- Event titles. Think of your event title as a "promise"--what value are you promising to attendees? There's a good chance your event will be providing a solution to a particular problem that prospective attendees are experiencing. Have your event title reveal the solution, e.g. "10 Ways to Increase Revenue through Email Marketing" or "8 Easy-to-Implement Ways to Turn Cold Calls into Hot Prospects."
- Event descriptions. While the event title should pique people's interest, now you need to "close" the sale. You want your event description to foster a "must have" reaction among the people who are reading it. Provide a bullet list of the values they're going to receive. And be sure to test your event titles and descriptions on real people.
- Email signatures. Ask every employee to include a link (usually the event title) in their email signature. The links should lead to a dedicated landing page on the company website.
- Voice mail. Include brief information about the event in both employee voice mails and the general company voice mail.
- Newsletters. Whether print or online, include key information, such as event title, brief description, date, time, and drive people to the landing page on your website.
- Email announcements. Send these announcements to your Outlook address book and/or to your CRM list. Include the key info and a link to the landing page.
- Home page of website. You should have a special call-out box on your website that leads to a more in-depth landing page.
- Optimized website landing page. The landing page, which should be optimized for search engines, should include the complete details for the event and a way to register.
- Pay-per-click ads. What's the topic of your event? More than likely, there are phrases surrounding the event that might make sense to target in pay-per-click ads.
- "Send to a friend" registration confirmations. Once someone has signed up for an event, have an auto-generated email sent to him or her and encourage the person to invite colleagues/friends. If you have the budget, offer the person a discount on an upcoming online event if he or she can get x-number of people to attend the current event.
- Twitter. Tweet about your event by including a link to the event description on your website. Ask people to "retweet." You can also search on some of the key phrases related to your event on Twitter Search. If you find someone tweeting about one of the phrases, he or she may have an interest in your online event (and may be interested in tweeting about it to his or her followers).
- LinkedIn. In your LinkedIn status update, invite people to your event and include a link to the event description on your website.
- Facebook. There are two ways you can use Facebook. With your own personal account, you could mention the event in a status update and invite people to attend. If your company has a fan page, include the event information on the fan page.
- Company blog. Blog about the event when you first announce it and a few days before the actual event. Provide a recap of the event, too, so you can foster interest in future online events.
- Other people's blogs. Bloggers are always looking for topics to blog about. Do a blog search on industry-specific terms in Google to find relevant blogs and then send an email to the blog owner.
- Networking events. Whether it's the chamber, rotary,BNI, roundtables, etc., you probably have people in your company who belong to different organizations. Ask them to talk up your online event.
- Incentives. Here's an example, "Sign up for this online event and receive our FREE white paper on this topic."
Remember, just because you "build" it, that doesn't mean people will come. You need to get the word out in creative ways across a variety of different mediums.
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