Britepaper. How to grow your business through events 10 easy steps

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1 Britepaper How to grow your business through events 10 easy steps 1

2 How to grow your business through events 10 easy steps As a small and growing business, hosting events on a regular basis is a great way to build up your client base, grow your network and generate revenues. However, you probably don t have dedicated marketing and sales teams to rely on, so you need to find a way to get the right audience to your events, and then manage your attendees, with a minimum of fuss and resources. If this sounds like you, then this Britepaper is going to help. You re in great shape Before we dive into the how to of building your business, lets have a quick look at the opportunity you have to grow. At Eventbrite we re seeing an ever increasing number of small businesses using events to grow their networks, audiences and revenues. There s no doubt that events are a great way to help meet your goals as a growing business. However, we know it s not as easy as build it and they will come, because you need to create awareness for your events, offer a great experience and measure what works and what doesn t so you can keep growing your network. This Britepaper will show you how... 2

3 10 easy steps These 10 steps will get you on the fast track to sold-out events and happy attendees, so let's get started. 1. Get the SEO basics right Being first, or at least on the first page, of Google s organic search results is still one of the best ways to help customers find you. It s particularly powerful because when a customer is searching for terms such as networking lunch and presentation workshop, they re showing real intent towards purchasing the solution you offer. That s why it pays to get the basics right! When you create your event on Eventbrite.co.uk, we automatically add your event name to the title of the url created, and optimise it for organic searches, which helps Google index your class and helps with your SEO. Fill out your event descriptions as fully and accurately as possible too, so that Google is able to pick up the information and direct people to your page more accurately if they re searching for specific terms found on your event page. That s it, just follow these two simple steps and Eventbrite and Google will do the rest for you. 3

4 2. Add the event page to your website Assuming you have your own website, then you should definitely add a link or button from your event page to it, otherwise all the traffic you attract will not be seeing your events a big missed opportunity! The added benefit is that having a link or button from your Eventbrite page onto your website is another great way to help boost SEO because Google still relies on backlinks to understand which pages are popular, and therefore which to show higher up their rankings. You should also add links from your website and all your social channels to your event page to help people navigate between your different web profiles, and to help Google understand how they all fit together. Having a link or button from your Eventbrite page onto your website is another great way to help boost SEO 3. Get social The rise of social networks have helped balance out the monopoly of Google, because so many people now rely on social recommendations to make purchasing decisions, and these are often shared via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc. Adding social integrations to your event page is also super simple with Eventbrite, and there are some handy how-to guides on publishing your event to Facebook and promoting your event with Twitter. You can even use Eventbrite in conjunction with daily deal sites like Groupon or Living Social! 4

5 4. Be different! Anyone who is successful has at least one characteristic in common they stand out from the crowd. Successful authors write differently and imaginatively, successful businesses have inspiring missions and dedicated staff, successful athletes train harder or have unique physiologies that give them an edge. If you want to stand out, then you ll need to be different too. One way to achieve this is by creating a unique brand experience through design. The Eventbrite platform allows you to customise your webpage to express whatever unique design you have, helping you stand out and attract more sales. Another tactic for standing out is to focus on a specific niche, so you re not competing with a huge range of generic competitors. Instead, you can specialise in a particular area, becoming the dominant player in that niche. For example, maybe you just want to focus on a particular demographic (mums, young professionals, city workers etc.); a specific type of event (seminars, classes etc.); the goal of your customers (networking, improving skills, learning about a new topic etc.) or a location. If one niche is still too large to effectively stand out, you can combine different ones until you ve create a market big enough to be lucrative but small enough to easily let you be the number one practitioner (e.g. young professionals who are interested in improving their presentation skills, that live in North London). 5

6 5. Build authority Once you ve picked your focus, it s then important to build up your authority in that niche. There are a number of ways to achieve this, but perhaps the most powerful is through inbound marketing. There are a large number of resources to learn more about inbound marketing, but here are three ideas to get you started. Firstly, start a blog. You don t have to write every day, and even just one a week should be sufficient to start building your reputation in your particular area of expertise. Share your posts on social media, see if other blogs would like to republish your content and add links to your popular topics to your event pages. Secondly, create a Youtube channel. Youtube is the second largest search engine after Google (which owns it!), so it s a great place to be found. You can show examples of your events, the types of benefits attendees gain, interview attendees who have found the events useful or all of those things. Just showing your enthusiasm for what you do will help build trust with potential attendees and build your credibility. Youtube is the second largest search engine after Google so it s a great place to be found Last but not least, public speaking can be a really powerful way to build your authority. Every time you speak to a room full of people (all potential customers!) you re able to demonstrate your knowledge to them, and even if they re not your target audience, they will probably know someone who is. Being listed as a speaker is also a great way to indicate your expertise, and potentially attract yet more speaking gigs, interviews from journalists and links back to you site (helping with your SEO rankings). 6. Build relationships Everyone is familiar with the phrase It s not what you know, it s who you know and that s because it s so often true. You might be the most knowledgeable person in the world in your particular niche, with a long list of blog posts and Youtube videos to support that claim. However, without supporters to help you spread the word, you re fighting an uphill battle to get others to notice your hard work or your events. Make sure you attend industry gatherings and events relevant to your profession, so you can build relationships with your peers, and help one another get found offline and online. 6

7 You should also make sure you follow influencers in your space on Twitter, and comment on popular blogs in your sector so the authors start to recognise your name and contribution. If you consistently leave quality comments, they may reach out to you and ask for guest posts, which helps spread your authority even further again. Of course, good old-fashioned word of mouth will always help you to grow your network too, and having a lot of friends and contacts within your industry is a great way to get people talking positively about your events. 7. Test what s working So far we ve talked about a lot of different marketing tactics, from social media to SEO, blogging to relationship building. Being a busy business owner or manager, you probably don t have time to dedicate to all of these activities. But how do you know which you should concentrate on, and which are not worth you time? Guessing this part is not a good idea, because its essential to building out a strong business! Thankfully, the Eventbrite platform is built to help you make these kinds of decisions really easily. For example, every time you build a new relationship and they promise to share your event with their friends, readers or followers, you can give them a custom link which will help you track any sales that come from them. Similarly, these custom links can be implemented into your social media promotion and any calls-to-action you have on blog posts or videos, so you can track their effectiveness too. All you need to do is log in to manage your events, and Eventbrite brings it all together in an easy to understand dashboard so you can make data-based decisions in minutes, letting you focus your time only on the activities that really work. 7

8 8. Be in the right place at the right time Sometimes it s just impossible to proactively target your potential customers through social media, search or blogging. Instead, you just need to be in the right place at the right time. For example, it s hard to predict when someone is going to buy and sell their house, which is why most estate agents will feature all their listings on property sites like Zoopla. Would it make sense to use Twitter and Google to find buyers for a used skateboard? Probably not, because it s too niche to target an audience effectively, which is why people use ebay to sell their used goods to those who want them. With events, many people will simply skip Google and social media all together, and come to Eventbrite directly to find out what s available. That s why anyone who organises events often chooses to be listed on our platform because it helps aid discovery when other traditional marketing channels get skipped. When you re on the Eventbrite platform, you also get the added benefit of a site with a large amount of traffic, all of which is people trying to find interesting events for them to attend! 9. Be mobile friendly Talking of being in the right place at the right time, its also essential to make sure people can find and book events from their mobile phones and tablets. Mobile phones and tablets are quickly overtaking household PCs and laptops in number, and best of all, your customers probably have them on them just about every minute of the day (with the exception of sleeping and showering!) The Eventbrite site is completely responsive, meaning all our pages (including your events) will display appropriate to the size of whatever screen someone is viewing it on, making their search and booking process as easy as it is on larger screens. The Eventbrite site is completely responsive, which means your event page will display appropriate to the size of whatever screen someone is viewing it on It s also a good idea to make sure your own webpage is also responsive, so they can view your content on mobile phones, and this will help build up a relationship with your prospective client while they re away from their homes. Having this new mobile sales channel available to you will be a key success factor in the future. 8

9 10. Offer a great customer experience The results of these previous steps should be be sold-out events and high expectations about what you can deliver to your attendees. Now you need to make sure you deliver. The first thing you need to do is communicate with them regularly, so they know where to go, what time to arrive, what they should expect and any other information that will be essential to them getting the most out of your events. You can all of your registered customers directly from Eventbrite, or if you already use other popular services like Mailchimp, they re fully integrated too. The second thing you need to do is understand your clients goals and know of any special requirements they will have. This is really easy to do with custom questions that you can set up for the registration process, and then simply download or review before you run the event. If they (or you) have any questions during the process, then Eventbrite also fields a dedicated, multilingual, 24/7 customer service team. While they can t tell your clients whether they re displaying good form or not (that s what you re there for!) they can be reached by anyone, to help with just about anything event related. Finally, when everyone turns up for your event, you want to make their arrival as hassle free for you and them as possible. This is where the Event Manager app comes into it s own, available for both iphone and Android. Now it doesn t matter if no one printed a confirmation ticket, all you need to do is scan the unique barcode on their phone and they re in. 9

10 Conclusion Putting on exciting and unique events isn t easy, so it s important you get rewarded for the effort with a sold-event event, without having to employ a fulltime marketing team to get them there! This is exactly what Eventbrite is built for. It gives you all the powerful tools you need to promote your event, and deliver awesome customer service, with minimal effort, so you can concentrate on looking after your attendees and growing your business. About Eventbrite Eventbrite enables people all over the world to plan, promote, and sell out any event. Since its inception in 2006, Eventbrite has processed over 200 million tickets and helped organisers sell over 1.8 billion worth of tickets to events in 187 countries. The online ticketing platform makes it easy for anyone to discover events, and to share the events they are attending with the people they know. Eventbrite provides a professional, simple way to manage and promote events to help you reach your business goals. Learn more at or call