Don't make these event planning mistakes!

Event management can take a lot of work but all of that can go to waste if you make mistakes when promoting your event. Avoid disasters by ensuring you don't make these common event promotion mistakes!

Not using a target audience for your marketing

It's normal to want to sell as many tickets as possible but you don't want to be promoting your business conference to students or promoting your Plymouth event to people in London. 

It is actually possible to sell more tickets to a smaller target audience than it is to sell to everyone. Think about your target audience and where you can reach them, what are they looking for and how can you directly approach them? 

Not securing a venue

Do not start promoting your event until you have secured and confirmed a venue, there's nothing more annoying to a guest who buys a ticket only to be told a week before the event that the location has changed. If your event is all day, consider guests who may have to stay over and have booked hotels, it will cause inconvenience to them to have to change their bookings. 

You can also use your venue as a way of promotion, once you have a set location you can visit businesses and attractions in the area and ask if they are willing to sponsor or do a promotion swap. 

Relying on Facebooks organic reach

Facebook is now pay-to-play for all businesses and pages, your everyday posts will only reach 1-3% of your followers so it's important to set aside some budget for Facebook advertising. 

Facebook adverts allow you to create an audience based on interests and professions, good targeting increases your number of conversions and reduces the amount you have to spend, make use of this by targeting your audience specifically and paying a small amount of money to ensure your posts reach the right people.  

Asking too much of your guests

Your ticket buying process needs to be as simple as possible and don't make your guests work for their tickets. One in four online buyers won’t complete a purchase that requires them to make an account, and one in ten buyers drops off for every extra field in the purchase form. This is why TicketEase allows users to log in quickly with their Facebook details, it removes the need to create a new account and they don't have to remember a new password or do any email confirmations. 

Not working with any sponsors

One of the best ways to make sure your event sells out is to partner with big brands or popular local businesses. These businesses will already have a following, and you can tap into their loyal fanbase. 

By offering to promote them (and them promoting you) you are bringing together your audience and reaching more potential guests directly.