6 Last-Ditch Ways to Sell Out Your Event

If you're not gonna go all the way, why go at all?

― Joe Namath

When events fail to sell out, resourceful producers pull out all the stops.

EventMB recommends these six last-ditch efforts:

Social media buy. Take out ads on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook that target locals (drive-ins) with an interest in your topics. Cull your database for locals to help you target the buy, and be sure to keep using free social media to chat up your event. Take advantage of past attendees' testimonials. You'll motivate fence-sitters.

Personalized email. Cull from your database locals who haven’t registered and conduct a drip-marketing campaign. Focus on locals who click through and send them additional emails that concentrate on justifying the cost of the event.

Special offer. Email registrants an offer of a referral incentive, such as "Buy two, get one free." Registrants will feel appreciated and help you. Send sponsors and exhibitors the same offer, to pass along to their customers. Sister organizations may also help you spread the word. You can also promote a contest on social media with free tickets as the prizes. Create a hashtag and ask people to vote on line. Contests, well done, are buzz-worthy.

Streamlined registration. Identify any causes of friction in your registration process and eliminate them―even if it means slaying sacred cows. Last-minute registrations are impulsive, and you don't want to deter prospects in any way. And add prominent copy like "Last chance to pre-register and save" or "Only a few seats left."

Telemarketing. The best way to spur last-minute registrations is to call locals, particularly alumni of past events who haven't registered. They know the value you deliver. (If yours is a first-time event, concentrate on locals who have some relationship with you.)

Retargeting. Retargeted ads can influence sales-resistant locals by making your event top of mind. By becoming ubiquitous, you'll sell out.

Last-ditch don'ts. EventMB warns:

• Don't offer last-minute discounts rashly; you only signal panic, cheapen your event, and train registrants to wait for deep discounts the next time round. ("Loyal attendee" discounts are okay.)
  
  
• Don't go all-serious. Play up the entertainment value of your event (remember, last-minute registrations are impulse buys).
  
  
• Don't go into hard-sell mode across all marketing channels. Concentrate on the ones above.
   
• Don't bury your calls to action in your last-ditch promotions. Big, colorful buttons work.
  
  
• Don't refrain from giving free registrations away, if the recipients are influencers who'll add to the prestige of your event.

Magazines against the Wall?

A near-impenetrable wall once separated editorial from advertising.

But with ad-income in decline—and without hope of turnaround—magazine publishers are capitalizing on their editorial prestige to create new revenue streams, says Ryan Derousseau in Folio:

• Readers of New York trust its writers' recommendations about what's worth buying. So the publisher has started to rake in dough from affiliates via outbound links in the articles on its website. Whenever readers click to a partner's website, money changes hands. The publisher's policy: to plug only products "the editors or writers stand behind.” Affiliate revenue is growing 40% a month, and has inspired the publisher to open pop-up shops at festivals.

• The Atlantic has become advertisers' digital agency, exploiting its advantage in measuring readers' clicks. Besides audits, the publisher creates and runs entire content-focused, multichannel campaigns for advertisers. The campaigns can include sponsored pieces of original journalism. The in-house agency is the fastest growing division of the company. It expects its revenue to rise 32% this year.

• Time is licensing its portfolio of brands to retail outlets. Readers can find kitchenware, bed linens, rugs and other merchandise in stores that are branded Real Simple, People, Food & Wine, and Southern Living. Licensed products sold in Dillard's have grown to 110 in two years.

Does monetizing readers' trust in these ways endanger that very thing?
Probably not.

Audiences are so used to paid sponsorships, they give them no thought.

Nobody turned off the last NCAA Tournament because every other player's jersey has a Nike swoosh. James Bond's Omega watch didn't prevent Skyfall from becoming a box-office smash. Mentions of the Peninsular and Oriental Company in Around the World in Eighty Days didn't stop Jules Verne's novel from becoming a classic. And Esquire readers ate up David Ogilvy's take on oysters for Guinness.

Demand Gen Demands Focus

Lead gen (scattered) differs from demand gen (focused).

Demand gen identifies your best prospects, hooks them with content, and converts them into buyers.

It takes focus to pull it off, says Michael Brenner, CEO of Marketing Insider Group.

Here's Brenner's formula:

Step 1. Target your prospects and offer them premium content and giveaways through a variety of channels. Test e-books, white papers, infographics, videos, podcasts, free trials, and free apps. Test influencer marketing at this stage, as well. "With every download, sign-up or other customer action, you’ll gain insight and have a better idea of which segments are interested in what and why," Brenner says.

Step 2. Help prospects form an intimate connection with your brand. For this, try Webinars, contests, and events. "This tactic serves to invite the customer into a more committed brand-customer relationship."

Step 3. Now that you’ve identified your best quality leads, customize your marketing communications. "Hopefully, you’ve managed to collect some extra customer info along the way with survey questions and feedback requests to help firmly establish your buyer personas and clearly understand each segment’s pain points," Brenner says.

Step 4. Keep the customized content flowing. "It is the tailored, worthwhile content that will convince your vetted leads to follow you along until a purchase is made." Don't forget the continue testing different offers.

Step 5. Engage and delight your new customers through social media and email. Make sure they know about your new products, promotions, and content. "Meanwhile, your inbound marketing is working on gathering your next pool of prospects, ready to be identified, evaluated, thinned, and segmented."

Concentration is key.

"This approach does require a concentrated, ongoing effort to stay focused on your quality leads and customer retention," Brenner says. "But, as the nurturing process continues, relationships build, bonds thicken, and your pool of the highly qualified swells."

How to Refine Your Retargeting

Retargeting yields B2B marketers stronger results when linked to precise goals, says Demand Gen Report.

Retargeting experts insist the technique should not be considered a marketing channel unto itself, but a tactic that can reinforce other channels such as social, email, direct mail, telemarketing, and face-to-face.

An account-based approach to retargeting (limiting your ad targets to a list of prospects at specific companies) also boosts results.

"With an account-based approach, companies can identify the accounts that can have the biggest impact on their business and focus retargeting on those companies," says Peter Isaacson, CMO, Demandbase. 

That approach lets marketers personalize retargeted ads based demographics like industry and company size, and on product interests.

Retargeting should also be linked to speedy follow-up by salespeople.

"Too often, marketers focus on ads only," Isaacson says. "But to drive business metrics, you want to make sure there is triggering sales activity. This includes triggers to bring in sales development reps and account development reps to get involved and tie these initiatives to potential bottom line revenue."

The 3-Minute Machiavelli

Master these techniques and rule the world.

Ad hominem. Attacking your opponent, as opposed to his position.

Ad nauseam. Attempting to persuade by endlessly repeating an idea.

Appeal to authority. Citing prominent people to support your position.

Appeal to fear. Creating unwarranted anxieties to support your position.

Appeal to prejudice. Using emotive terms to associate moral goodness with your position.

Bandwagon. Attempting to persuade by arguing "everybody shares my position."

Beautiful people. Attempting to persuade by claiming attractive people share your position.

Big Lie. Attempting to persuade by repeating a fiction. 

Black-and-white fallacy. Attempting to persuade by oversimplifying possibilities.

Cherry picking. Attempting to persuade by selectively telling the truth.

Common man. Attempting to persuade by claiming "plain folks" agree with your position.

Cult of personality. Attempting to persuade by flattering yourself.

Demonizing. Attempting to persuade by painting your opponent as a monster.

Disinformation. Attempting to persuade by forgery or by deleting official records.

Euphemism. Attempting to persuade by disguising unpleasantries with innocuous words.

Euphoria. Leveraging morale-boosting spectacles, holidays or handouts to persuade.

Exaggeration. Attempting to persuade through hyperboles.

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). Attempting to persuade by disseminating mis- or disinformation that undermines your opponent.

Flag-waving. Attempting to persuade by proclaiming your patriotism.

Framing. Attempting to persuade by artfully controlling public narrative.

Gaslighting. Attempting to persuade by sowing doubt, denying facts, or misdirecting your audience.

Gallopbombing. Attempting to persuade by asking an opponent difficult questions in rapid fire, making them look uninformed.

Glittering generalities. Attempting to persuade by using emotionally appealing words without substance.

Guilt by association (reductio ad Hitlerum). Attempting to persuade by suggesting an opponent's position resembles that of someone we despise.

Intentional vagueness. Attempting to persuade by remaining fuzzy.

Labeling. Attempting to diminish your opponent by using a single word or phrase.

Loaded language. Attempting to persuade by using strongly emotional words.

Lying. Attempting to persuade through deceptions.

Managing the news. Attempting to persuade by "staying on message."

Minimization. Attempting to persuade by denying the implications of a fact.

Name calling. Attempting to persuade through bad names.

Non sequitur. Attempting to persuade with illogical arguments.

Obfuscation. Attempting to persuade with confusing generalities and undefined words and phrases.

Oversimplification. Attempting to persuade with simple answers to complex questions.

Pensée unique. Attempting to persuade with a single overly simplistic phrase.

Quotes out of context. Attempting to persuade by editing your opponent's statements.

Rationalization. Attempting to persuade by sugar-coating your own questionable acts and beliefs.

Red herring. Attempting to persuade by citing a compelling, but irrelevant, fact, and claiming it validates your position.

Repetition. Attempting to persuade by repeating a slogan.

Scapegoating. Attempting to persuade by assigning blame to an individual or group.

Slogan. Attempting to persuade with a striking phrase.

Stereotyping. Attempting to persuade by labeling an opponent and her followers in ways that arouse prejudice.

Straw man. Attempting to persuade by misrepresenting, and refuting, your opponent's position.

Testimonial. Attempting to persuade with others' glowing statements about you.

Third-party technique. Attempting to persuade by asking your followers to accept as authoritative the opinions of others, such as celebrities, soldiers, preachers, journalists, and scientists.

Thought-terminating cliché. Attempting to persuade with an over-used folk wisdom.

Transfer. Attempting to persuade by superimposing one or more images on others.

Unstated assumption. Attempting to persuade by avoiding disclosure of your ridiculously incredible assumption.

Virtue words. Attempting to persuade with high-minded, flowery words.