In this very challenging economy it is more important than ever that all your partners are doing everything they can to promote your event.
Your media and association partners your exhibitors industry influentials and even your attendees need to step-up their efforts if you want to grow your event. Regardless of what they are doing now they no doubt could and should be doing more. Here are some examples:

Media & Association Partners:

Most likely your media and association partners are also suffering declining revenues and have fewer resources to promote your event. However savvy organizations have a good online presence and there are a number of things they should be doing to promote your show beyond the occasional e-mail blasts and banner ads. They should be working with you on special promotional pricing offers for your exhibitors promoting the show through their social media channels and exploring other creative ways to drive traffic. Even though you might be spending less money with them your event is most likely their biggest revenue-generating opportunity of the year.

Here are a couple examples of how we work with our media and association partners to encourage them to do special pricing promotions as well as providing regular columns online and in print. We work with them to:

• Do a minimum of three e-mail blasts
• Do co-sponsored Tweet Ups at the show
• Produce video on the show floor
• Co-sponsor digital Show Dailies
• Promote the educational seminars more aggressively
• Encourage their speakers to regularly promote their sessions
• Provide a regular column in their online newsletters
• Post a video on their home page
• Participate in blog discussions
• Join special social media groups

Since testimonials are still one of the most powerful marketing tools and new inexpensive video technology has made it easy and cheap to film on site you should also be interviewing your attendees and posting it on their websites.

As we all know the best way to work with your partners is to have the templates and materials ready for them to send out.  Any extra work you ask them to do will often result in it not getting done.

Exhibitors:

Although many exhibitors think it is solely your job to promote the show the savvy ones know that the more they promote their participation the better it is for them. The challenge is to convince the others that they need to promote their participation. Social media has made that much easier and very inexpensive to accomplish. In addition to the various marketing activities listed previously you should be videotaping testimonials with them that can be used on your website sent out via e-mail and promoted on social media. Here is an example of an exhibitor video we created to promote our clients’ shows.

Attendees:

Yes attendees should be helping you promote your Show! Happy attendees can be one of your most effective marketing tools but we often don’t take advantage of reaching out to them. As with exhibitors you should be interviewing your attendees and posting them on your web and social media sites. We are currently producing an attendee video that is based on testimonials we captured at a recent show (e-mail me for a copy at rhalligan@h-a-intl.com).

In Summary:

Your partners are no doubt doing some of the activities listed above – and that’s great.  However I’m sure they are not doing all they could and should be doing in these challenging times to build traffic. As we all know the more you can package “turn-key promotional packages” for them the more successful you will be in getting them to participate.

We also know that although many of these activities are quite inexpensive to implement they can be time consuming. Please give us a call we’d like to hear your thoughts.