Businesses are all about relationships; events are the best way to build relationships. Events serve as a time for attendees to create meaningful connections with the new people they meet. There is a high potential for earning on events. Event organizers can dictate the value of your event and earn per ticket attendee. In this article, we will give you a comprehensive guide on how to increase event ticket sales for your event and drive revenue for your business.
Article Outline
The Value of Events for Businesses
People are becoming more defensive and resistant to sales messages today. When people attend events and get value from them, people are more likely to convert and purchase. This is why experts say that events are now the only form of marketing that people trust.
With events, there are more opportunities to generate leads and drive sales. Businesses can increase their brand awareness and also meet and get to know their customers better through events like tradeshows, networking events, seminars, webinars, and conferences.
These events have been proven effective to generate sales and leads for the business. Furthermore, events are great source of content for social media and blogs boosting a brand’s online presence.
Since businesses exist to solve problems, there is no better way to demonstrate your solutions in action than by creating engaging experiences for attendees. Start to plan for the type of events that can resonate with your audience the most. Consider the size, format, venue, and content that will work best for your event.
Factors that Affect Event Ticket Sales
After weeks or months of planning and effort, you’ve launched the details of your event to the world. If only getting thousands of traffic to your event site is that simple. If you’re experiencing slow ticket sales and wondering why, here are some factors you can consider.
Content
An event is all about content. What would people be expecting to gain or experience from your event? Just like selling a product, event organizers must wear their marketing hats to communicate the benefits and transformation that attendees will experience even beyond the event itself.
Once you have the content set for your event, how you communicate that to your marketing is also equally important. Are you just hard-selling event tickets to your customers? What are your content strategies to hook your audience to your story? How will your content reach your target audience? These are just some questions you have to start thinking about.
Speakers
Your invited speakers already have a following that your event can benefit from. Set up a partnership with your confirmed speakers on how the both of you can work together to promote the event. Start by outlining clear expectations and goals for the partnership, emphasizing mutual benefits and alignment of interests. As partners, both of you will work together to help sell event tickets quickly.
With social media platforms like Instagram, you can work to collaborate with speakers to co-create promotional content tailored to their audience. Create collaborative content like guest blog posts, social media takeovers, or personalized video messages.
Pricing
Once you get your target audience’s attention, the next action step they will take is to go to your event website and check on your ticket price. You want to have strategic pricing on your different types of ticket that is not too cheap or too expensive. Offer event ticket price points as your ticket-selling strategy like general admission ticket, VIP ticket, free ticket, etc.
Overcome sales resistance on your price by creating thoughtful copy on your sales landing page stacking the value your potential customers can get from your event. Have a clear headline and call to action to make everything clear for your readers.
Consider discount options, tiered pricing, group packages, and special offers to stand out to your customers.
Marketing/ Branding
No matter the efforts you’ve put into your event, if you don’t practice the right strategy, your event will not reach your target audience. Produce content that will make your customers aware of a problem they might not be aware of.
Choose and stick to one marketing strategy whether search engine optimization, social media, email marketing, etc. Whatever type of social media marketing you choose, you need to have a reliable and on-brand event website.
Messaging / Communication
Being clear wins over being clever all the time. Start by clearly defining the unique selling points of your event, such as its theme, objectives, and benefits. Craft concise and persuasive messaging that highlights these key points and addresses the needs and interests of your target audience.
Logistics Concern
The proximity or location of your venue might be a hindrance to your target audience. A well-chosen venue that aligns with the theme, size, and requirements of your event can enhance the overall attendee experience and contribute to its success. Consider factors such as accessibility, amenities, parking, and capacity when selecting a venue to ensure that it meets the needs of your target audience.
The event timing and schedule can also be a factor that can affect your event attendance. Check for competing holidays and events before deciding on your final event date.
For online ticket selling, making sure that your sales funnel is smooth and simple. Having a clear call to action and smooth check out process on your event website can also contribute to your attendee experience.
Competition
A possible reason why you may be struggling with your ticket sales maybe strong competition. Conduct competitor research and analysis on your competitors to see what they are doing well. You can set up Google Alerts, Social Listening Tools, and Event Intelligence websites to help you gain a better understanding of existing competition.
While being aware of competitors can be a good reference, event planners do not need to focus on that too much. Instead, event managers should focus on creating a good event experience for their customers.
Previous Attendee Experience
Your attendee’s previous experience might be a hindrance to them attending your event. Be intentional about making sure to maintain the quality of your event and that every participant get the value and transformation you promised.
Weather or Seasonal Fluctuations
Weather and seasonal fluctuations can impact attendance for outdoor events, but event organizers generally cannot control or predict weather conditions far in advance. While organizers may need to plan for contingency measures in case of adverse weather, obsessing over weather forecasts may not significantly impact ticket sales.
3 Focus Areas on How to Increase Ticket Sales
If you’re thinking about how to boost your ticket sales, take a look at these three areas and identify actions on what you can do to boost your sales.
1. Partnerships
Enter into win-win partnerships by partnering with people who are aligned to your business goals. You can look for influencers on social media platforms that have followers that fit the audience you are targeting. Ask them to create content that you can repost as an event organizer.
Affiliate marketing or referral programs are also one way to drive traffic and interest to your ticket sales. By incentivizing individuals or organizations to promote your event to their networks, you can tap into their existing relationships and influence them to drive ticket purchases.
Offer attractive commissions, discounts, or rewards for successful referrals, motivating affiliates to actively promote your event and maximize their earning potential.
As much as possible, seek every potential way to maximize the people you work with to promote your event and drive ticket sales.
2. Digital Marketing Strategies
A strong marketing strategy is essential to the success of your event. Promote your event through the following tactics or strategies:
Community Building
The goal of an event is to build strong relationships that will eventually lead to loyal customers. Create a sense of belongingness and a culture of helping one another by opening opportunities to share vulnerabilities and authentic stories.
Social Media
Create an event on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram and post your event promotional material there. Try to do short videos like reels to be in the favor of the algorithm and help it reach more people.
Search Engine Optimization
Search has always been a part of everyone’s lifestyle when they search for information online. Apply the best practices for search engine optimization by making sure your site runs fast, using relevant keywords on your event website, and putting out content that answers your audience’s questions.
Paid ads
Your content can efficiently reach more people when you invest in paid ads. Depending on your social media platform of choice, you can allot a daily or total budget for your content to appear on a demographic of your choice. Event marketers can manage the settings of their paid campaign like a person’s lookalike audience, past web history, search history, interests, people they follow, etc.
Email marketing
Plan for the touchpoints your audience will receive through a well-crafted event email marketing campaign. Prepare a copy of all your emails for the different email sequences and recipients for your events. Some examples are the event invitation email, event confirmation, thank you email, etc.
3. Content
If your event is not gaining traction despite the best marketing efforts and partnerships, it might be that the content you are serving is not relevant to your audience. Choose interesting event speakers and relevant event topics and lessons to attract your audience.
In choosing your content, try to fit it into these categories: educational, entertaining, and inspirational. Personalize your content to resonate with different segments of your audience. Tailor your messaging, tone, and content formats to suit the preferences and interests of different audience segments, whether they’re new prospects, existing customers, or industry professionals.
Sales Strategies and Principles To Boost Ticket Sales
Humanize your strategy to overcome sales resistance
People are naturally resistant to anything that is trying to sell them something. As an event organizer, you have the advantage of not just communicating that you are selling something but you are creating an experience that can impact their lives. Customer engagement strategies include being authentic before, during and after the event to build a long-term relationship.
Humanize your approach by asking the right questions. Jeremy Miner, a sales expert, shared that he uses different ways of questioning to get to know his prospects. He uses different tones like curious, confused, challenging, concerned, and playful to keep the conversation engaging. When you provide a personal and human experience, this will translate into an excellent customer service experience.
Focus on solving a problem, instead of selling
A possible reason why your event is not resonating is that it is not solving a problem or pain point that your audience is experiencing. You can try to listen to what the prospect means, not just what they say.
Be genuinely interested in understanding what they are going through. The podcast episode with Jeremy Miner stated that people are afraid of pain or future pain. As an event marketer, try to reflect these into your content strategy. When your customers feel that you genuinely care about what they are going through, it becomes easier for them to trust you.
Create effective incentives and rewards system
Give discount opportunities to excite your customers. You can set up a flash sale on your event sites encouraging people to purchase their tickets while on sale. Additionally, create loyalty programs to reward your loyal fans especially if your event is a recurring event.
Create an effective event ticketing strategy like bundle promos or package your tickets for the group. You can also implement tiered types of tickets like general admission tickets, premium tickets, or VIP tickets. For example, a general admission ticket can just be access to the seminar while a VIP ticket can give access to different workshops or meet and greets with speakers.
Furthermore, you use urgency and scarcity techniques to drive people to action fast. Incorporating countdown timers, countdown emails, or limited ticket tiers can effectively communicate the urgency and scarcity of the opportunity, encouraging hesitant prospects to make a decision and commit to attending your event.
Mindset matters
Almost every sales expert will mention the value and importance of your mindset. Identify your limiting beliefs that is holding you back from launching your event and selling out your tickets successfully. A mindset focused on growth and opportunity sees challenges as opportunities for learning and improvement, rather than obstacles to be overcome.
Be collaborative in the selling process
Customers are more likely to convert into a sale when they feel like they are part of your business. By involving customers in the sales process, whether through co-creation, feedback sessions, or collaborative problem-solving, businesses can gain invaluable insights into their needs, preferences, and pain points. This not only helps tailor products or services to better meet customer expectations but also fosters a sense of ownership and investment in the solution.
For example, since authenticity attracts customers, event planners can share the behind-the-scenes journey of building their event and crafting their content. In order to make the audience feel that they are part of building the event.
Conclusion
This article talked about the different factors that you can consider when you are experiencing low ticket sales. Check whether it is your event, pricing, or previous attendee experience. Consider exerting effort on these focus areas to help boost your ticket sales: content, marketing, and partnerships.
Start Selling Tickets without Worrying about Commission Fees
Your ticket registration platform is where you will host all your ticket-selling activities. Choose a ticketing platform that charges no commission fees for all your online ticket sales. Event Espresso is a WordPress plug-in that easily integrates with your event website hosted on WordPress. Whatever the type of events you host, Event Espresso can serve your needs.
Enjoy an optimized ticket-selling process, no commission fees on unlimited tickets sold, secure payment collection, and a customizable registration form for your attendees when you install the Event Espresso plugin.
For non-WordPress users, don’t worry because you can use Event Smart. It hosts all the similar features without needing to have your event website.
If you’re ready to bring your businesses to life through events and boost your ticket sales, you can start creating events now. Check out our free live demo or our no-commitment 14-day free trial now.