Tips On Convention Planning – 10 Tips To Help Your Conference

Surely this is what you want when you do your event planning – convention success!

One of the most painful ways of learning is through creating your own mistakes and even though it is a great teacher, I am sure that you do not want to suffer that pain too often, so learning from others who have gone before you is a great way to avoid plunging into problems.

So here are 10 tips on convention planning

10 – One Price For Tickets

Your visitors have attended conferences and conventions before and it has now become the exception to the rule that there are different ticket prices and if you don’t follow suit, you maybe left out.

First, audiences expect some kind of early bird price. Sometimes there may even be two different early bird prices. One price would be two months before the event and the 2nd price one month before the event with the actual ticket price being implemented 2 weeks before the event.

Group discounts are also expected now such as 6 for the price of 5 tickets and this will encourage groups of friends to come together as well as corporations.

You may even want to consider charging more for the front row seats as these are the best seats in the house and audiences will pay more for them.

9 – Linking With The Wrong Sponsor

Money can be tight these days and sometimes out of desperation, you maybe tempted to take any sponsor going, but in reality this can be a fatal move.

You certainly would not want to align yourself to cigarette companies for example if you are promoting a health product.

You may also want to stay away from religious groups as this is a very personal issue for people and may drive some away.

Controversial issues may also affect your audience numbers. Linking to companies that use certain products (such as fur or animal testing for example) may discourage your audience.

Your sponsor should be in alignment of your values and it is important that you sit down with your sponsor to discuss what is acceptable and what is not!

8 – Advertising The Wrong Message

You must get your target audience to take action. You want them to order tickets from you and book seats.

Your advertising message must get them so emotionally involved with you and your company that they want to do just that.

You need to hit them with a powerful headline that will lock them into your message and make them want to hear more.

Identify the one emotional trigger that will do that and put it in your message.

7- Advertising At The Wrong Time

If you advertise your event too close to the event, then your audience may already be busy or not be able to have sufficient funds to get a ticket.

Advertise too early and they have no sense of urgency and may put it off for another day and then forget.

Also be aware of special holidays and other events. People are not really into listening to your advertising slogan on Valentines day, fathers day and other special moments. They are really focusing on something else.

If you are advertising internationally, this is something to take special care with as different countries have different holidays and customs.

6 – No Website

It is not sufficient to have articles and adverts on your website.

You should also have a website specially designed for the event and each different event should have it’s own site.

So if your event is called “Saving Money For Teenagers” it would really reinforce the message to your audience if you have a website called www.SavingMoneyForTeenagers.com

Not only will it help them to remember where they can access information about your event, they can also send others to the site and it also looks super professional.

5 – Not Creating A List

One of the easiest ways to promote events to your market is via a target marketed list with prospects who personally opted in for information.

One of the easiest ways to do this is via an online list creating system which is very easy and cheap to do.

This list keeps open your communication channels and you can remind them, tempt them and give them teasers to get them to buy tickets from you.

4 – Failing to Track Your Advertising

If you do not know which advertising works for you, how do you know where to spend your advertising budgets?

There are many different ways to find out which advert pulls your audience.

Online it is relatively easy as there are many systems both free and paid that you can have installed on your websites.

Offline you can ask customers to call and talk to “Carol” and “Carol” doesn’t really exist. In another advert in a different magazine or newspaper, you may have the same advert, but ask your audience to call and speak to “Steve”.

This way you know which periodical is getting the people to call.

For future advertising this is essential as you can focus your finance on areas that work.

3 Focusing on Price Rather Than Value.

Your ticket buyers are not buying tickets from you because they want to give you money, but they are giving you money because they want you to solve some kind of problem for them.

The problem maybe they want to make more money, or find out how to feed their kids healthy food, or it might even be they are completely bored and need some hardcore entertainment.

Whatever the reason is, if you can show them right from the moment they have contact from you that they have incredible-not-to-be-missed-value, they will pull out their wallets and give you their money.

Focus on price and they will not be impressed!

2 – Only Using one Method of Advertising

Do you know that some people do not have Facebook and Twitter accounts?

Some do not even have emails or cell phones!

Wouldn’t that be nice?

Some people read magazines, watch television and listen to the radio and it is essential that you use multiple methods of advertising if your audience is like this. However if you know that all your audience uses Facebook and it works for you, then use it, but in reality different mediums promote different responses from different people.

1 – Not spending Enough Time promoting The Event

Out of all the tips on convention planning, this is one of the most important parts of the planning.

Some organizations spend more time planning the perfect event with no nut and bolt left out or polished, than they do promoting the event.

Yes the event should be good, but at some stage you need to realize that the event is good enough and start promoting it.

Promoting is what brings in the sales and effort should be focused heavily in this direction.

So there are 10 tips for convention planning for you and I hope that you implement them into your next convention as soon as possible. If you need help, let me know here and I will support you all I can.

It is good to have professional help to support you during events as it allows you to focus on other important areas and spread the load of an event.