Marketing 101: Using Free Events to Add Value and Generate New Sales
Dec 14, 2020
Events offer an opportunity to build important connections with future clients. This relationship-building can be accelerated through a well planned event strategy.
An event strategy can be as simple as scheduling more than one event over the course of several weeks with intent and in alignment with marketing outreach. Beyond creating a client touch-point, events can be used to fill one's lead funnel and amplify brand awareness.
Brand awareness and a healthy lead funnel allow one to plan and execute upon mid and longer term business goals through things like email campaigns, promotional announcements, and client conversion.
To achieve all of these great things, try to plan events which complement the academic or test prep calendar. Normal events in our world include such things as: Free Practice Tests, College Admissions Talks, Graduate School Admissions Talks, or some sort Information Workshop.
Unless the event is a free practice test, schedule them to be 45 - 60 minutes in length and make sure the event creates value for the attendees. After all, these participants are giving up their time to attend. It doesn't matter if the event is Live or Virtual, although the latter is easier to manage and to scale.
As with any business initiative, outcomes should be used to assess the results and to help steer future planning. Here are some recommendations when it comes to process and measurement:
Unless the event is a free practice test, schedule them to be 45 - 60 minutes in length and make sure the event creates value for the attendees. After all, these participants are giving up their time to attend. It doesn't matter if the event is Live or Virtual, although the latter is easier to manage and to scale.
As with any business initiative, outcomes should be used to assess the results and to help steer future planning. Here are some recommendations when it comes to process and measurement:
- The most important unit of measurement is the number of people registering
- Review the results in terms of pre-registrations, the % of attendees (show rate), and the number of registrant that eventually purchase something (conversion rate). Conversion depends more on the client life cycle than it does anything else so avoid the misconception that events should immediately generate sales.
- The true goal and the way to measure relative should be to create value for the attendee and to demonstrate expertise so that, in the future, when a student needs test preparation, tutoring, or college advising they choose you. To learn more about this perspective check out this link on the long tail approach to marketing.
Events provide an opportunity for prospective clients to get to know your values as well as your services while also affording you the opportunity to build brand credibility. In short, offering an event should be construed as the start of a relationship which may span weeks, months, or even years if it is well managed!
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