Is your event stagnating, both in terms of attendance and revenue growth? It might be time to mix things up.
Event organizers know that the ultimate measure of their event’s success; the number that every boss, board, or big wig cares about – is revenue. Events and trade shows require significant up-front investments, so maximizing ROI is critical to ensuring your event will be in the black and that your key stakeholders won’t be seeing red!
Here are 8 ways you can maximize your show’s revenue and keep your event financially healthy:
Add Attendees
One of the best way to generate revenue is by increasing your event’s attendance. Drawing more attendees, giving them more for their money, or offering additional activities, merchandise, or add-ons can give your revenue a significant boost.
Here are 5 ways to increase attendance:
1. Make a Movie – One of the best ways to grow your event attendance is to get them excited about your event and a promo video can do just that! Include views of the city, attendee testimonials from last year, shots of speakers giving presentations and a content teaser to whet their appetite. Be sure to add that video to your event’s landing page or registration home page. Doing so has been proven to increase conversion rates by a whopping 80% – so don’t forget to place it right on your landing page.
2. Affiliate Marketing – Another way to dramatically increase attendance is by employing affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is the concept of turning people outside of your organization into surrogate marketers. Services like EXPOBrander can get your affiliate marketing in place in no time by empowering your exhibitors to market your event. EXPOBrander will provide digital event banners and co-branded online registration webpages to your exhibiting companies so they can use these links and graphics in email promotions, on their company websites, social media communications and more.
3. Throw a Party – Throw a reception or party at a unique venue and charge attendees a fee to attend. Cover your costs and add a little extra to the ticket price so you make a profit on the event. Consider a theme to make it fun, and not only will you enjoy a profit, your attendees will likely remember your event and want to come back next year.
4. Run a Raffle – Offer a raffle for a high-priced item or service and encourage attendees to participate. If you can get an organization to donate the item in exchange for promotion, you’ve got a win-win.
5. Sell Merchandise – If you have attendees who love your brand and organization, then selling merchandise with your logo or tagline could add to your bottom line, and boost your visibility!
Add Sponsorships
In addition to increasing attendance, giving sponsors opportunities to promote themselves can be big money makers. By giving your sponsors something “extra” for their extra dollars will keep them coming back because they know they’ll get additional visibility with prospects, quality leads, and a great experience at your event.
Here are 3 sponsorship ideas to boost the bucks:
1. Badge-vertising – Incorporate ads into your badges on the reverse side that are specific to attendee interests and behaviors. Let’s say one of your attendees is Bugs Bunny. Bugs loves carrots. Have a carrot company sponsor an ad on the reverse side of the badges for all attendees who love carrots. What’s great about this is you can have more than one sponsor for different attendee types or preferences.
2. Sponsored Charging Stations – Attendees often need to charge their devices, so renting a charging station sponsored by an exhibitor or sponsor can give them great visibility and gives your event extra revenue.
3. On-Site Registration Sponsor – If you offer expedited on-site check-in (where attendees can scan a QR code to have their badge print automatically), you can have a company logo placed on check-in screen. This added branding costs you nothing, but can give one of your sponsors great exposure.
Yes, it’s important to stay under budget when planning a show, but if you think about ways to bring in more profit, you can get so much more from your investment. Now get out that umbrella and make it rain!
Looking for more event and tradeshow advice? Contact us at marketing-expologic@communitybrands.com
