but I’d love to hear how each of you directly markets your services. Do you pay for listings in directories? Attend trade shows?

If you were speaking to someone new to the events business, how would you suggest they get started with marketing their organization?

The #eventprofs group on Twitter has been so collaborative that I’m sure we can get a great conversation going about your thoughts and suggestions. I know I have my two cents, but I’d love to see what others think as well.

Please, share your thoughts in the comments section and pass along to friends and colleagues who may be wondering what to do about direct marketing vs. branding.

Thanks!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

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.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Related posts:

Tags: , , , ,

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 9:36 pm and is filed under 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.icon-presentationsblog.com Jenise Fryatt

    I’m still learning myself, but I would suggest not purchasing ads in print magazines because I think there is a very low possibility of ROI. I would start a blog and post regularly on it, tweet regularly using the #EIR method and start a Facebook Fan Page. I would also consider doing some Facebook advertising; working to raise your website’s search engine ranking and building an email list that you can use to send out e-newsletters.

    • http://www.lizkingevents.com Liz

      Those are some great points, Jenise! Can you share with people what kind of content you include in your newsletters? Do you have any success stories to share about your Facebook ads? Thanks for your thoughts!!

  • http://www.icon-presentationsblog.com Jenise Fryatt

    Well, Liz, as I said I’m still very new at this. My best success stories lie in the relationships I’ve begun to build. I would love to be able to say I’ve had a verifiable financial return on some of my relationships, but I’m still pretty early in the game. As far as Facebook ads and my e-newsletter goes – these are things I’m just getting my toes wet with. I suggested them, because they look viable enough for me to try right now and don’t really cost a lot. I will certainly keep you posted on how my efforts pan out!

    • http://www.lizkingevents.com Liz

      Thanks! I’d love to hear how it works out for you and how it has worked for others. I think you are definitely on the right track and I think Facebook ads are a very simple and cost effective marketing method to try. I also have considered doing a newsletter so I asked about content becaus that’s been my biggest question mark. Between the tweets, my blog and other social networks, I’m always considering what the focus of the newsletter should be. We can work it out together :) Does anyone else have thoughts on newsletters, facebook ads or other marketing strategies that work well for you??

  • http://www.icon-presentationsblog.com Jenise Fryatt

    I always thought that once I got the newsletter going, I would just choose blog posts that I think are particularly helpful for my clients and send them those. I expect the people who will be receiving newsletters will not be too big on checking up on the blog and they won’t want too much email, so I would never send as many newsletters as I write blog posts. That’s my thought, anyway. I can’t see the need for creating content that’s completely original for the newsletters as the audience would be different.

  • http://www.planetplanit.biz Paul Cook

    Hi Liz – I tend to agree with Jenise in the methods that she is using. I think Facebook will work well for some businesses but not all as it depends on who your target market is. Twitter works well for us with relationship building. @inspirationguy has always been a star in enabling our websites to include the words that the search engines pick up on and therefore this helps with our rankings. Apart from all the virtual activity I am a firm believer in being active in the industry and attend a number of networking and educational events. Specific association events have always been useful in marketing our businesses. So I take a marketing/branding stance that mixes both traditional and social media together. For us this works but we are constantly evaluating what works and what doesn’t and we therefore make changes along the way.

  • http://www.inspiration.co.uk Ash Mashhadi (@inspirationguy)

    I would suggest that you shouldn’t neglect the things that are common to all new businesses. To paraphrase someone smarter than me; it’s not just about who you know, it’s about who knows you.

    Getting known as the person to go to for events means making strong connections with influencers and plentiful weaker connections with others (I suggest reading “the Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell for more detail). One of the best ways to do this is still face-to-face networking. Join your local Chamber of Commerce & network like crazy for a while to make some weak connections & follow up with coffee meetings to strengthen some of them. Then rinse & repeat for a while. If you’re genuinely interested in helping them as well as yourself, you’ll soon develop a reputation as a quality connection that others will seek out. Business soon follows from that.

  • http://www.5thelementevents.com Jared Golberg

    A great way to market your company and show value to your clients and to potentials is building strong relationships with magazines and web portals. Reach out and offer stories, quotes, pictures and coverage that magazines can offer to their readers and build that into a contributing role. Through this, I have received great opportunities as a contributing writer and specialists to great event protals like Canadian Event Perspectives.

    These relationships are VITAL. I don’t believe in purchasing ad space, directories or banners, but I do believe in leveraging these relationships for real estate and trade offs. 5th Element Events shows value and expertise in stories and coverage – There’s your marketing.

    @JaredGolberg

  • http://www.backdropsbeautiful.com Jose D. Ramirez

    Find your niche market and fully engage. Focus on building long lasting relationships by networking. Try to get involved in committees and local community events. Use your communities such as #eventprofs as a resource center and support. Be an expert in your service or product. You need to be fully committed to your events business in order to become credible and resourceful. Be open to the idea that not everything will work for you. Some social media platforms work better than others. And above all, be unique on your perspective!

    @josedramirez (tweeting for @backdropsbeauti – Backdrops Beautiful)

  • http://www.tradeshowinsight.com Eric Lukazewski

    I would suggest starting locally and organically. The eventprofs group is a great group for building ambassadors to help distribute your identity, and with little costs involved, SM is a great place to start. Like Jared, I agree that the relationships formed will offer leverage for more opportunities for exposure.

    In terms of local development, look for networking opportunities, ideally within your industry. Use the same SM strategy of being a content king/queen and be viewed as an expert in your business and sharing resources. Offer as much of yourself and even parts of your service as free to develop an audience who can attest to your greatness. Being good at what you do is not enough these days. You must offer value above your service.

  • http://eventstrategysolutions.com Daphne Bousquet, CMP

    I am just starting out (on my own, not in the event industry), but have been able to build (and monetize) relationships on Twitter. I am consciously targeting my niche, and try to drive them to my website and blog with good content (articles and teleseminars). While they are there, I build my list through my free audio download and follow up with them through autoresponders and my weekly ezine.

    I haven’t even started to network locally, but that is definitely a strategy I will add soon. Thanks for the great ideas everyone!

  • http://www.pulsestaging.com/news Midori Connolly

    Liz, you’re such a star! Great blog idea…
    And, wow! The replies here are just incredible, so many eventprofs contributing such fantastic ideas.

    I think it’s interesting how we are in the events business but we often forget to utilize experiential marketing for our own purposes. The integrated marketing communications model uses a chain of various medium for effective and holistic marketing. Ranging from print to social to experiential, they each have their own appeal and the mix you use is dependent on your own organizational strategy.

    So, I would suggest that event planners find a way to showcase their skills in a tactile setting. Yes, we can talk until we’re blue in the face about our widescreen or audio skills…but until my client experiences it firsthand it’s hard to get it across. I can’t exactly “show” them how rockin’ our audio system really is :-) But, we’ve invited producers and planners to our rehearsal days (of course, only possible with some clients, particularly those where we donate our services) so they can see how fabulous we really are when doing our thing heehee ;-)

    Amy Kratish of Galaxy Productions did this quite well last year. She created an event in Florida where she co-hosted with several of her event partners (ranging from floral to AV) an open house/client showcase. They executed a pseudo-event to demo their mad skills (heehee again).

    Eric – maybe you guys have opened the warehouse and held a BBQ to let clients walk a couple of your creations and see your operations? Perhaps it could be useful to invite some of your biggest prospects and hold a VIP event…

    Could these ideas be appropriate for your business? Don’t forget that integrated communications model and put it to use!
    Midori Connolly, Chief AVGirl
    http://www.twitter.com/GreenA_V

  • Pingback: uberVU - social comments

  • http://www.executiveoasis.com @executiveoasis

    Question: If you were speaking to someone new to the events business, how would you suggest they get started with marketing their organization?

    My response: Start with the practical. I would say before you leave your job save enough to cover 2 years worth of living expenses (in this economy, you may need every penny). Then, get your basic toolkit in order (e.g. Internet access, domain name & webhosting package (pre-pay for 2 years), website (get it professional designed and have them design templates so that you can update it), blog, business cards, stationary LinkedIn profile, Twitter account. I would invest in learning HTML, flash and javascript so that you can update your website content on your own for the first few years. I wouldn’t bother with brochures. They are expensive and the economy and market is changing far too rapidly for any message to have longevity.

    Then, connect with everyone you know (executives in the chain of command for which you previously worked, former colleagues, friends, relatives) and let them know that you are about to go out on your own. You’ll find your first few bookings will probably come from your network rather than through promotional activity. Use twitter, Linkedin and your blog to regularly communicate with people you know. Social media seems to be more useful for that purpose than to generate brand new business from strangers. Don’t even think of leaving your job until you have your first few bookings lined up.

    Another option is to write a business case for your current employer or a prevous employer to have them outsource their event planning to your new business. If you can demonstrate that they can save money rather than keeping you on staff full time or outsourcing to much larger firms on an event by event basis, there may be a win-win scenario. If you can get a contract on this basis, then you’ll probably only need 1 year’s living expenses in your bank account.

    Good luck!