8 Ways To Boost Attendance At Your Next Hybrid Event

Use Creative Event Promotion Ideas To Increase Hybrid Event Attendance Rates 

After a lot of hard work, your hybrid event is ready to go. You’ve organized sponsors, speakers, and engaging breakout sessions. Your date is confirmed, and your event landing page is up and running. 

Now all you need is participants. Even the most seasoned event planner knows that organizing a hybrid event is only half the battle. The other half (and some would argue the most challenging part of event management) consists of promoting, marketing, and ultimately convincing attendees to show up. 

Hybrid events offer new opportunities and new challenges when marketing your event. Because part of your event occurs in person and the other in a virtual environment, you must find a balance between tried and actual marketing tactics and innovative online promotion tactics. 

The success of your hybrid event rests on more than your event website because you need to use every online tool available to help generate demand and awareness for your upcoming event. 

Here are eight event promotion strategies you should use when promoting your next hybrid event that will have your attendance numbers up and keep stakeholders happy. 

1. Create A Catchy Hashtag 

You’ve already created a name and description for your event. Now connect the dots with a catchy hashtag that makes potential attendees want to learn more. 

Hashtags are great because they can be used across social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Instagram to collect valuable pre-event data. When you search for your unique event hashtag, you can collect valuable data to present to stakeholders. 

Make sure your hashtag is memorable and makes an excellent first impression, as it’s going to appear on your digital promotional materials. Use it to facilitate giveaways, content marketing, and word of mouth promotion so you can get the most out of your online marketing efforts. 

2. Offer Admission Discounts 

Send your audience members early ticket purchasing deals. Offer free tickets, early bird pricing, or VIP swag, like t-shirts.  

Create a clear deadline to buy tickets to fuel action through FOMO, and then amplify that worry of missing out by showing great content wherever your target audience can be found around the Internet.

Remind them of your event’s unique benefits through email marketing, messaging, and overall event imagery. Help them remember how great your past events were and hint at the exciting features you’ve organized for the upcoming event to drive ticket sales.

3. Simplify & Amplify Event Registration

Every extra click you include in the registration process impacts the conversion rate of your event website. To boost your conversion rate, consider simplifying your event registration process because this will make it easier to fill out your form and for attendees to finalize payment. 

Use a single registration page or form to collect payment and attendee information, rather than spreading it across multiple pages. Keep the number of landing pages and number of clicks to a minimum to prevent registrants from losing interest. 

Your Facebook event page is a great way to streamline the registration process by having users “RSVP.” The best part is that their social network will be altered to their action and inevitably increase your marketing reach. 

4. Leverage Social Media Marketing

Meet your attendees where they are by including social media posts in your event marketing plan. Create an organic, robust, and predictable posting schedule to ensure your event has a regular presence on your target audience’s stream. Highlight your sessions, keynotes, sponsors, and other highlights of your event to raise awareness of the event and show that your online event is relevant to your desired audience.

Paid social media advertising is one of the best ways to connect with your target audience quickly. If you have an event budget, consider spending some capital running a social media ad or two. Consider what your audience likes, where they get their news, and their interests when crafting digital marketing. 

Use social media posts for advertising safety measures and protocols that will be in place for your face-to-face attendees. If your participants see that you value their safety, they are most likely to show up!

5. Use Retargeting 

If someone visits your website but doesn’t register for your event, you can assume that they are a qualified lead and might be open to registering for your event. This means there is a good chance of registration in the future, but they did not register when they visited your site.

The digital marketing world uses retargeting ads that follow people worldwide and display on other websites as that user browses various websites. This is a great way to keep brand awareness top-of-mind, and you can use Facebook or Google to show ads to people who visited your site but did not register. 

This powerful and inexpensive marketing tactic is easy to set up, manage and a great ROI promotional tactic to increase your hybrid event’s attendance. You can even use your email lists in your marketing efforts to follow up with searchers who expressed interest but have not registered yet. 

6. Harness The Power Of Influencers

If you have industry thought leaders, bloggers, or speakers who appear on podcasts lined up for your event, you can have them promote the event on their own social media pages. They may know or be friends with other influences who are willing to help promote their friend or colleague’s speaking gig. 

You can use LinkedIn to privately message influences about your event and pitch to them directly. They may be willing to market your event for some swag, a promo code, or free event tickets, which the power of their influential reach will offset to your target audience. 

7. Perfect Your Event Landing Page SEO

Marketers know the power of the search engine because this marketing channel offers long-term ROI that you can use for years to come.

Ensure you have all the essentials covered: descriptive content, a relevant URL, and illuminating metadata, like page titles and meta descriptions. Your sponsorships may also provide important SEO if you use them correctly. 

When you create copy for your event landing page, you should focus on keyword phrases relevant to your event, location, and industry. Remember to incorporate these essential words in your copy while keeping it readable for a human audience. 

8. Offer Content On Demand

Because hybrid events offer live and virtual content, you have the opportunity to keep your attendance rate rising long after the event has ended. These online events are ideal for many reasons, and one of those reasons is that attendees can consume content based on their schedule.

Communicate your intentions during registration so that event attendees know that, even if they cannot make your event due to a scheduling conflict, they can still access on-demand content post-event. 

Attendees will still engage with your brand and consume your content, even if it’s not happening live. Be sure to offer it for a limited time to inspire viewers to act now before they miss out. 

Conclusion

Attendance is crucial for any successful event. Another critical component is a virtual event platform that transforms your hybrid event into an engaging and interactive experience. 

BeaconLive is an industry-leading virtual event platform with over 20 years of experience offering customer service, security, global scalability, and high quality.   

We offer easy integration of virtual components into your live events with a fully managed event support team who will support your hybrid event. This will free up valuable time as you plan your next hybrid event. 

Contact us today to partner with BeaconLive and let us help you achieve your mission.