5 Ways to Find More Attendees for Your Event

One of the major hurdles you have to overcome while organizing an online event is getting a good number of attendees. If you are planning to host an event in the next couple of weeks or days, it is crucial to figure out earlier how best you can get more people to attend your event. 

Before you announce your next event and when it takes place, you must create a clear strategy of attracting more people to the event. Of course, you have to start with the target number you need and then figure out how you and your team will convince all those people to join your virtual event. 

If you have been looking for the best strategies that you can use to find more attendees for your next event, this article is for you. I will discuss some of the most tested methods that successful event organizers have used to generate more traffic for their events. Whether you are planning to hold your very first event or a follow-up event, these strategies will help get more people than you had earlier anticipated. 

Let's dive in!

1. Find out the needs

People want to attend an event that will add value to them. It could be helping them to fix one of their current challenges or gaining more knowledge about a certain topic they are interested in. If you can figure out the needs of your target audience, it will be easier to have these people show up to your event than when you are clueless about what they want. 

Let me share with you some of the methods you can use to determine the needs of your audience; 

• Start by knowing your target audience: You cannot find out the needs of people you don't even know. So, the first logical step is getting as many details as you can about your target audience. For example, if your business creates video editing software, your target audience will include video editors, such as YouTubers and other digital creators.
  
  
• Know the audience persona: After determining your target audience, the next step is writing down the full details about who they are, their day-to-day challenges, the social platforms they use, their location, etc. For instance, if you are targeting YouTubers and other video creators, you need to do in-depth research about their lifestyle and the challenges they face while doing their job. 
  
  
• Learn from previous events or your competitors: If this is not your first event, you at least have some data that you can use as a stepping stone to make your next one a success. If you are planning the very first event, you should start by learning from the previous events that your competitors have held.

2. Announce on social media

According to a 2018 study by EventMB, over 89% of event organizers use social media to engage their potential audience before the event. When combined, all social media platforms have over 4.4 billion users. So, any virtual event organizer that doesn't tap into such a huge audience would be amplifying their chances of holding an unsuccessful event as far as attendance is concerned. 

Many people, including your target audience, rely on social media to know what is happening around them and the potential events they can plan to attend. 

Tips for creating an invite that will attract more attendees to your event 

• Use the right platforms: While creating an attendee personal, you should have specified the platforms most of your potential attendees use. These are the webinar platforms you should give your entire focus on while promoting your event. And EventX is one of the great platforms for you to create your customized webinars.
• Create an appealing event banner: You need to create a banner that will pull people's attention once it appears in their newsfeed. If you are not so talented at graphics design, hire a freelance designer to help you create one.
• Use social media influencers: You may also have to involve influencers that your target audience trusts to help you share your event banner with their followers. Avoid going for influencers that are totally outside your niche because their efforts will likely not yield much. 
• Take advantage of Ads: All the popular social platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, have paid Ads. To ensure your announcement reaches more people, using paid Ads is an option you should consider. 
• Make your event trend: You need to create a hashtag for your event that anyone that wants to share anything about your event can use. This method is very useful, especially if you use it on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. People are usually tempted to see why a specific hashtag is trending. 

3. Give out incentives for early registrations

One of the tested ways that event organizers use to boost attendance at their events is giving incentives to those who register early for the event. The incentive you give to those who register early should largely depend on your kind of business and your budget for marketing the event. 

For some, it could be a discount on the event fee. Another organizer could opt to give those who register early a shopping voucher that they can use to get a discount on their next shopping. There are so many advantages of getting people to register early. It will help you plan better and know what to expect at the event. 

4. Create highlights of your event

People would love to know what to expect from your event before attending it. That is why any event organizer must share some highlights of what people should expect when they sign up for the event. Even if your event is about a new product that you don't want anyone to know about before you finally unveil it, find a way of giving your target audience a hint of what they should expect. 

Your highlight can be in the form of video clips that show brief explanations about some of the topics to be covered and why they will add value to any potential attendee. You may also create some infographics that give an appealing insight into what people should expect at the event. If it is an event to share knowledge, the infographic should show what kind of knowledge they should expect and why it would be relevant. 

For those having the budget, consider running Ads for some of your video clips or infographics with these insights. Running paid Ads will make it possible for your message to reach a bigger audience that could likely have potential attendees for your event. One of the best platforms for video clip Ads is YouTube. 

5. Invite your speakers to promote

One of the reasons why people attend any given event is because of the speakers that will participate in that event. That is why it is very important to involve the event speakers during the marketing period of the event. You can request them to share the event banners and infographics on their social media so that their followers see them too. 

If your speakers have a huge following on social media, this move can be the main reason for selling out your event. When any event speakers share a clip, banner, or infographic about your event, you should always find meaningful ways of engaging with them. Whether it is through retweeting or sharing, the goal is to engage. 

Bonus: Choose the right platform to schedule and stream your event

You have now done the planning and marketing for your event, but what matters most is how your potential attendees will get to be part of the event. This calls for choosing a reliable platform for streaming and managing the event. EventX is among the leading event management platforms in the industry right now. 

Our incredible features, including Full HD (1080P) streaming, live interactions with the attendees, and event analytics, will create a great event experience for both the attendees and event organizers.

Conclusion

Attracting massive traffic to your virtual event is no easy task, but you can pull this off if you use the right methods. There are quite a number of things that you can do to attract more people to be part of your event. The five strategies I have just shared are among the most tested brands that have held successful events. 

No matter the type or size of your brand, you need to figure out how best you can implement each of the above strategies. Knowing your audience, their needs, and what platforms you should use to promote your event are the very first things you need to figure out before you start promoting your event. 

Involving your speakers in the promotion process is also crucial because it assures your target audience that the speakers you are promising will show up at the event. Finally, it is important to allocate a budget for promoting your event because some of the strategies I have just shared may require investing money to get the best results.