A real estate broker organizes a big yearly Easter event for families. While it may seem unrelated to selling houses and an unnecessary effort, the event has brought value to his target audience – families who eventually buy or sell real estate. Because the event has successfully gained the trust of his attendees, he becomes the top of mind when they want to purchase a house. We see how events are a powerful marketing tool for your business and how important it is for event planners to look for ways to grow event revenue.
This article will give you insights into all the possible ways you can increase event revenue and some of the best strategies you can apply right away.
Article Outline
The Importance of Revenue for Events
Revenue is important for an event’s financial stability. Event planners forecast and consider revenue to guide their decision-making. An event revenue provides the necessary financial resources to cover the event expenses and ensure the event’s sustainability. Costs like rentals, staff salaries, and decor, are some examples of expenses that your event revenue must cover.
Profitability is also impacted by the event revenue. While revenue covers expenses, profitability ensures that events break even and generate surplus funds for future investments and growth.
Another impact of event revenue for events is the opportunity for market expansion. Revenue enables event organizers to innovate and adapt to changing trends and preferences. By investing in new technologies, interactive experiences, or sustainability initiatives, events can stay relevant and attract a diverse audience.
Ways on How To Increase Event Revenue
Event planners, here are some ideas you can consider to grow your event revenue. Each business is different so choose what works best for you.
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Create Irresistible Offers
As with any business, people entrust you with their hard-earned money for your offer. An offer is not your product, but it is the solution for the existing problem of your target customers. Alex Hormozi, author of the bestselling book $100M Offers, talks about elevating the perceived value of your product or service to make it easier for people to purchase. Your offer should be translated into the different products you sell related to your event.
Ticket Sales
Ticket sales are the main avenue on how events attain revenue. For smaller events, the profit margins of tickets can range close to 30%. It’s crucial for event organizers to carefully analyze their expenses and revenue projections to determine the optimal balance between maximizing profits and ensuring ticket affordability and accessibility for attendees.
When selling tickets online, you want to increase your event revenue by eliminating unnecessary charges. Use an event registration and ticket-selling platform that allows you to sell unlimited tickets with no additional fees like Event Espresso or Event Smart.
Tiered Pricing
Using a ticket pricing strategy for your event allows you to give options and flexibility to your target attendees. By offering multiple ticket tiers, each with its own set of benefits and price points, organizers can appeal to a broader range of audience segments and capture additional revenue streams.
Premium tiers may include perks such as VIP access, exclusive networking opportunities, or complimentary merchandise, enticing attendees willing to pay a premium for enhanced experiences. Meanwhile, more affordable tiers can ensure accessibility for budget-conscious attendees, fostering inclusivity while bolstering overall attendance and revenue.
Promotions and Discounts
Communicate the value your target audience may miss out on if they let an exciting promotion or discount pass. Create time-limited promos and discounts to urge your potential attendees to take action fast.
Moreover, partnerships with relevant organizations or influencers can extend promotional reach and attract new audiences, further amplifying revenue-generating opportunities while strengthening brand visibility and engagement.
Merchandise Sales
Identify related items you can sell during your event. Since events serve a niche or targeted market, you can choose to sell products or services that will cater or serve to that specific audience group.
From branded apparel and accessories to collectible memorabilia, event merchandise can generate revenue and excitement. Additionally, merchandise can foster a sense of community among attendees, transforming them into walking ambassadors for the event.
Upsells/ Add ons
Once an attendee purchases a ticket, you know they are already interested in what your event offers. Event organizers can use this opportunity to sell additional items that add value to what you are currently selling.
Whether it’s premium seating options, VIP access passes, exclusive after-party invitations, access to virtual events, or specialized workshops and masterclasses, upselling and add-ons allow organizers to cater to diverse attendee preferences while simultaneously boosting the event’s bottom line. For example, event organizers can monetize event content by selling recordings as an online event for people who can’t participate live.
Moreover, by carefully curating these additional offerings to align with the event’s overall theme and value proposition, organizers can create a sense of exclusivity and value that entices attendees to invest further in their event experience.
2. Gain Sponsorships or Fundraise
Aside from ticket sales, getting event sponsorships or fundraising are significant efforts event organizers can choose to do to further achieve an event revenue target. Choose local businesses as event partners to help increase brand awareness.
Exhibitor Booths
Opening slots for booths can be a way for brands to work with your event. Choose brands that are related to your event or brands that would benefit from your attending participants.
Exhibitor booths are spaces at events where businesses sell or promote their products and services to visitors. These booths not only help cover event costs through fees charged to exhibitors but also give them a chance to connect with potential customers and partners. They add variety to the event and create networking opportunities for everyone involved, making them essential for both attendees and exhibitors
Auction/ Garage Sales
At auctions, people bid on items they want to buy, and the highest bidder wins. This not only brings in funds but also gets attendees excited. Similarly, garage sales let people sell items they no longer need, with the proceeds going to the event. These activities not only help raise money but also create a lively atmosphere and give attendees a chance to find unique treasures.
Sponsorship Activation Opportunities
Events are also attractive activation opportunities for businesses. For example, a school event like college fest attracts hundreds to even thousands of students. Businesses like food or fashion would want to participate to gain brand awareness with the youth or the student market.
3. Invest in Effective Advertising
Businesses can increase revenue for their event through effective marketing campaigns. Creating the right messaging can help attract and reach the right audience.
Word of Mouth
Create a memorable experience for your event attendees to initiate a word-of-mouth campaign. Nothing invites a person to check out an event more than when they see their friend or someone they know talk about it.
Set up your event design that can encourage attendees to take photos and share on social media. Create engaging content that will make your attendees feel like they are cool when they post about your event. Basically, understand your audience well so you can craft an event that they would be proud to share with their circle of friends.
Referrals
Give incentives to your attendees when they invite someone successfully to register for your event. You can set up a discount code that you can share with your loyal customers. When someone registers using the code you can give incentives or special perks.
Digital Marketing
Invest in building a brand on your chosen social media platform since everyone mostly spends their time online. Whether it’s Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, SEO, there is a whole team who is in charge of brainstorming content and strategy that will get the audience’s attention.
Affiliate Marketing
Use the power of partners and media to promote your event. Create a pool of affiliates whether from bloggers, influencers, vloggers, media outlets, or other organizations. If their promotion converts into a sale of event attendance, they get a set commission or revenue share from you. This win-win strategy not only expands the event’s reach to new audiences but also cultivates a network of brand advocates who are passionate about spreading the word.
Paid Marketing
Show your event promotion to a relevant audience by doing paid marketing. On your chosen platform, you can pay for the platform to give your content more visibility. You can customize your targeting options by geography, age, interests, and even behavior like search history or purchase history with your business.
4. Create Immersive Experiences for your Audience
Finally, give the best experience on your events to make your attendees willing and voluntary advocates of your event. A quote by Jonathan Berger, the author of the book “Contagious” says, “We need to design products and ideas that are frequently triggered by the environment and create new triggers by linking our products and ideas to prevalent cues in that environment. Top of mind leads to tip of tongue.
Event planners can keep this in mind when they plan for content promoting their event. You can apply this by analyzing the industry of your event, understanding the event themes that resonate with your audience, innovating ideas that will surprise your attendees, etc.
By adding an element of surprise, there is a higher chance of staying top of mind for your attendees. Furthermore, don’t forget to plan a post-event follow up strategy after your event. Send personalized and thoughtful gifts or messages so your attendees will constantly keep you top of mind even after the event.
Best Tips on How to Earn Through Events
Create a relationship with your customers
Events are heavy on relationships. Just like how you would build trust with your friends, building trust with your customers is similar. Building a relationship with customers goes beyond simply selling tickets or promoting products—it involves understanding their needs, preferences, and desires, and actively engaging with them to deliver value and memorable experiences.
Go the extra mile by adding personalization and extra care to your service. Prioritize prompt replies and genuinely care for their needs for them to trust you.
Collect attendee feedback to understand them
As mentioned about understanding your audience to gain trust, one way to do this is by collecting attendee feedback.
Examples of attendee feedback include post-event surveys, on-site feedback stations, social media listening tools, website analytics, focus groups, interactive Q&A sessions, one-on-one interviews, and feedback cards.
Create an environment and culture where attendees can express their sentiments so event organizers can immediately have access to feedback.
Master the art of getting your audience’s attention
From marketing to the actual event, getting your audience’s attention is almost half the battle. Incorporate strategies that will get people to stop or as what experts call a pattern interrupt.
Think of content ideas that feature unexpected visuals, unconventional messaging, interactive content, personalization, or storytelling hooks to get people interested immediately.
Cut down on costs with your event tools and vendors
Finally, be aware of the existing costs of making your events happen. Ensure every vendor you trust delivers value-for-money services. Identify unnecessary expenses and fees from your tools.
An example is the high ticketing fees from ticket-selling platforms. It is important to choose your event ticket platform wisely because this is used for live, virtual, and hybrid events. Choose Event Espresso or Event Smart which offers no commission fees on an unlimited number of tickets sold. Fewer expenses from costs mean bigger event revenue and potentially higher profits for your events.
Achieve your Event Profit Goals with Event Espresso
Make profitable events now starting with the choice of your event ticketing and registration platforms. If your event website is hosted on WordPress, you can easily install the Event Espresso plug-in on your site.
For non-Wordpress users, Event Smart will be the ideal solution for you. Both Event Espresso and Event Smart charges zero commission fees on an unlimited number of tickets sold. Aside from this, event organizers can enjoy features like customizable registration forms, secure payment collection, discount customization, and more.
Don’t miss out on the potential earnings for your events business. Check out our free live demo now or our no-commitment 14-day free trial.