Creating an event website is an important step to take in creating a strongly branded experience. However, getting a good website up and running can be incredibly difficult. You have to consider the website URL, hosting, who is going to design it, what it will contain, and the attendee experience. This isn’t even considering the time cost. In this post, I will discuss the different options available in creating your event website, the pages your website needs, and how to best optimize your site for attendees and ticket sales. Step 1: Why Use An Event Website? There are a lot of reasons to have a website for your event. Three big reasons could be:

• Sell Tickets
• Market Your Story
• Acquire Sponsors

There are others, but these are three that I want to focus on since these are the challenges that most event organizers will be facing. The great news is that using an event website will help you with all of this, and more. Having a site enables you to educate people about your event, your goals, your mission statement, and more. Step 1a: Determine your brand. Before you even look into a website, think about your brand, and what you want your site to look like. This will help a lot with the next step. For more information on creating event branding assets, read our post here on event branding here.  Step 2: The Different Website Options Available So you’ve determined that you need an event website, and you have the goals in mind. Now, you need to get your website built out! The three options that will make sense for you are a website builder, a website designer, and WordPress. I’ll discuss the pros and cons of each of these options. Note that WordPress is technically a website builder, but there are a few different steps you need to take, so I have split them out for convenience. Website Builder Website Builders have become extremely popular in the past few years. Instead of having to pay a designer to build everything out, you get access to templates that you can customize. Furthermore, you don’t need to host your site or handle anything else except by getting a domain name. The two builders I’d recommend looking into are Squarespace and Wix. Each of them has their own upsides, so it’s really up to you to find which one aligns with your goals the best. If you’re just starting out, I’d recommend using a website builder. Pros: Inexpensive. Most website builders charge $20 or less a month. As an event organizer, that’s just a ticket or two, and sometimes much less than that. You’ll make your money back quickly.  Able To Make Updates As Needed. Did someone just point out a spelling error? Or do you need to update the speaker list? You have immediate access. Cons: Must Make Site Yourself. You will be spending a decent amount of time building out the pages and getting the website to look good. Limited Options. Because you’re dealing with themes, there is really only so much you can do with them. Website Designer If you’ve been around the block a few times and your event(s) are bringing in significant revenue, you might like to look into a website designer. Designers are great because they can really execute on your vision, and offer their own input. Pros: Great Looking Site. Generally speaking, a professional will be able to do a much better job than you at creating a website that will bring in conversions. More Optimized Site. Designers are aware of best practices regarding websites, and they’ll be able to build a strong website without the trial-and-error you would experience otherwise. Cons: Slow Set-Up/Response Time. Because designers are building your site from scratch, it will take them more time than using an out-of-the-box builder. Furthermore, they may not be able to implement changes quickly. Cost. The big one – building a website is not cheap so you will be paying at least $2,500 or more. Again, this is why I recommend only hiring a designer if you are confident that the sales would override the cost.  You May Not Control Your Site. Just because a designer built your site, doesn’t mean that you have total control over it. The agency or designer that created your site may host it on their platform, meaning that you don’t have full access or control. WordPress WordPress is the premier blog platform and has been since its inception. There are countless templates, applications, and add-ons for every conceivable scenario. I chose to differentiate WordPress from Website Builders because there is some manual work you will need to do yourself. In particular, I want to point out that the Ticketbud blog is a WordPress blog with a (Free!) theme courtesy of Builder Society and is hosted on WP Engine. I personally prefer using WordPress because of all of the theme options and add-ons. In order to get started on WordPress, you need to get a domain name and hosting, and that’s about it! The rest is up to you. Pros: More Options Than Website Builder, More Customizable. WordPress has been around for a while, and with that comes a deep base of options. Inexpensive. You really only need to pay for hosting (see below) and get a theme, which can be as little as $5 to $10 to the $100s. There are also free themes out there, as I mentioned above.  Cons: Need To Host Yourself (Or Use A Service). Now, this isn’t really so much of a downside as it is a little bit of extra work on your part, compared to the out-of-the-box experience for other website builders. You can use a dedicated WordPress hosting solution such as WP Engine, or go for something more general like Bluehost. Need To Update/Vulnerable. Again, not a huge downside, but WordPress installations can be targets of malicious attacks. You can minimize any sort of attempt by keeping all of your apps and WordPress versions updated to the latest version.  Step 3: Building Site Pages Every good website has pages that help build trust and turn visitors into customers. These pages are: -About Us Here is the opportunity to not only sell your event, but your event’s brand, and your event’s story. People love reading about how events got started, and the mission behind them. -Contact Information Very few people are going to want to attend an event that doesn’t have any method of contact. You might be worried about getting phone calls all the time, so at the very least set up an email for attendees and sponsors to contact. It would be wise to have one email for attendees and then separate emails for other visitors so that you can respond to them promptly with the correct information. -Privacy Policy Especially important in this day and age, you want to have a Privacy Policy to establish trust with your attendees that you will be handling their data securely. If you are using the Ticketbud ticket widget on your site (see Step 4), then rest assured that all attendee data is safe because Ticketbud is PCI compliant.  -Social Proof Have you ever been hesitant to purchase something or go somewhere because you had no experience, and didn’t know of anyone else who had done the same? This is the core of social proof – you are showing visitors how great your event is through the feedback you have on your event. If you want visitors to get interested in your event or companies interested in your sponsorship packages, you need to have something that shows how valuable you are. For example, if you are a nonprofit or you have sponsors, you might have a special sponsor page on your website showcasing them. You might include them in your logo’s banner. For attendees, put in reviews from past years. Or, insert press releases and other news information showing that you are trustworthy. -Events Page Finally, we’ve arrived at the page that really matters! Here’s where all of the hard work from all of the other pages funnels in. Your events page can have your event information, a calendar, tickets for sale, speakers, and more. Ticketbud has both a Calendar Widget and an Event Ticket Widget, so you can quickly convert anyone who enters your ticket page. https://help.ticketbud.com/hc/en-us/articles/216106328-Embed-a-widget-on-your-website- -Other Pages You Can Include Depending on your event, you will want to include other pages that showcase everything that you’re about. This could be Speakers if you are a Conference. It could be Musicians if you are a festival. In the social proof section, I mentioned Nonprofits. If you are a Nonprofit, you should also have a page dedicated to Sponsors for your event. Step 4: Optimizing Your Website For Ticket Sales Once you have all of the other necessary pages up for your website, there’s one more step that you need to take – making your site user-friendly. Now, by default, most of these themes and website builders are user-friendly, but you should always go the extra mile to confirm that. -Easy To Access Ticket Page If your goal is to sell tickets, then making this page as easily accessible as possible should be at the top of your priority list. Have a tickets page be in the main navigation bar, the bottom navigation, and consider adding a link to your tickets page on all of your other pages, as well. In commence, you always want to be reducing the number of clicks and time that it takes to purchase. If your page is easily accessible, then you’ll see a stark increase in ticket sales. Note: When you’re promoting your site – whether it be on Facebook, Google, or anywhere else – always link people directly to the ticket page. This also builds directly into reducing the number of clicks from a visit to purchase. -Mobile Optimized Site Most themes for WordPress and website builders are going to be mobile optimized. Any site designer worth their salt will also make sure that your site is mobile optimized. -Quick Loading Site A slow loading website will more negatively affect attendee purchases than almost any other factor. Your goal should be to have a page that loads in 2 seconds or less. I recommend using Pingdom’s free website speed test here: https://tools.pingdom.com/ . You can also purchase a full page tester subscription and have Pingdom test your site out every minute. This can be a really valuable tool when you are anticipating heavy traffic on your site so that you know it is still up and running. I have heard of event sites that were not able to handle the traffic, causing tens of thousands of lost dollars in revenue. Another good free page speed tester is Google’s PageSpeed Insights, accessible here: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ -“Heatmap” Software. The buying experience is sometimes called the “customer journey”. When you create a website, you have a vision of how someone might interact with it. Just like anything, though, intended use doesn’t always end up being the actual use! This is why “heat map” software is so valuable. You can see recordings and screens of how real visitors interact with your site. You can see an example of clicks here, on a Ticketbud page. Each point shows a click, and the redder it is, the more it’s clicked. [caption id="attachment_23732" align="alignnone" width="450"] Heatmap software example on an event website[/caption]   In terms of recommendations, I have a lot of experience with HotJar, and it’s really easy to set up, too. You can check them out here: https://www.hotjar.com/ There are also some cool features such as “exit popups” that trigger when someone is about to leave the page, and you can ask them why they are exiting. I have gotten some really interesting comments over the years, and it’s almost always valuable information that helped me improve my site conversion rate. Conclusion There’s a lot that goes into creating a good event website, but it all comes down to having a plan in place. This means having strong branding, the right pages to engender trust in your audience, and the ability to optimize and make tweaks. Once your event is over, you’ll also have the opportunity to post photos from the event, and get your attendees ready for next year! ]]]]> ]]>

Eric Olsavsky is the Director of Business Development at Pelotonia, a nonprofit organization. Pelotonia is a grassroots movement to end cancer, with 100% of all rider raised dollars going to cancer research at the Ohio State University Cancer Center and several other research centers. It is centered around a bike ride, with riders raising money and riding a certain amount of miles that they commit to. According to his profile on pelotonia.org, “Eric is responsible for identifying and cultivating corporations, corporate foundations, and private foundations in order to secure significant cancer research dollars, in addition to the funds needed to support Pelotonia’s annual operations budget and the overall fiscal stability of the organization.” As you can imagine, nonprofits heavily rely on sponsors and funding to maintain their budget while also helping to pay employees – this make’s Eric’s role critical. In today’s episode of Ticketbud Tidbits, we focus on the sponsorship and fundraising aspect of nonprofits. You can listen to the episode here:

Topics:

Finding Funding Partners and Sponsors

Of course, the most important part of Eric’s job is finding new partners and sponsors. He does this through a variety of methods. This is a heavily research-oriented model, and with a goal to acquire companies who are in the Ohio or central Ohio area. Eric subscribes to trade publications and is a part of organizations that have information on companies.

Aligning Goals

A critical part of getting a sponsor onboard is by aligning your nonprofit’s goals with your potential sponsor. If you’ve done research on the sponsor already, you should have a good idea of whether you can make something work. However, it’s important to not only just tell the story, but explain how or why your nonprofit will help further the story of the sponsor. Eric brings up that companies will sponsor riders that join in the bike ride.

Showing ROI

These days, even philanthropic endeavors need to have some sort of marketing ROI to get some funding partners onboard. As an organizer, you should be equipped with demographic information, the number of participants, and also be prepared to have both physical and digital marketing assets available for them to partake in. On the digital side, you can have the number of website visitors, social followers, and backlinks to their side. On the physical side, this includes signs, giveaways, and also involvement from the company’s employees.

Getting Involved

When you’re working as a nonprofit, you should join local organizations that are involved in the nonprofit space. Eric says that by being part of these groups, he is able to learn and share best practices in fundraising.

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There are times when you need to make changes to how your event is structured for a number of reasons – cost being the biggest factor. However, these changes might not always be well received by the public. It’s a challenge to change the price, but it’s also a challenge to change how your event is run, or the venue, or any other number of important alterations while still maintaining trust. At the same time, there are positive changes you can make to your event that will easily bring in more revenue. This topic is not a perfect science, so what I’ve done is I’ve taken quotes and research from organizers and marketers that have made significant changes in their event’s structure. In addition, I’ve included some of our own observations and experiences as well. The Golden Rule Of Event Changes How well your change will be received is directly proportional to how selfish and divergent from your event’s brand the change is perceived as. If your event alteration is purely a cost-cutting move with no value to the public (or even now has negative value), you cannot expect that you will maintain trust with the public. Note that some changes, of course, are necessary – cost-cutting may be one of them, but it comes down to effective, consistent communication. Consider Your Staff’s Input and Needs A consistently overlooked part of any sort of change is the staff. In reality, your staff is going to be the most affected by any change. They are the ones who will be on the ground, checking in attendees, setting up event systems, and engaging with attendees on social media. It might sound great to extend your event 3 hours to fit in more speakers, but it could be hard for volunteers. When you first determine that you are going to be making changes to your event, speak with your staff and get them on board. Listen to their feedback, and where applicable, apply it. Consider Your Event (and Brand’s) Positioning One difficulty in getting a consistent message across for most events is the fact that your brand has perception behind it. For example, if you’re a free event that’s easy for families to attend, then charging for tickets is something that may not go over well. If you want to expand your event, make sure that the choices make sense within the context of how your event is perceived. Consider Customer Feedback From Previous Events Most event changes are made with previous customer feedback in mind. This isn’t always possible, especially if it’s an entirely new change. However, if you are looking at making updates, it would be a good idea to reach out to attendees and see what they think about the new features at your event. You don’t need to ask everyone, but by reaching out, you can get a good sense of how well-received your alterations will be. Consider Where You’ll Need To Update Your Info Online Think about all of the places that your event is present on. Normally it’s social media and a website. When you start putting your plan into motion, get a list of all sites that your event is present on. These days, your event is going to also be located on event listing sites. By having a full list, you can rapidly deploy any and all changes. Engaging The Attendees When you make major or even minor, changes to your event, you are going to encounter those who dislike the change. Obviously, you can’t please everyone all the time – but you can help them understand why you did what you did. If you have really taken the other steps to heart and implemented them, engaging with disappointed attendees will be much easier. Be prepared – have someone available to staff all social media, especially ones with quick reply times such as Facebook and Twitter. Encourage discussion because there is nothing worse than a page that deletes dissenting material. Take all of this time as an opportunity to communicate and educate. Methods of Communication For New Changes

1. Email. Email should be your first line of communication because you will be interacting with past attendees. Past attendees will have many different thoughts about updates as opposed to newcomers to your event. When crafting messaging, it is critical that you get in contact with them first about updates.
2. Social Media. Social media should be another place where you can write longer content about why you’re making updates to your event.
3. Press Releases. Although they’re considered “old fashioned” by some, press releases still hold a lot of weight. If your event is local, get some contacts at local papers to get them to run an article about changes. If your city has a subreddit, consider sharing the article there too.
4. Website. Your website should have the story of your brand, and a section with updates and press.

Two Examples: The upcoming Austin Ice Cream Festival made a big change this year. In former years, it was one festival from 10am to 10pm. Now, it is two “separate” festivals – one earlier in the day targeted towards families, and one at night targeted towards adults. This was a big change, and so it needed to be communicated effectively to previous attendees as well as to new ones that would show up. “We arrived at this change by looking at the data we got from consumers from there. We saw that there were two distinct camps – on one hand, we had loads of families, with kids over 8. On the other hand, we had a high proportion of 20-40-year-olds without kids, that wanted a different experience. We have a plan for each of the channels that we use. We have 2 different sets of messages: we have an email list from the year before, and we use email to segment and send folks info that is pertinent to them. We rely heavily on social media channels and website. We start with a look and feel in our email, that’s directed towards the different audiences. The brand is the same, but there are 2 different views, one for each of the audiences. We use the website and social media for deeper views and explanations. Email is for more direct communication.” – Abby Sandlin, Forefront Networks The Food Network & Cooking Channel’s South Beach Wine & Food Festival also made some major changes to increase its audience. They chose to publish a list of the biggest changes on Bizbash. One particular item of note is that they have added new sections such as a section for vegetarian and vegan eating. In addition, they also added more seated dinners. One small quote of significance is here: “According to the founder, guests want smaller, more intimate experiences. “The more we keep adding, the more we sell out, even though people say I’m crazy,” Schrager says.” In addition, they also brought back barbecue to the menu, which had been removed in previous years. Note how this falls in line with brand/event positioning. You can read the article on Bizbash here – 5 Changes to Look for at This Year’s South Beach Wine & Food Festival Conclusion Making changes and updates to your event is never easy, but communicating them can help attendees understand why. These changes can even be well-received, depending on how much work you have put in. Remember the golden rule of keeping it brand consistent. Always discuss upcoming changes with your staff, consider where your event is present online, and prepare to engage in discourse on social media and via email. Your website and social media are powerful tools for creating a story, and email is a powerful method of first interaction.  ]]]]> ]]>

Retargeting – it’s when you see something on Facebook or Instagram that you swore up and down that you had just talked about or visited. Also called remarketing (Although we’ll call it retargeting for this post), it’s also something that is massively overlooked by most event organizers. Not only is retargeting cheaper than traditional marketing, it also has a strong ability to convert attendees. There is an old advertising saying: It takes 7 interactions with a brand or product before a person makes a choice to purchase. Retargeting is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to turn a prospective attendee into an attendee. In this post, I’ll discuss how retargeting works (and why it works), platforms you can use retargeting on, services you can use, how to create strong retargeting ads, and how to use retargeting in conjunction with your normal marketing efforts. How, And Why, Retargeting Works You’re entering your credit card details for that product on an online store, and then suddenly something comes up and you forget all about your purchase. It’s happened to me, and it’s probably happened to you, too. Or, maybe you get second thoughts and decide to click on the “x” rather than the “purchase” button. It doesn’t matter how good your product or your advertising is, you’re never going to have a conversion rate of 100%. This is exactly where retargeting comes in. You are going after people who have gone through your buy process, or who have visited your event site, but for whatever reason chose not to buy. There are a lot of different reasons, some of which I have outlined above. Sometimes things come up, but other times, people need just a bit more convincing before they choose to buy tickets to your event. Since you can’t control for all of the various events of human existence, you’ll need to bring them back into the fold. Retargeting is all about trying to bring these “lost sheep” back into the buying cycle for your event. And if you’re not using retargeting, you are basically leaving money on the table because of the “7 interactions” rule. So next time you see an ad for something on a website you just visited, it’s for that same reason – they want you to purchase the product, or at the very least, not forget about it. There is another concept of marketing, and retargeting, called “top-of-mind awareness”. To demonstrate this, I’ll ask you to think of a soda brand. Now, I’ll ask you to think of a fast food pizza place. Now, I’m not a psychic, but I can make a good guess that you probably thought of Coca-Cola or Pepsi or Dr. Pepper for a soda, and for fast food, you probably thought of Papa John’s or Pizza Hut. It’s simple – they just happen to do the most advertising, so it keeps your brain aware of what they are. By keeping your event at the top-of-mind, you have a much better chance of causing people to think about your event, and thus become a customer. As a side note, if you thought of something else, I’d be curious to know what it was! Leave it in the comments section below. How To Create Strong Retargeting Ads The basis of a retargeting ad is simple. You are trying to encourage people who have already visited your site to purchase tickets. The goal is to get people who have considered you before to become customers. So, with that in mind, let’s create a strategy revolving around getting more tickets sold. In order to create strong retargeting ads, you need to create a reason for people to return. When you’re selling tickets, there needs to be some sort of “pull”, or “value proposition” for people to return. There are three basic strategies that you can use to entice ticket purchases.  Scarcity “Buy your tickets now – seats are limited to 1,000 and we are at 75% capacity!” A powerful influencing principle in advertising is pushing that the number of spots or resources are limited. By retargeting visitors with this, you’ll really put the pressure on them to open up their wallets if they don’t want to miss out on your event. Price Raises “Get your tickets for the low price of $30 – on June 1st, prices increase to $40!” Raising prices on tickets as they get closer to the event date is a time-tested method of getting people to purchase tickets. Drive this point home at different parts of the event. Just like there is a Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO), there is also a fear of having to spend more money than you have to. By playing that up, you’ll get more sales than you would have thought otherwise. Value Propositions “This event is sure to be a hit, with Tony Robbins as our headlining speaker and talks with investing master Ray Dalio.” Sometimes, you just need to drive home the value that your event is providing to attendees. Just think about what is coolest about your event, and write the ad in such a way to imply that your event is going to be valuable to those who buy tickets. I recommend using all three of these strategies if possible. If that’s not possible, you will be best served by using Value Propositions and then either Scarcity or Price Raises. The value of the event is raised by the scarce or expensive nature of it, so use them all in conjunction. Retargeting Services There are a lot of retargeting services out there. I’ll go over 3 that are quite widely known, and have a good track record. For these, all you will need to do is install a code snippet on your website or event page. Adroll: Adroll serves retargeting ads on all the big platforms: Facebook, Google, and Bing. I’ve used Adroll before. It’s easy to get started, and they even offer to create display ads for you based off of current images that you have on your site. https://www.adroll.com/ Retargeter: Retargeter is a really good retargeting tool, but you have to have a lot of traffic (around 30,000 visitors per month) to get full use out of it. They’re focused on all different types of retargeting, from email to websites. https://retargeter.com/ Perfect Audience: Perfect Audience is a lot like Adroll in the sense that it’s pretty easy to use. They also have a data tool that shows you what websites your ads have been placed on. http://www.perfectaudience.com/ Want Retargeting on your Ticketbud page? Just message cs@ticketbud.com with the code snippet and we can install it for you. Retargeting On Facebook: You can also retarget on Facebook directly. In order to do that, I recommend reading our guide on Facebook Advertising for organizers first. (link here) In order to Retarget on Facebook, you’ll need a Facebook Pixel. For your convenience, we have a Help article here on how to implement it on your Ticketbud page: https://help.ticketbud.com/hc/en-us/articles/115011372808-Add-Facebook-Pixel-to-your-event-page Creating a Retargeting Audience is simple. You can do it through a Custom Audience on Facebook once you have a pixel installed. For your convenience, I’m reposting the specifics here: “Custom Audiences are a fantastic way to retarget individuals who have thought about purchasing tickets, but who have not yet done so. I personally recommend using the Facebook Pixel and then choosing the following actions of “Added to Cart”, “Initiated Checkout”, and “Viewed Website Content”. From here, you can set it to exclude “Purchase”, so you will only be targeting new customers and those who have abandoned the purchase process to encourage them to complete their action.” Using Retargeting With Normal Ads Retargeting ads should not be the same as your normal ads. Instead, they should supplement and support what your main ads are using. Remember – retargeting is all about re-engaging and re-introducing your event. Keep this in mind, and you’ll be on the road to success and sold-out venues. Conclusion If you’re not using retargeting to engage potential attendees, you are missing out on a cost-effective way to sell tickets. When you consider how advertising works, you will be leaving money on the table and empty seats at your event. By continuously providing interaction points as well as value propositions, you can make your event a “must-see” and capitalize on the FOMO. There is a lot to consider when writing and displaying these ads, but if you do, it will make a world of a difference. ]]]]> ]]>

Topics:

Challenges Of Working In A City Park

• Abby recommends that you spend time with neighborhoods, work closely with parks, with the city, with road closures, and other organizers that also operate in the parks.
• It is all about coalition building to help support the event. However, a big part of this process is about removing barriers.
• Updating The Austin Ice Cream Festival For 2018
• The Austin Ice Cream Festival brings in 10-20 different frozen treat vendors for attendees to sample.
• Diversifying options: This year, the event is splitting into 2 parts, each with a different target audience.
• Paying attention to audiences. The team handling the Ice Cream Fest noticed that there were two different groups attending the event. The first was families with kids who wanted to have a good time. They also noticed that adults would show up later in the day.
• This year, they have chosen to break it into two sections. After the family-friendly event, they will take a break, and then have an “After Dark” experience with more adult vibe, and a headlining music lineup.
• Practical experience: The previous festival went from 10AM to 10PM. This was way too long, and grueling for event staff and for the vendors.
• Consumer Data: The two audiences were Families with kids under 8, and then groups of people aged 20-40. This data allowed the Ice Cream Fest to give people an opportunity to do what they liked.

How to set up marketing efforts to communicate changes and sale dates

• Have a different plan for each of your channels, with messages based off of target audiences
• Use email lists from previous years
• Segment emails, to send the segment info based off of their interests
• Rely on social media and website to tell the story of the event
• Start with the look and feel based off of email

Measuring Success

• Track the customer flow, see how many clicks people need to take to view the ticket page and convert
• Spend a lot of time on ticket page, with the content and ticket page explaining what is involved
• Everything starts with design and look & feel
• Be very deliberate in content and copy that you use. Think about the customer journey.
• Make sure that everything is logical. Track how people
• Have a strong FAQ page based off of what your attendees will be concerned about. Put yourself in the shoes of your consumer and target audience. Organize the questions. Get someone who doesn’t know anything about your event to go over the FAQ and site, and offer constructive feedback.

Providing value to participating brands in events

• One of the brands that will be providing event souvenirs is YETI. In this case, for YETI coolers, they are putting a product in the consumer’s hands that is meeting and helping soothe their pain point.
• Brands want to see not only physical branding but also digital. They want to understand measurement and see the impact.
• Create a brand interaction in a way that it is a value-add for the customer, but don’t make your event a billboard.

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  Topics:

One of the sub-themes throughout our conversation is the importance of communication. Communication with guests, with staff, with volunteers, and with venues. As an organizer, always be listening and paying attention to what people are doing and saying. Be clear about what you want, and if necessary, over-communicate.

Check-In

Volunteer to Attendee Ratio 

Richelle recommends having one volunteer for every 100 people, although she does mention that she will modify this based off of how much “demand” and line she wants to have. If a decently long line is the goal to simulate demand, she will use a different ratio instead.

Communication

Never take for granted that volunteers know what to do. Go over the whole process with them. At the same time, empower volunteers to fix the situations themselves, if needed. Remember Dwight D Eisenhower’s quote: “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy”.

Choosing A Venue

Write out an outline of what you want out of a venue, including cost. Although you can deviate from it, always do your best to stay on track. Consider whether the venue will have appropriate facilities for the size of the event that you are going to be running. Hiring Additional Planners For Your Planning Company Have clear value and mission statements for your event planning company. By doing this, you’ll attract the candidates that you want when you’re looking to expand your business. In Richelle’s case, the other planner on her team is someone that she can really depend on, all while fitting in perfectly with the culture she is trying to build.

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Facebook marketing for events is one of the best ways to attract more attendees and help grow your revenue. In this post, we’re going to give you a step by step guide in setting up Facebook marketing for your event. We will discuss how to use Facebook Pixel in conjunction with your Ticketbud event page to build an audience To start, you must first either build or have a Facebook page for your end and create a Business Manager account on Facebook. These are both free and easy to set up.  I’ll show you how to generate a Facebook Pixel, and add it to your Ticketbud event page. Finally, I’m going to discuss how to build an audience, and give some best practices for getting the most out of your Facebook marketing dollars. Step 0: Create a Ticketbud Event Page If you haven’t already created an event page, go ahead and sign up here, and put all of your basic event information down. https://ticketbud.com/users/sign_up Step 1: Create a Facebook Page Creating a Facebook page is easy. The steps below are as follows:

1. Log in to Facebook
2. Click the Down Arrow at the top right-hand corner of your profile. The Down Arrow is next to a symbol of a lock, and your notifications.
3. Click Create Page
4. Choose the “Entertainment” category. I should note that Facebook isn’t super tuned into events, so choose from their provided list the option that best fits your event.  The list includes “Festival”, “Performance & Event Venue”, and “Theatrical Play”.
5. Add a Profile Photo and Cover Photo to your Facebook page. I highly recommend adding both. If you have created a Hero Image and Banner Image for your Ticketbud event, you can use the same images (albeit resized) on Facebook.
6. Add some content to your page, including relevant dates, times and location. Add a link to your Ticketbud event page so that people who find your Facebook page can purchase tickets.

More of a video person? Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqJLeIQRvgE’ Step 2: Add Facebook Page to Business Manager Now you have a Facebook page for your event! Awesome. In order to start advertising, you’ll need to add the Facebook page to a Facebook Business Manager. Step 1: Go to business.facebook.com Step 2: Click Create Account Step 3: Choose the Event page on Facebook that you just created, and enter in its name in the appropriate name field. You’ll also need to enter your name and your email address you’ll be using. Step 4: Follow the rest of the instructions and provide the relevant information required. Step 3: Generate a Pixel and Add to Your Ticketbud Page (and/or Website) The Facebook Pixel allows you to both track actions of the people on your event site and helps you build an audience.  The Facebook Pixel is a piece of code that you’ll insert into your Ticketbud event page and/or website. This is an easy process on Ticketbud and no coding is required. Once inserted, the Facebook Pixel tracks visits, and specific actions. These actions include: “add to cart”, “initiate checkout”, and “purchase”. The Pixel is designed to track your marketing efforts so you can identify your best ads. Furthermore, the Pixel also enables you to create new audiences based off of the information that it gathers. This is an extremely powerful marketing tool, and it’s completely free for you to use. Let’s walk through how to get the most out of Pixel Step 1: Go to Business Manager, and then Ads Manager. Step 2: Click Tools, then on the drop-down menu, click Pixels Step 3: You’ll be taken to a new page. Choose to Create A Pixel. Choose a name for the Pixel (Generally, just use the name of your event). Agree to the Terms & Conditions (and read them if you haven’t) Step 4: Take the Pixel ID (it’s a set of numbers), and go to your Ticketbud page. Step 5: From the dashboard of your Ticketbud event, in the “Promote” section on the dashboard, click the button labeled “Social Tools” (Left-hand side of the screen). Enter or paste your  Facebook Pixel ID and click “Save Changes”. You’re now all set to start collecting data from Facebook! We also have an in-depth article about the Pixel here: https://help.ticketbud.com/hc/en-us/articles/115011372808-Add-Facebook-Pixel-to-your-event-page More of a video person? Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQWfNB1EV7Y Step 4: Creating Audiences With the groundwork is done, you’re now ready to take advantage of powerful marketing features! Creating audiences from Facebook marketing is a skill that will improve over time, but will have an impact even on your first event.   There are two types of Audiences that you can create: Custom Audiences, and Lookalike Audiences. Each has their own benefits, and if you’re starting out, you should be making use of both. If this is your first event, you will need to install your Facebook Pixel and let it accumulate some data before you can start building an Audience. Custom Audiences There are several ways to create a Custom Audience. You can upload a list of existing customer emails, and Facebook will use this list of existing customers to develop an audience, cross-referencing the emails of customers you provided with emails in its own database. The second method to build a Custom Audience is by connecting actions collected from the Facebook Pixel. This means you could target people who have “Added to Cart” or visited your event site. You can also target Engagement, allowing you to market to people who have “Liked” your or interacted with your event page. Custom Audiences are a fantastic way to retarget individuals who have thought about purchasing tickets, but who have not yet done so. I personally recommend using the Facebook Pixel and then choosing the following actions of “Added to Cart”, “Initiated Checkout”, and “Viewed Website Content”. From here, you can set it to exclude “Purchase”, so you will only be targeting new customers and those who have abandoned the purchase process to encourage them to complete their action. Lookalike Audiences Creating a Lookalike Audience sounds exactly like what you think it is. You will provide Facebook with information on your audience, and then Facebook will develop a new, “lookalike” audience of people similar to those who have already interacted with your event. This is a great way to reach out to a new audience and scale your event revenue. Much like Custom Audiences, there are several ways to create one. As before, you can upload a Customer File of emails, choose actions for a Facebook pixel, or choose those who have engaged with your page. When attendees purchase tickets on Ticketbud, you will capture their email address which is downloadable from the dashboard via a CSV file. You can use this CSV file to create a custom audience on Facebook. The more emails you are able to upload to Facebook, the better. Facebook recommends 1,000 as a starting point. If your event is smaller, don’t worry. You can also choose Facebook Pixel actions such as “Purchase” so that you are able to create an audience that is more likely to want to purchase tickets for your event. Creating a Lookalike Audience takes time, so this is often a much better option if it is your second or third time running an event. Facebook Marketing Best Practices When you’re creating ads on Facebook, I highly recommend following a 3 campaign rule. 1 Campaign, Interest-Based 1 Campaign, Retargeting-Based (Custom Audience) 1 Campaign, Lookalike Audience Interest-Based Audiences are fairly easy to define. If you understand your target audience, Facebook provides niches and verticals that you can target for your event. Are you doing a family event? Facebook has an option to where you can target people with families. Planning a food and wine festival? You can target people based off of food or alcohol interests. This also provides a great discovery process for finding out what kind of people are interested in your event. Retargeting Based Audiences, as mentioned above, are best served by using a Lookalike Audience. Choose people who have visited your page and have initiated checkout, but have not purchased. You have to think that people might not necessarily want to buy the first time around, or something might come up that causes them to forget about the purchase. It happens more often than you think. In ads for retargeting, really hone in on your value propositions such as early bird ticketing, limited ticket quantity, or anything else that would entice someone to return. Lookalike Based Audiences, as mentioned above, are another way to really hone in on your customer profile. Focus on those who have already paid for tickets and engaged with your page, because you are more likely to find more people like them. With these three campaigns, see which ones perform the best, and drop the ones that don’t.  ]]]]> ]]>

A key part of having a strong, successful event is having memorable brand assets. The first part, of course, is getting branding down for your event. Everything else you do, from designs to tickets, to value propositions, flows from your brand. Once you have your brand down, the next step is creating the actual event assets. The third step is then implementing the event assets into all facets of your event – from your social media to your event website, to your actual live event. In this post, I’ll discuss how to determine the basics of your event brand, and then how to use it through the steps I mentioned above. Creating A Strong Event Brand Determining the brand for your event is going to take a lot of work. However, you can make it easier by developing a Mission Statement, and then a Vision Statement. A Mission Statement determines your objectives, what you are doing, and what you will do to achieve those objectives. A Vision Statement, on the other hand, is a forward-looking statement that describes what you want your event to be. For example, a Mission Statement for your event could be “I am a small festival that teaches people about the food of the Interior of Mexico and raises money for homes through ticket sales and donations”. For the same event, the Vision Statement could be “I am a 3-day long festival with music, education, art, and raises money for homes”. Now that you have your Mission and Vision Statements, it’s time to come up with a name and logo. Names should be: -Clear. Just a few words at most is best. -Memorable. Woodstock and Coachella are pretty easy to remember because of how unique they sound. -Descriptive, OR Evocative. Descriptive means that it’s something that it’s something straightforward, like “Austin Food & Wine Festival”. Evocative means it brings up a strong feeling or name. Again, I refer to Coachella since that’s still fresh in a lot of people’s minds and it’s charged with a lot of emotion. Logos should be: -Simple. The public is more likely to remember a simple logo than a complex one. Everyone knows the Nike swoosh and Target logo, for example. -No more than a few colors. Building upon the last comment, the best logos don’t have a lot going on. Stick to 4 colors or less if possible. -Flexible. You’re going to use this on posters, on tickets, on your website, and on social media. So it should look good whether it’s small or large. When it comes to logos, you might be better off finding a design firm to come up with several designs for you in lieu of having to come up with your own. A design firm can also help you come up with designs for your entire event, which will save you a lot of time and money. They can also help you look more consistent. Note: I will warn you about asking friends, family, and committees for assistance on names, logos, and other designs. Although now known to be historically inaccurate, Henry Ford’s quote of “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” still holds wisdom. Instead of designing something by committee, create something and present it to them and get feedback. Building Strong Event Website Imagery Now you have a strong event name and a strong logo. The next step is to build out a memorable event website. You have 3 options: you can build out your own site, you can use an online ticket sales site (like Ticketbud), or you can do both. While you’ll have the most control over your own site, it will also cost you a lot more to develop. An online ticket sales site will have pre-built templates where all you need to do is input a banner image, and possibly one or 2 other images. I’m now going to give you a great example a strong website and Ticketbud page, from one of our users. Igloo Atlanta is a festival where people can bring coolers of drinks as they listen to popular musicians. Notice how this is written as a mission statement? An example of a Ticket Widget in action. Then, when you go to the Ticketbud page, you see this:   IGLOO is the world’s Biggest Global Cooler Festival. Take a second to read all of that. Now that sounds like a vision statement. It’s not hard to see how this event sold out: They have an evocative name, consistency across their pages, and a really cool logo to boot. Consistency Is Key! Across your social media, your event page, your tickets, and your branded items at your event – stay consistent. This could mean having a brand design guide. The best way to have a design guide is to contract out to a designer. This way, you’ll have all of your assets – logo, colors, fonts, and everything else a good brand and event needs. Posters Creating a good poster requires 3 parts. The first part of a good poster is that it should stick out to the person walking by. The second part is that it should be readable. This means that you should relax on crazy graphics and fonts. The third part of a good poster should be a relevant “Call To Action”. That is, after reading the poster, the person (potential attendee) should be encouraged to either scan a QR code, or visit a website, or give a call. Canva.com is a great resource for design inspiration, as well as for actually creating posters. Custom Event Tickets When it comes to memorable event assets, it’s hard to beat tickets. I personally collect tickets for shows that I attend. I know a lot of other people who do the same. And the ones that are customized are always the ones that stick out. These days it is pretty easy to create custom tickets for your event. Most of the popular online systems have developed a way to help you import a CSV of attendees into their system, and then they print and ship the tickets to you. Ticketbud utilizes a printing partner that also imports QR codes, which are essential for when you are scanning multiple ticket types such as VIP or General Admission. You can take a look at options here: https://ticketbud.txdesign.com Conclusion Although there is a lot to consider when branding your event, if you start off by considering your value proposition and mission and value statements, you are ahead of the race. In addition, they will help you create strong brand imagery, which is imperative if you want a memorable event. You can do this by having color palettes and a consistent design on your website, and on your tickets.]]]]> ]]>

We discuss several different topics, including: Staffing Tips Having volunteers that are able to handle a large amount of guests coming in at once can be more difficult than it seems. One thing to look for with hiring volunteers is to see if they have previously been waiters or waitresses. People who have previous positions of interacting with people already are much more capable of going with the flow. Tracking Key Performance Indicators For Your Staff One important part of handling experiences in events is having clear performance indicators for your staff to follow. How To Manage Staffing Issues Don’t let there be time for issues to develop in your staff. Take them head-on, and speak with each of them in person. A lot of issues can be handled via communication. Corina recounts a time when two of her employees were having problems. After speaking with each of them individually, she came up with a plan for a compromise that resulted in both of them working better together. By setting down clear communication rules and by having a mediator, you can have a much stronger staff. Common Mistakes Events Make In Experiential Marketing Most events tend to use experiential marketing and involvement with a brand as a “bribe”. One of the examples that Corina brings up is that events will ask for retweets, and then the attendees can receive a prize. Instead of going that route, consider a way that will get attendees more involved in your event beyond that.  ]]]]> ]]>