Ways to Promote Your Online Design Events

We’ve managed $100k+ ad budgets promoting online and in-person events and here’s what we’ve learned: 1. Timing matters. The majority of ticket sales or registrations happen in the weeks leading up to the event. We account for this by allocating the majority of the spend closer to the day of the event. 2. Social proof converts. For one client, we searched LinkedIn for anyone who posted about the event after the fact and ranked them by engagement. We then promoted those posts as thought leader ads in anticipation of the next event. 3. Promote transparency. If you are at liberty to do so, why not give away the attendee list? If you have a high value audience and have your targeting dialed in, try a campaign where you gate the attendee list. We’ve seen this tactic promote great conversations that directly lead to ticket sales. 4. Ads that feature as many speakers as possible tend to perform the best. Generally we see ads with faces perform well, so try combining all the speakers into one post. You can then split those ads up into individual speaker ads, use them in carousels, etc. Above all, we’ve learned that preparation is key to promoting these events. For one client, we put together a schedule of ads that would go out as we got closer to the day of the event. This included “countdown” ads where we’d say “the event is 1 month out!” etc. as we built a sense of urgency. Because we put together this plan we were able to get creative requests to our designers early. We had all the creatives ready to go months out from the event and had all the campaigns built and scheduled so that they would pause and activate as the countdown got closer. We’re always testing new strategies to promote these events and it’s impossible to fit all of our experiments into one post. For example, LinkedIn has built in event ads which allow people to register for a LinkedIn event directly from the ad. The key to improving performance for that ad unit is to build up as many organic registrations as possible. Since you can see how many people registered directly on the ad, we’ve seen that a higher number of organic registrations directly impacts the conversion rate on the paid side. Interested in hearing more about how we promote events via ads? Feel free to reach out. We have a ton more ideas we’re looking to test. 🧑🔬

Want to drive event attendance *without* relying on mass email sends? 👇 Try some of these tactics: 1. LinkedIn promotion 💼 Encourage (or incentivize) teammates to post about your upcoming event. Videos work best! 2. LinkedIn DMs from CS and sales reps 📥 Emails get lost in the shuffle sometimes. Have reps try sending DMs instead. 3. Direct mail 📬  Send a physical invite in the mail. There’s nothing better than a handwritten note. 4. Podcast promo 🎙 If your company or a thought leader in your space has a podcast, ask them to mention it. 5. Selective, hyper-personalized emails ✨ Have reps create videos and send individual email invites to VIPs. 6. Newsletter promo 📧 Use the emails your team already sends to drive attendance to your event. 7. Speakers and sponsor promo 🧑 Create templates for speakers and sponsors to share about on their social profiles. 8. Influencer marketing 🎤 Ask thought leaders in your space to post about your event if they’ll be there — and maybe even sweeten the deal and cover their travel if they post twice. Happy promoting!

I've noticed a lot of virtual events being promoted through the same old playbook seen day-in and day-out. 😔 They lack energy, timeliness, and/or creativity. Not to say everyone needs to reinvent the wheel but we might just need to fix a spoke or two to reach & engage a larger audience. ⭐️ Here are 6 ways to promote your content & virtual events that won't cost you a dime: 1️⃣ Tap into speaker's networks: Make it as easy as possible for your speakers to share the virtual event with their network. The best way to do this is to have personalized assets and messaging that they can just copy & paste. Because your removing barriers to post, they are more likely to promote the content. 2️⃣ Leverage partners: All the channels that you can tap into, your partners can too. However they might reach a different segment of your target audience. Work with your partners to see how your content & events can be included in their newsletters, social media, communities, and how they can help you amplify your existing efforts. 3️⃣ Experiment with multiple formats: You probably have a static image that you use for event promotion but that can only get you so far and isn't the most engaging format. Try recording your prep calls with speakers to create a hype reel, design a carousel with the topics that will be discussed, build an infographic, etc. To create these assets at scale, templates are going to be your best friend. 4️⃣ Ask for referrals: As people start registering for your virtual event, see if they have other colleagues that would benefit from the content. A way to expedite this is by offering a giveaway but in the spirit of "not costing you a dime"... the best way is to position the referral as being a helpful resource that will level up the team's skills (and ideally results). 5️⃣ A simple DM goes a long way: Sometimes the simplest of messages can drive huge amounts of engagement. Don't just rely on emailing your database, DM people in your LinkedIn network and in communities to see if they're interested in your virtual event. You can also reach out to your closer connections to amplify your social efforts and even share the content with their network. 6️⃣ Experiment with Reddit: I don't recommend this for everyone, but it's surely worth experimenting with. Many marketers write off reddit thinking it's more for technical audiences, but it's more about finding your audience and building trust. 👉 If you want advice on how to leverage Reddit for B2B marketing go follow Ross Simmonds. He has a ton of great tips to build trust, drive website traffic and more with Reddit. 🤔 What promotion tactics are working best for you? #virtualevents #webinars #promotion #amplify #audience #growth