When we talk about the revolving door techniques for launching your events, we are essentially looking at a curve that looks something like this:

So, we have the sudden rise in hype with the help of emotional triggers and social marketing effects such as event pages and groups. These triggers are placed in such a sequence so as to raise the hype to a maximum level at the day of the event. That’s when most of your sales targets from tickets and sponsorships will have met. But we don’t want you to stop there - this strategy ensures that you have post-launch hype building and then carefully timed smaller relaunches to ensure that the hype curve always stays above the typical constant plateau. The smaller scale launches can be anything from event videos to smaller local events - anything that gets your fancy…

This post has been included in our “Event Launch Guidelines” training program. Click for more information.

With all of the different bookmarking, content sharing, collaborating and social networking websites sprouting up around us, we sometimes get lost about what to do. Just jumping in the game randomly can’t help, so its best to resort to a game plan first. The whole cyclical launch strategies, mental triggers and social media strategies that I talk about are to help you understand the road that you are treading better.

As an event marketer or manager you can choose to hire specialized skills or spend your own time to market your events using these social platforms. Someone from your team needs to be actively involved in the prelaunch process constantly. Simply having a presence in social sites is not enough as that will only get you so far. You need to be in the forefront of conversations and be involved with whats going on. If you have a blog or an event page, make sure it is updated regularly and has the latest information about the event.

All of this activity shouldn’t undermine the quality of your content. You need to offer value to people in order to win their trusts in social networks. Value is offered by quick response times, quality and your availability to help others.

Social marketing efforts spread through word of mouth. That’s why some of the most remarkable web 2.0 campaigns spread virally to thousands of people in a matter of hours if not minutes. So get out there with a plan. Actively engage your audiences.

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

Today’s tip! Twitter delivers Events Listed more traffic than Google search on any given day. Become immune to the Google slap by managing your Twitter campaign professionally.

How often do you see the same sad story around you? Small businesses struggling hard to survive - short-sighted and unprepared to take risks, unwilling to secure the potential future of their business. I have had pizza in 26 different countries in the world, and yet none of them compares to this tiny corner pizza shop in the Noosa Hinterland, close to where I live. They’re pizza’s are to die for. This is why I feel unnerved to see how their business hasn’t been ’secured’ for long term success.

The couple (lets call them Jack & Jill for the sake of anonymity) took a vacant building a couple of years ago and built the pizza and coffee business from scratch. Despite the mouth watering pizzas, they still aren’t making enough money to buy the property. The property owner is stalling their lease renewal and wants them to leave if they can’t buy the freehold. Recently I found myself thinking about the possible reasons for a business that provides a great product and delivers such a valuable service to it’s customers, is not in a position to buy the freehold of the property it trades out of. Now my only interests other than looking at this as a great case study is to see them pull through - being a loyal customer who benefits from the value their store offers me (i.e. delicious pizza). I have vested interest in the business being a success. If it goes under, I loose a convenient destination for coffee breaks and an easy place to take the kids out for pizza on weekends. There will be no replacement shop if they fail to secure the building freehold which will not only effect the proprietors but will effect the lifestyle of customers who have come to lean on the business as well.

One of the core issues I can see with the business is the owners approach to business, the couple who run the place are chalk and cheese in the way that they view what the business is to a customer and how they translate this into success.

First Jill: Although friendly and personable, she is not open to advice on ideas for securing more revenue or funds to secure the businesses future. She simply phases out if you offer advice. She makes the business atmosphere casual and homely as though the customers are visiting her in her lounge room which is nice (they live behind the shop) but when it comes to money its impossible for her to hide a tight-fisted, short sighted approach to business.

Now I, for one, find the dynamic in this particular business as interesting as any I have seen before. Whats interesting is the fact that her attitude - being so money focused - has such a contrasting effect on me as her customer than the opposite and equal reaction I have when dealing with her partner Jack’s attitude. She’ll skimp on servings, serve canceled orders to save making a fresh pizza & count every nickel and dime owed to a point where she actually makes me repel against wanting to give her any more money than I have to. Her attitude seems to instill a feeling of wanting to visit the shop less and spend less regardless of how nice it is if she is on duty. Also, if spending anything, it’s as though she makes me want to scrutinize everything she serves. Its almost as if she wills her worst fears upon herself. Being worried about not making enough money results in customers thinking about how much she is taking from them and what they are getting in return. Its a vicious cycle that I would never had contemplated if I wasn’t lucky enough to have been able to watch such contrasting styles in the same business on rotating days.

Jack the partner: A laid back personality compared to Jill with a completely different attitude to business. His attitude is to offer free coffee, give extra servings, and a philosophy that ‘near enough is good enough’ when it comes to the bill. He’d say nice stuff like “that ones on the house if the experience is anything but perfect”. His attitude makes customers feel like no matter what you pay him, you are always getting real value. He makes you feel like he is looking out for you as his customer and this attitude in effect translates into you enjoying the visit more, thus increasing your frequency of visits.

What makes this case study so interesting is the following question it raises. If the business is not generating enough money to buy the building it trades in, although the food and the service it provides is excellent value for money, will it survive? Is the business failings because Jack is giving away to many freebies to customers (although by doing so he entices them to spend more time), shouldn’t this translate into success? Or is it failing because of tight-fisted Jill who extracts every last penny from customers without winning any awards for enticing customers into spending more time in the business each week, even though she can be assured that she has extracted every last cent when customers do visit?

You can probably imagine Jill is always on Jacks back for giving away too much for too little or for being way too generous with the helpings and so on. I often see him hushing and hiding his generosity to avoid conflict. There are no awards for guessing who Jill blames for the business not earning enough money and if she had it her way, Jack would be forced to follow suite with the style in which she employs to govern the business, she sees no value in his style. You do not sense a willingness to compromise between her style and his, when it comes to the methods by which she believes, needs to be employed for profitability.

Now Jack on the other hand would probably subscribe to a view more in tune with a combination of a little tight-fisted scrutiny on Jill’s part giving him the bad cop enforcer behind him to cover positive approach to dealing with customers. Customers first. I sense that if he has the freedom of exercising his style of management without scrutiny that he would have the business pumping in no time.

Now to me, I see myself as a potential $5000 customer of this business because if frequenting the business daily I would spend just under $10 daily as well as the bi-weekly $50 family pizza nights we would enjoy. I am sure thats how jack sees me too which is probably why we are on the same page where he considers me a great customer & I consider myself lucky to have such a great value local hangout at my disposal that is so laid back and comfortable.

Now jack’s philosophy is probably to build more customers just like me that come in every day & his strategy is pretty simple, he gives back to ensure the customer experience is always positive. He seems to know that each customer’s experience is only ever as good as their last.

Now Jill on the other hand can only focus on what giving away a FREE cup of coffee means to her in lost revenue, she cannot get past the value she feels she is already providing for such a small return and she doesn’t feel she owes it to anyone to give them anything for free.

Jill does not see me as a $5000 customer, I sense she sees me as an $8 to $10 customer every time I walk into the shop and in doing so I feel like one, thus I am sure I act like an $8 customer by scrutinizing my change and what I am being charged, though when I am served by Jack I both feel and act like the $5000 customer I am.

Now lets do the analysis on this for arguments sake. I can say with absolute certainty that if Jill ran the business her way and Jack did not exist, the business would become little more than an inconvenience to me as it was before they took over the building. I personally would most probably become a $5 customer on bi weekly frequency as opposed to a $10 a day customer, buying little more than a coffee and the newspaper which would cost me a total of $520 per year. This being the case I would be $4480 per year richer and the business $4480 poorer.

What do I end up with at the end of the year for my extra $4480 if Jack was in charge? I get a sense of community, I have a place to visit when I need to get out of my office or away from the home, a place that feels like a second home. I have a place to take my family for stress-free casual dinners on Sunday nights & a place to meet business associates or friends where the proprietor is always friendly, always makes me feel like $5000 customer who knows my name and what I like to eat and drink. I can even ring him on holidays and ask him to check my pool for me.

Is it worth $4480? Absolutely, but if I didn’t have access to it my life would adapt & any perceived value would evaporate, as it does with most business services - its a want of mine to retain this facility, it’s not a need. There is a difference there.

I guess the lesson here is that money is little more than paper or coin that is effectively worthless. It serves as a currency of exchange between goods and services from one person or group to others. Whats important is not the money but the goods and service being provided to your customers. Business is about perceived value, all a customer ever sees is your intent, the exchanging of money serves little more than to provide a common denominator by which we measure our satisfaction.

If customers feel they are realizing perceived value through any relationship they have with a provider, they will continue to hand over money asked of them without questioning it. The minute a customer questions the perceived value they are receiving they will focus on the money being asked which is the beginning of the end, of a mutually profitable relationship.

I guess the crux of this case study would be to always allow your to business to focus on the perceived value of what customers enjoy from your products or services. Ensure they keep enjoying it whilst finding others who will enjoy the same. Evangelism. Do this and your money will always keep flowing in, focus on the money and you will eventually run out of people willing to keep giving it to you.

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

This is an event launch strategies blog - and I try not to go off on other topics. But when I received the third invitation to a book launch this month I just knew I had to write about this. Now although I don’t consider myself an author, I have written & sold e-learning books which has got to count as close. A book launch is an exciting and memorable step in your career as a budding author. You don’t always have to resort to launching in halls and bookstores. By using the internet you will be able to drive more attention to your launch and consequently your book than through any other medium.

Selecting a theme is an important step in planning a book launch and its no different if launching an event, a product or a book. You just need to look at your launch with the same creativity with which you used to pen your book, create your product or visualize your event.

You can have the book launch around a similar setting to your book. If the book is about a trekking expedition have the launch atop a mountain (or hill). Get the audiences to trek all the way up. If the novel is an adventure, have it in a boat. If its a romance novel pick a beach spot or a romantic hideout.

The idea is to get creative with your launches and turn them into newsworthy events. Don’t just stick to traditional ways of launching anything. Go out of the way to build a theme that would attract your targeted audience, a theme that journalists will write about. The theme itself becomes an important part of the hype building process before your book launch.

Another interesting thing that you can do is get your prospects to design a theme for you - or you can involve them by getting them to fill out surveys or having discussions and online focus groups. If you involve your audiences in the planning process up front at this point, they will feel like they are already a part of your event and will take ownership in making it successful. This being the case they will feel obliged to attend and to spread the word out to their networks. Hey, the more people who attend, the more news worthy, the more press coverage, the more book sales.

So, to sum it up, get your creative juices flowing. Make your book launch as memorable as the book itself or if launching an event the same principle applies. The press are looking for newsworthy stories every day so they get noticed. Its not difficult to create a launch event that gives them something to work with that does not demand you to invest a lot of money.

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

Today’s tip! Preserve the IP value of your content. Lock your ebook’s into a secure electronic casing that requires an access keys to unlock. Distribute the access key’s, not your PDF’s.

The image above sums up the entire interaction process. We’re guiding the prospect through this step by step cyclical process of launching and are using mental triggers to help them make their buy-decision based on impulse or need, or a combination of both.

Throughout the process, remember to have the basic material and content prepared before you begin the prelaunch campaign. However, you can tweak and modify things as you go based on your interactions with them. These interactions are important. You have to keep your prospects involved and engaged throughout the campaign.

Whats the green star in the image? The green star before launch represents the emotional triggers that you will be hitting at through your emails and blog posts. Almost anything that can increase the excitement and can influence their buying decision can be considered a trigger. Generally, at this point you want to make sure that your triggers fall into the following categories:

a- Traction: You need to prove that there is a lot of hype and buzz around the product. Referring to examples of your communication with communities or to the hype adds to social proof. The reader needs to feel that he or she isn’t in it alone…

This post has been included in our “Event Launch Guidelines” training program. Click for more information.

After all, whats different about launching a conference, training course, product or website to launching an event online. I believe there is no better business on earth more suited to internet launches by use of social media than event based businesses. Events come with so much human emotion, they are all about socialization and word of mouth is the most effective method for marketing a launch. Social media and the use of the internet as a delivery platform creates exponential opportunities for event marketers.

We’ve talked earlier about setting up your mailing lists and building hype all the way to launch. I often receive emails asking me about specific tactics to use to build hype. I know I have touched on my methods throughout other posts but I thought it time to walk you through a simple example case that’s easy to explain. Ill use a product as an example rather than an event to show you how these methods apply to any business. Ive talked in detail about similar tactics for planning and launching events but have never formerly stepped you through the process. I will step this one out, one step at a time and leave you to see how you might best translate the example into your own businesses.

First of all, when you are building your event launch strategy, make a timeline with the exact dates for major mile stones and triggers that must all be thought out before launching. In this example we are launching a simple online “event planner specific calendar application” and will start sending the emails two weeks before launch. You can send out emails in as much frequency as you want depending on your list, I’m just going to discuss the few important ones here…

This post has been included in our “Event Launch Guidelines” training program. Click for more information.

If you’re not offering an event that is news worthy or a product that is revolutionary, then I’d suggest more tried and tested ways of marketing your launch.

Product and website launch tactics that have been supported by some of the most influential people in internet marketing can as easily be applied to your event launches. Try them out for your next event launch and see how well you do.

First of all, the success of your launch (read: $$$) depends immensely on how well you have connected with your potential customers in the pre-launch stage. Make sure you time your pre-launch perfectly so that your launch is introduced at a point where the hype reaches its climax. Some additional pointers:

1- Start building your lists way before launch. Get people on your lists. Build relationships with them. If you want, you can build a following on an authority blog about your industry.

2- Use social networking sites to network with people with the aim of getting them onto your lists. These lists are the backbone of your launch, so work on making it as strong as you can. Also, keep the lists and social networks connected and engaged at all times - you would want to have a constant communication going on at all times.

3- This is the best time to gauge your markets response to specific elements of the event. You can either get their opinions, ideas by discussing them firsthand, or get them to fill out surveys. You already want them to be involved in a conversation before you start the pre-launch campaign (typically, in the form of email series + blog posts).

4- Once you have your lists all set up, a pre-launch phase can typically take about 2-3 weeks starting from the initial introduction to “something new is coming up”. The way to calculate the duration is to first see how much pre-launch content you have that you can spread across in an email series. One email should lead to another and help in building your launch story. You can then see how you want to spread it out for the maximum effect.

5- If you have decided on a 6 week long pre-launch campaign, then set a target date for your event launch (e.g. April 15th) and run back 6 weeks for the pre-launch campaign to begin. You would want to have the pre-launch content emails all scheduled up in an auto-responder program to start running on set dates or follow up sequences. Make sure you get the content revised and approved before signing it off (I join my list before anyone else can - so I end up getting each email days before my list does), to avoid errors which are a bad look, although if you correct them publicly - they can also make you seem more human. Make sure your content hits the right emotional triggers at the right times based on their frustrations, aspirations, needs related to your product industry.

6- In the middle of your pre-launch campaign you need to start to build momentum and give them more and more information about your event. A nicely made video intro can be placed in this time-period to get the market talking about something pertaining to the event, or just a little more detail about the event. They need to know what to expect by the time you get close to launch. This is also a great time to answer questions that people have raised about the product through your blog posts.

7- You may also want to give away the price of your tickets a couple of days before your launch. Some people prefer to make it a surprise till the launch date, and that’s perfectly OK as well - as long as the surprise isn’t coupled with “that much..?” . If it is much, you need to have subtly built a sense of value during your pre-launch campaign.

8- As the launch date draws nearer you need to have your market sensing scarcity in ticket availability as well as feeling like if they miss this, they could be the only ones. Make it clear to them exactly how to make the purchase a day before the tickets go off on sale. You want them to be talking about the big launch amongst themselves. You want the authority blogs in that field covering the upcoming launch. You would also want interesting stories within your launch story, to make it in the news. Don’t shy off from these things - allow this excitement to rise.

9- Send emails to your list on launch day. Make it exciting and momentous. Ensure to make it clear just how much demand you’re receiving on ticket sales & inform them that once ticket sales hit a certain number the curtain comes down. Make sure everything is in order and all queries are answered as quickly as possible.

10- Depending on how many days you want to keep the launch open for, make sure you keep sending them an email a day with updates on ticket sales and reminders of your capacity. These emails can also include triggers relating to, early testimonials from purchasers, more insights about the event itself - anything to keep them in the loop. People who haven’t yet made the buy-decision will know just how much time they have left to avail the launch packages. They will play cat and mouse with you and themselves as although people want to buy, they don’t want to be sold to. If uncertain they will wait until the last minute looking for you to give them a reason or an excuse not to buy. Play it cool and hit the right triggers at the right time and they will buy.

11- Show your list social proof that the response to your launch has been dynamic. Point them to your blog where people are commenting. Of course all these strategies are dependent on you having executing the pre-launch effectively, you must have comments in your blog and ticket sales to deploy them. I don’t recommend these tactics if you have no comments in your blog or have made few ticket sales throughout the first day of a launch. People will always want to follow a buzz, its human nature for us not to want to miss out one something that we sense a majority of the tribe (like-minded people) will participate in. You just need to create the buzz and entice early adopters to commit.

12 - You can also hit the final day of a launch by offering major bonuses to all ticket purchasers that you had not previously mentioned. This ploy is two fold in its effect, it leaves ticket holders with a sense of “that’s cool”, I already paid for my ticket they didn’t need to give me that, but did. It also serves as a final boost for those sitting on the edge looking for that something extra to buy. Its important that you offer these bonuses to ticket holders and anyone else who buys before a certain time today. Don’t give them a lot of time to think about it, put them under pressure to buy immediately.

13 - Soon after the bonus time period is up - close the gates. I like to put a sign on our ticketing pages that says “Sold Out”. Send a message to your list informing them tickets have sold out and that you are processing all your 3rd party distributor sales before locking the doors permanently. Make it known that depending on your final count on tickets sales that there is a chance more tickets may be made available again, for a brief period. This sets you up for a mini relaunch where you reopen the doors to sell a hand full of tickets your count has confirmed are still available. This relaunch is designed to get all the people who experienced a sense of loss when the doors close last time across the line. Make it clear the second round of tickets will sell out in a short period of time. They wont miss out this time.

13 - After your launch is over, don’t forget about your lists. Keep the conversation going. Make sure you keep your lists warm by launching a post launch campaign that’s all about the event, peoples testimonies & the success that it was. Keep your list warm until you are ready to execute a relaunch (e.g. a second event or some T-shirts commemorating the event or a video series of the night as a special offer).

You should always be pre-launching, launching, post launching or re-launching an event of some kind. Its business and the way to build success.

Good luck.

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

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