When it comes to marketing events, the majority of advice focuses on one-off events with a clear start and end to their promotion cycle. But what about the many events that donât fall into this neat timeline?
For some creators, events take place over multiple dates and time slotsâthink club nights, timed museum entries, and seasonal events, such as pumpkin patches and Santaâs grottoes.
For these events, promotion can be tricky. Their always-on nature means scarcity marketing tactics that play on attendeesâ FOMO just arenât as impactful. Instead, creators must explore different tactics to stay top of mind.
Become a master of reinvention
Even if the event format is the same each time, savvy creators will look for opportunities to add new talking points or elements of intrigue for the audience.
This can be achieved by inviting new performers, speakers or vendors, as Hackney Street Market does with its themed takeovers and guest DJs. Throughout 2023, the market hosted Black-Owned Hackney in partnership with Black Eats London, with each weekend featuring more than fifty Black-owned businesses.
The takeovers are announced on Instagram, with content being promoted in the build-up, during and after the weekendâcementing the event as the place to be.
This dynamic approach allows you to tell fresh stories around your event, which is crucial when it comes to sustaining a steady pipeline of ticket sales.
Loona Hazarika of Letâs Discover London often comes up with a fresh hook to drive interest in his events. âLondon is a content rich environment and new content can be created with some research,â he says. âEvery history tour I run has another perspective. For example, I do a tour for International Womenâs Day called History and HERstory, using social media to publicise the event and also email newsletters/reminders via Eventbrite.â
Generate demand
Many creators base their entire promotional strategy on a fundamental principle: the less there is of something, the more people want it. And for good reason, scarcity marketingâthe idea that by limiting the supply of something, you create more demandâcan be very impactful.
While this tactic may not seem a natural one for recurring events, more and more creators are finding innovative ways to suggest scarcity even when itâs not the case.
Some venues hold regular ballots or run flash sales on tickets, which has the dual effect of reminding consumers about the recurring event, while simultaneously creating the impression that tickets are prized.
Competitions are another good way to achieve this. The burgeoning Bring Your Baby, which puts on pub quizzes and guided walks for parents across the UK, uses them in two ways.
âWe run competitions on social media as a way of celebrating something, such as a milestone or birthday for our company,â says founder Lucy Madison. âItâs a nice way to have customers tag a friend into their entry post to gain more followers. We also cross-promote with other events and class providers in our geographical locations by giving away spot prizes to local baby classes.â
Stagger ticket release
Even the âonsale momentââthe crucial point at which your followers are notified and early movers buy their ticketsâhas always been a key weapon in the event creatorâs arsenal. Now, it’s being quietly revolutionised.
Traditionally, creators would announce an event with all the possible dates and timeslots. But the problem with that approach is that you only get one shot at promotion. By staggering ticket release, however, you get plenty of opportunity to reengage with your audience and optimise sales.
Take Kindred, an events and co-working space in West London. It gets around this problem with a weekly release of tickets. “We publish our co-working slots on Eventbrite towards the end of every week, often with an Instagram story or WhatsApp message to our community,” explains Community Director Jo Taylor.
The benefits to this approach are two-fold, she says: “Operationally it makes a lot of sense, but it also allows us to organically reinforce our brand values and let people know about other events we have coming up.â
Turn your attendees into advocates
The greater the number of events, the more opportunity there is to build a loyal following. Get this right and your attendees will do the hard work for youâacting as promoters within their own networks on your behalf.
Building a community that recommends your event and services organically takes time and energy, but it is vital to creating a sustainable business.
One tactic that many successful recurring event creators seem to use (whether organically or by design) is that of bringing the audience into the content and curation. As a result, attendees feel valued and are more likely to return as a result.
What does this look like in practice? Well, London Writersâ Salon regularly spotlights the achievements of members in their social posts and virtual events. Similarly, Sofa Singers maintains an open line to their attendees, as founder James Sills explains.
âItâs really important that itâs an active rather than passive experience,â he says. âGive your audience a voice. We have a weekly newsletter where we include things from the community â things that people have shared in the open mic.â
Harness the power of positive reviews
Even if your event doesnât lend itself to repeat attendance, like those mentioned above, there is a simple way to drive advocacy and grow sales exponentially: positive reviews.
You can source these yourself in post-event surveys, dropping them into ready-made templates to make easy and effective social media content, or encourage attendees to give them verbally to their network. Loona Hazarika, for example, hands out business cards at the end of every tour and encourages attendees to pass them on.
For Bring Your Baby, Google reviews have been a game-changer. Lucy Madison tells us that they ask attendees to submit them at the end of every quiz, creating a virtuous circle whereby would-be attendees find them when they search for the event.
This is echoed, too, by Histoire Productions, which puts on immersive dinners at Edinburghâs Sheraton Hotel and other locations.
“Reviews are so important for our business,â says Managing Director Bobby Cole. âWhen a potential new customer reads the experience of someone that has been to one of our events it can make or break whether they buy or not! We constantly share our reviews on all our social channels, even including them on our emails.”
