Posts Tagged "promotional"

Creating Successfully Promoted Speaking Events

Posted by Erin Blaskie on May 11, 2009 in Business Tips | 0 comments

I had an interesting experience recently with a speaking event that I was asked to speak at.  I had delivered a presentation at the event last year which was enjoyed by the participants so they asked me to come back and I gladly accepted.  Last year, the event was run the way events should be run.  The event organizer promoted it and was responsible for filling up the seats, etc.  This year, it seemed that the marketing and promotion was put on the speaker’s shoulders.

Now, I’m not trying to sound like a diva speaker but when you are asked to speak at an event, that should be something that is exciting for the event organizers.  Obviously there is some reason why they’ve invited you into the event to share your information.  Forcing the speaker to either “promote it or be canceled” is not the right tactic to get people excited about your event.  In fact, it usually makes speakers like me bolt for the nearest door and decline the opportunity.

So, how can you learn from my experience and help make your own events exciting? Here are a few tips.

1. Don’t demand that people market your event – make them want to.
2. Treat your speakers like gold – they are the appeal for your audience.
3. Give your speakers plenty of resources to pull from.
4. Don’t favor one speaker over another – promote them all evenly.
5. Put together a committee for your event so you aren’t trying to do it all yourself. This causes burnout!

In any case, I learned a lot from the experience and have the pleasure of speaking at a few other well promoted, well attended events this year.  In those cases, I gladly promoted the events for two reasons… (1) They made it super simple and (2) they didn’t request that I do it — they left it up to us.  Golden rule is that people don’t like to be forced into doing things – they prefer to have the option.

What about you?  Ever experience anything similar in your own business or interactions with event coordinators?  What did you learn?

[tags]Events, conferences, promotion, marketing, successfully promoted speaking events, speakers, speak, speaking, promotional, Erin Blaskie[/tags]