The event launch hype cycle

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Typical launches follow a traditional hype cycle with the excitement rising up to launch (where it peaks) and then decreases all the way down until reaching a minimum constant level. Here is what the hype curve typically looks like:

Event Hype curve

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

Event hype curve

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. Thats 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.

There is no limit to the potential amount of revenue you can make out of your events if you plan them correctly. I have been talking about these strategies for a long time, but I feel that it is now time to actually demonstrate the powerful impact of these tactics in event marketing. I am going to show you people step by step live demonstrations of an event launch in the coming weeks and answer any questions that you have regarding it as we go. Keep following this blog for an open and uncensored demonstration of the entire event launch process.

Hitting mental triggers - its all about the perfect timing

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In an earlier post I talked about how to hit mental triggers. Today I just want to elaborate a bit on when to hit. See, just like any marketing effort, your emails are messages that are going out to your prospects. If you have been following this blog, you would know the importance of building lists of prospects that can you then target for your launch.

When mapping out your event launch strategies, you need to plan how to build hype and anticipation until it climaxes at launch. You launch just when the curiosity has peaked and Bam! See the fireworks happen.

This is analogous to movies - we’re trained to allow the tension to build within ourselves when we are watching a thriller. A thriller movie wouldn’t work if they just give away the plot in the first ten minutes. Who would want to watch it through then? Similarly, when you are building hype towards your mega launch, make sure you spread out the campaign into weeks of little swallow-able chunks of information at a time. They need to take it in and then come back for more.. and more.. until you launch. Until their tension is released. Until they attend your event. Until they buy your products. Until they get to benefit from whatever it is that you are offering.

So this sequential timeline is one in which you slowly build their trust, give them little bites of information, get them to share their needs, give away free things or content, work on your relationship with them. Here is another great analogy to think about: try meeting a girl (or boy) and propose to her (or him) the same day. How would they react? Well, in most normal cases, I’m guessing they’d freak out and would want to stay the hell away from you. Important things require the effort of building a relationship of trust. Your launches are as important as anything else. So invest the time to plan it well.

A good thing about this is that while you are communicating with your prospects and lists, you can get early feedback and ideas from them. If you want to make it formal you can even ask them to fill out survey forms survey money, otherwise you can measure it from your conversations with them. Another good thing about this timeline is that once you do your initial launch, all subsequent relaunches and other revolving door activities can even be done over weekly (or even shorter) timelines.

You’ll have to plan your email content well and then schedule it up in your auto-responder emails. If you don’t have enough people on your prospect lists, then use social networking sites to find them. You can read our social media marketing strategies here.

Your launches can take anywhere between 2-4 weeks of prelaunch hype leading to a week long massive launch. In your subsequent launches, you can have shorter timelines of 3-8 days using the exact same sales cycle.