So you have a huge virtual event coming up and so much to do – choosing a topic, guest speakers, JV partners, and the venue you will use to host your virtual event. But let’s not forget you also need to market your virtual event or else all of this other stuff will be for nothing.
You can do a lot of marketing and planning simultaneously. These tips for marketing virtual events are listed in no particular order, but if you implement all of these marketing ideas for your virtual event you’re sure to have a successful and profitable event. Try to start advertising your virtual event 45 to 90 days prior to the event, rolling out different methods as you create the content.
Sales Page — Creating an attractive and effective sales page with the right keywords, and right information that gets people to sign up is an important aspect of promoting any product. However, with advertising your virtual event, you can’t develop this over a lot of time. You need it fast and you need it right and it needs to be spectacular.
Previews — People need to know why they should attend your virtual event. Just like new release movies, use previews to entice people to come watch. You should consider this strategy as well to get your registered attendees fired up about your virtual event.
This can be on a sales page, in an email, via YouTube or all these channels because it will help get the word out. It can be anything: a video, an audio, an eReport, interviews of the speakers – as long as it’s advertising your virtual event and getting people excited to be a part of it.
Sponsors — Sponsors are a great way to get funding, but they should want to do a little work, too. Their name isn’t going to get out there to anyone if no one shows up so they need to be contacting all of their contacts and telling them about your virtual event, too.
You need to make this a requirement of your sponsors. If you are charging for the event, offer them an affiliate link, which gives them the opportunity to earn back some of their sponsorship fee. Provide them with everything they will need as a sponsor to promote for you: badges, graphics, and the announcement to share with their list members.
JV Partners — Any partners that you have should help promote your event. Just like with the sponsors offer them an affiliate link and all the tools they’ll need to properly market your virtual event to their own followers.
Guest Speakers — Part of the duty of a guest speaker should be to cross promote their appearance to their audience. You are promoting them to your audience so tit for tat, they should be required to promote your event to their audience.
Make this a part of a contract you have with your guest speakers. Don’t just make them agree to a date and time to attend your virtual marketing event, but also include how they will advertise your event through social media and other areas as well.
Audience Members — Word of mouth in business is always a good thing. When people sign up to join your virtual marketing event offer them affiliate links and other marketing tools and get them to tell their friends, family, and business contacts. Anyone they feel who would be interested in your virtual event.
Article Marketing — Start advertising your articles immediately. Your articles aren‘t going to get you money, but it will get you traffic and more traffic means more people to see your virtual event and hopefully sign up to join. You want to keep your articles relevant and well written in order to get yourself deemed an expert therefore making people want to come to your virtual event.
Vlogs — A vlog is a video blog and you can make them using your web camera, a flip camera or a video camera. Keep them short to keep your viewer interested and prepare what you are going to say in advance so you aren‘t fumbling to find the right words. That just looks unprofessional.
If your vlogs are filled with a bunch of “umms” and “likes” then people are going to assume your virtual event will be like that too. With Vlogs you are giving people a sense of who you are and you want them to like you and want to come back for more. So make a great first impression!
Blogs — Blog everywhere! Get people to allow you to guest blog. Blog on your own blog. Get others to have contests in order to get the word out about your virtual event.
Social Media — Tweet, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google + and any place else you can think of. Even going to your forums and telling people, “I‘m advertising my virtual event, come join me!” Keeping people informed in all channels is imperative to the success of your virtual event.
Press Release — Even virtual events need to be promoted with a press release announcing the event and sharing the story of your guests.
Email Newsletters — Last but not least, get your email list on board and let them know about your virtual event. After all, these are people you have already created a relationship with and like you enough to want to keep updated on the latest and greatest you have to offer.
Give them a sneak peek, and give them a discount. That way you are nurturing your relationship with your already existing customers and getting them out there and excited to share the news of your awesome virtual event.
Following these 12 steps on advertising my virtual event will undoubtedly make your virtual event a must see!