One of the most significant priorities for an event business or organizer is to fill as many seats as you can to attend the event. There are numerous tools and strategies that you can use to do so. These tactics to sell event tickets will ensure that you get a host of people through the doors. It is crucial that you must have an event strategy and adequate event marketing goals.
However, here’s the thing, selling tickets is not that easy if you don’t have a plan. Your sales will remain stagnant as the event date gets near. Most of the people think that selling tickets involve marketing the event. However, there are various other aspects associated with this particular endeavour. You not only need to be sales savvy but also understand your target audience. These are key tactics to sell event tickets.
For the assistance of event professionals, we have developed a list of best tactics to sell event tickets in this actionable guide. So let’s get to it without any farther ado!
Tactics to sell event tickets:
1. Go for a creative name and strong branding
There is no complication about it! If you have a strong event brand, then it will be one of the critical tactics to sell event tickets. Having a creative name for your event will catch people’s attention, and it will also stick to their minds for longer. Of course, you also need strong branding with a cohesive and well-designed logo. You are making it easy for your audience to search and remember about your event with ease.
2. Build competition
Building competition is one of the best tactics to sell event tickets. It will not only promote the event but will also boost the ticket sales. However, it would help if you kept it relevant. For instance, you can offer and ward to one of your attendees who can generate most sales of tickets with the help of referrals.
For the creation of such a competition, you can always you the event platform itself. Furthermore, you can always add a custom lick for tracking for all the participants of the competition. This link will allow the participant to share the link with all their colleagues and friends.
Due to the traceability of the link, you can quickly gauge the amount of revenue that one particular participant has been able to generate. Consequently, the individual who can sell the most tickets for the event can win a prize during the event.
3. Creation of different types of tickets and discounts
Among the most effective tactics to sell event tickets is using different types of tickets. If you are using a platform for event management, then make sure that you have access to choosing different ticket types. Maybe you can go for the option of an early-bird, or perhaps there is an option for a premium ticket.
You can also select a ticket type for people who cannot attend your entire event because of time shortage. This way, you can easily accommodate a larger group of people. Consequently, more people will join in to attend the event because of these advantages or favours. It will ultimately allow you to sell tickets even more. Maybe you can offer discounted tickets to people who come in groups.
4. Use the space you own to advertise
You can always use the space that you own to advertise the event. This is one of the most budget-friendly tactics to sell event tickets. Also, we are not specifically talking about physical space! You can use your email platform and use the space in your email signature for this purpose too. Social media cover photos are your good options also. You can always include a link to your page or the website for your event where people can purchase tickets.
5. Develop the content surrounding your event
Your content is always your go-to-weapon when it comes to promoting your event. It is among the most useful tactics to sell event tickets. You can use this content to create awareness about your event ahead of the start date. It will allow you to develop a momentum ahead of the process that involves ticket selling. It is just like you are marketing for any product or service.
Nevertheless, you need to be sure about how to use content marketing to its fullest potential. You need to provide your audience with some value. Indeed, you are selling your event, but that doesn’t mean that you can disregard your audience and indulge in self-promotion. Therefore, you need to design the content in such a manner that; on the one hand, you are selling your tickets, and on the other, you are also sharing the useful takeaways for your audience.
An excellent example to understand here is to launch a series of interviews from the past attendees. You can show how they have been able to grasp something out of the event for their benefit and executed it in their professional or personal lives. This way, your audience will be able to decide whether this event is worth attending or not. Content is king, and for this reason, it is one of the essential tactics to sell event tickets.
6. Use the power of social media
We are breathing in the age of social media. The platform allows you to reach as many people as you want, and it can prove to be one of the best tactics to sell event tickets. However, you need to know the demographics and interests of your target audience to reap any benefit. There are various social media platforms available that you can use for this purpose.
Creating a group on LinkedIn for your event will allow you to score more tickets in no time. Through these groups, you can initiate various group discussions. It will organically generate online traffic and conversations around your event. If you can public this group, not only can the LinkedIn members join in, but even the non-members easily reach out to you.
Of course, you can use other social media channels like this as well. For instance, you can create a Facebook page call-to-action tool and link it to your event website. Post different photos, videos, and content on other platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and others. For all these channels, you can experiment and use different tactics to sell event tickets.
7. Use your speakers’ network
You can always use the networks of your speakers as one of the tactics to sell event tickets. You can ask for their assistance and use their network to create awareness about this event. Quality event speakers will always look to promote various events on various platforms that they have access to. Conference speakers always want more people to hear their session, and it’s pretty natural if they can get more people to their sessions; it will automatically boost the sales of your tickets.
8. Get in touch with the past attendees
Another very effective way to get in touch with a larger audience and consequently sell more tickets is reaching out to the previous attendees. It is one of the most effective tactics to sell event tickets. Of course, you can extract their contact information from the previous event data and send them an email and remind them of that past event. Maybe you can provide them with a discount on the forthcoming event.
It is a personalized approach that will provide past attendees with a sense of exclusivity. This way, you might be able to turn your past attendee into your loyal fan. Furthermore, you can share the images or videos of the previous events to get them excited, mainly if they are in those photos and videos.
9. Start promoting your next event during the current one
You can always sell tickets for your next event during your current event because the real attendees of your target audience are already here. These are the people who are sold to your idea, and you can always start with them as your target audience.
There is not much you need to do here; you can use the tools that you already have at your disposal. A discount for early-birds will work like a charm here to boost your ticket sales. Urgency and exclusivity will both play their roles as motivational factors for the people to buy tickets for your event. This is the most widely used tactics to sell event tickets.
10. Launch an incentive-based referral program
Due to the exposure of different types of media today, people are bombarded with various promotional messages and advertisements. In such a scenario, the good old word-of-mouth will prove to be among the key tactics to sell event tickets. However, it is not just about the referral campaign you have to incentivize it to make sure that you extract some benefit out of it.
You can always provide the individual with the referral link with a special discount and the person who signed up through the link with some other benefit as well. This practice is becoming quite popular, and it will guarantee that you boost the sales of your ticket in no time.
11. Leveraging your sponsors
You have sponsors for your event; why not use their links for leveraging your ticket sales. If you want your ticket to selling like hotcakes, then you need to go for a broader audience for marketing purposes. For this, you will have to take advantage of all the audiences that are available to you. Indeed, to do this, you will have to brainstorm various ways and tap into multiple sources for your audience. Furthermore, you will also have to think about different strategies to implement and present them to your sponsors.
Your sponsors want your event to be a huge success. If you reach them confidently with new ideas and strategies, they will know that you are thinking out of the box to boost the ticket sales. This will also ensure that you are willing to experiment and try out various initiatives to attain your goals. Using your sponsors is one of the most beneficial tactics to sell event tickets.
12. Increase the prices
Inflation is life’s fact but nobody likes it. However, if you increase the ticket prices, the most loyal of your fans will understand it and will want to support the event even more. However, don’t go all out on increasing the prices of your tickets. Instead, it only increases by 20% to 30% of the total cost, and it won’t dampen your event’s demand.
As a result, you will get new revenue, and you can spend it on marketing or the event itself. It will enable you to create a premium experience for your audience, and it has always been one of the proven tactics to sell event tickets.
13. Why not add a high or low pricing tier
If you think that increasing the prices of your tickets will inevitably cause some ripples and will dampen the demand, then you can add tiered tickets. Through this tier, you will be focusing on premium quality customers.
The events that have premium tiers in their pricing strategies tend to generate more revenue. This will be highly effective if you can provide your premium attendees with some VIP experience. The low tier pricing is the opposite of high tier tickets. By following this approach, you will be able to appeal to a new audience as well.
14. Promote the event venues
If the location where you are organizing your event has any nearby attractions, then promote them. Maybe different landmarks are selfies-worthy. Perhaps you can use your staff to take the pictures and use them in the promotion.
If you have some attendees who are not locals, then they will be very interested in these landmarks. Share some information about these landmarks and then talk about the event that you are organizing. It is one of the effective tactics to sell event tickets.
15. Ensure that your event is ‘Infotaining’
This is probably the most important of all tactics to sell event tickets. It is the driving force behind the boost of your ticket sales. If an event that you are organizing is informational and entertaining, then there is nothing that can stop you from selling the tickets like there is no tomorrow.
Indeed, most of the people in corporate events are there to listen to a lecture or of course, learn something and extract some value out of it that can help them in their professional or personal life! Maybe you can incorporate an after-party for the attendees where they can enjoy different cocktails after they are done with the team-building events or corporate workshops.
In a nutshell: Tactics to sell event tickets
Above we have shared with you some of the crucial tactics to sell event tickets. The most critical point of all here to understand is that you have to build up the atmosphere for your event. Marketing is all about creating hype. Give your audience a reason to come and participate in your event. If they don’t have that reason, they won’t come.
You can always hype the event with some mini-events as well. For instance, before your event’s date, you can create a mini-event regarding your first event and work it like a countdown. You can hold a webinar five days from your event. Maybe organize a social media contest four days from the event, and it continues until the event day arrives. This way, you will be able to join more people on the bandwagon and sell more tickets before the event. Selling tickets is as critical as event planning, and it requires different event techniques.
Nevertheless, make sure that you provide your attendees with some value or takeaway as well. You have to bring in the crowds, and if there are no people, there will be no event!
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