Unless you’re Taylor Swift, selling out events early in campaigns is more competitive than ever.

It’s never been more expensive to produce an event and at the same time, it’s never been more expensive to be an event goer when you consider the price of tickets as well as the cost of actually going to the event itself. 

People are still going to events, they’re just having to be more particular about which ones they go to. 

That’s why getting your marketing strategy right from the get-go is so important. 

Here are 5 must-try digital marketing tactics for event promoters to put your best foot forward to making your next event a sell out success.  

Leverage Social Media

Create buzz and build social proof and excitement around your events, and lean into the newest features to get an edge on the algorithm. Live updates and behind-the-scenes content can help engage your audience in real-time and helps your event stay top of mind. 

Get targeted traffic to your ticket page with social media ads

Social media advertising is still one of the most cost-effective and direct digital marketing tactics going, these work best when the creative assets (images, videos, copy) and offer is strongly aligned with your target market and gets them excited, and even better when you build up lots of likes, comments, shares and tags - it’s a subliminal signal to the rest of your customer base that this event is one hot ticket and they’d better buy now. 

Email marketing with a personal and segmented touch

People are busy. You need to make it worth their while to stay subscribed and engage with your email newsletters. Tailoring your message for particular segments of your audience can keep your list engaged - e.g. an entertainment promoter or music venue might segment by genre and market certain events to certain fans, or you can segment based on past interactions with your events. 

Set your tracking pixels up on your ad accounts, website, venue landing pages and ticketing portals

If you’re running ads this makes a world of difference in tracking results AND optimising for more because it teaches the ad platforms who your customer is. And if you can get the tracking in place on the server level (ask us how if you’re not sure), it allows you to get around cookie blockers. We’ve seen campaigns jump from 1-2x return on ad spend to well over 5 or 10x return on ad spend just by making this small but impactful change. 

Leverage user-generated content

If this isn’t your first rodeo, pull photos and videos from previous events that give new customers a better taste of what they can expect. Even better if you’ve got past attendees on video talking the event up and having a great time. It builds trust that this is something they’d enjoy and is worth spending their money on, and given they’ll likely be calling on family or friends to join them in also parting ways with their time and money, it reassures them that they’re recommending something the people they love will also enjoy. 

Want to focus on the actual planning, production and running of your next event and entrust the marketing to a team of experts with decades of experience in how to drive profitable ticket sales online? We're your gals. Let's chat!