5 Creative Marketing Strategies to Increase Event Sales

Standing out in business is absolutely vital. After all, how will anyone know who you are or what your business does if you aren’t immediately accessible? When it comes to hosting an event, there are tried and tested ways to increase event sales. These include designing an effective website to promoting the event via social media.

But as time goes on and technology evolves, it’s becoming more difficult to nail down guests and persuade them to attend an event. So it’s important for businesses and event organisers to start thinking outside the box, implementing creative ideas that can help increase event sales.

1. Run contests

Contests are a fantastic way to engage an audience and drive up levels of interest. Whether it be a photo contest, video contest, caption contest, or vote, there are plenty of templates to choose from.

For example, giving your audience the chance to win a free ticket for sharing a video, post, or photo is a great way of to advertise your event without spending a penny. Likewise, polls and voting contests can be highly effective methods of gathering public feedback to help guide planning decisions.

Including the audience in such contests will not only generate a lot of buzz around the event itself—it will also ensure it’s a resounding success when it takes place.

Further reading: 6 Creative Social Media Contest Ideas to Engage Event-Goers

2. Be unique on social media

While on the subject of social media, being unique will put you and your event in good stead. Generic posts, photos, and updates are all well and good but—to truly engage with an audience and increase event sales—the more “out there” you can be, the better.

Developing #hashtag campaigns, making content super shareable, and creating bespoke infographics can all be effective ways of encouraging audiences to engage with your event.

Similarly, tools like Rafflecopter can be really effective. This tool works by awarding points for performing different social media–related tasks. These points can be built up to earn increasingly valuable event-focused incentives.

Further reading: 8 Awesome Social Media Management Tools for Events

3. Try urban marketing

Sharing news and updates about your event online is fine, but it won’t guarantee that somebody will actually see or hear about your event. Sometimes, sticking to old-school, tried-and-tested techniques works best.

It’s time to hit the streets.

Using urban marketing to advertise your event can be a fantastic way to generate interest. Research shows that people don’t like feeling forced into making a purchase decision.

Therefore, the more subtly you can promote your event, the better.

This could include commissioning a mural, obtaining unusual sponsorship (e.g. Boris Bikes), handing out promotional flyers, or simply utilising your surroundings. Think about what your event focuses on and brainstorm creative traditional methods to help it be seen by the masses.

4. Host a podcast

Over the past few years, podcasts have skyrocketed in popularity. Why not join the bandwagon?

Say you are planning a summer music event. By hosting your very own podcast, you could arrange pre-event interviews with your performers or run radio competitions to generate excitement before the event actually takes place.

If running your own podcast to increase event sales isn’t for you, there are other options. You could always pay to be featured on popular existing podcasts instead. Many popular podcast and radio channels offer sponsorship. During the lead up to your event, you could pay to feature an advert dedicated to it.

Further reading: How to Run Your Podcast Booth for Events

5. Get controversial

You must stand out from the crowd when promoting an event. This is true for everything from the colours and design you use on your website to the social media channels you choose to publish adverts on. Quite simply, nobody will notice your event if it comes across the same way as everything else.

Therefore, an important area to think about is your content strategy. By promoting well-written, thought-provoking content related to the event, you’ll increase the chance of your audience actually engaging with it and wanting to find out more. But encouraging someone to actually read your content is easier said than done. That’s why you need to think about the subject matter.

You must keep on trend to prove to your target audience that you know what you’re talking about. Rather than focusing on fluffy, safe, salesy content that no one will read, why not push the boundaries slightly? You can produce more controversial content that expresses views and opinions related to your event?

If you’re hosting a work conference, you could publish an opinion piece from a guest speaker. That could generate a lot of interest from attendees who both agree and disagree with what they have to say.

Author: Dakota Murphey provides content for a small selection of event industry sites including Billetto.