You sit down with your event marketing team and start to plan out your strategy to market your event. Maybe you want to move away from the repetitive marketing types and you really want to hype up the interest. One strategy that you should consider for your marketing campaign is exclusivity!
Exclusivity is a tactic where instead of promoting a product, service, or event broadly to a target market, it focuses back in and strategically markets the item as exclusive.
With an event, exclusivity works extremely well. When people believe that tickets are hard to come by, that the event is ultra-exclusive, or there are added perks that you can’t get anywhere else, then there will be added interest, ticketing sales, and engagement. Exclusivity is a powerful marketing effort, and you should consider it for your upcoming event.
Read on to learn exclusivity marketing strategies that can ensure you host a successful event!
1. Use Strategic Language To Market Your Event
Using the right language is a large part of what drives exclusivity marketing. For example, if you tell your audience ‘not to tell anyone’ and that they are part of a hand-picked group that will attend an exclusive event, chances are they will feel drawn to participate in that event and to tell people about it.
Once potential attendees find out about this event, and they will, they will feel a bit of FOMO and will be itching to get in on the next event.
Use words like hand-picked, invite-only, exclusive, private, don’t disclose, and phrases like ‘We kindly request your presence’ to convey importance.
2. Use Tiered Ticketing Strategies
Ticketing tiers allows event organizers the ability to offer more or less exclusivity to different ticket purchasers. This ticketing strategy is especially useful if you want to offer high-end opportunities, gift bags, and more, but you still want the pricing to be accessible.
VIP packages are common, but they still provide a level of exclusivity that can interest potential audience members.
You can also consider simply charging more. The more something costs, the higher its perceived value. Exclusivity occurs in strictly monetary ways. Within your ticket tiers, offer a higher ticket price so that people know that there is a lot of value to be had at your event.
3. Consider Invite-Only To Market Your Event
In addition to using strategic language, consider making the event invite-only. In doing so, your brand might want to only invite your mailing list and some acquaintances of the list, special guests, or selected members within an organization.
Once potential customers learn about the event, this will get them talking. Primarily, they will want to figure out how they can be invited to the next event. If your members are allowed to invite others (like the Clubhouse model), then you may be able to garner audience interest by allowing your members to bring on select guests.
Send invites to the loyal customer, and then promote that the event is invite-only through a stealth social media campaign. Or send invites to attendees from a previous event.
4. Create Scarcity in Live and Online Venues
Creating scarcity here involves limiting the number of those who can attend the event. If you want to market your event, consider an option like hosting an exclusive cocktail event and only 50 members of the public can attend, in addition to some hand-picked social media influencers, celebrities, or presenters, then your tickets may sell fast.
Scarcity marketing is extremely effective. It tells event attendees that not everyone can attend, and that makes the event unique. Promote scarcity marketing through an influencer or your event sponsorship.
Limiting the attendance drives the FOMO. Market your event in a way that says once the tickets are sold out, you can’t buy anymore (even if this is not true). This will encourage ticket sales no matter the price point and drive exclusivity and brand awareness.
5. Create a Waiting List or Pre-Order To Market Your Event
A pre-order or waiting list-style builds anticipation for the event. If there is a waitlist or pre-order, then that means that the event is full, extremely popular, and more are waiting to get a ticket.
Waitlists can be created if you want to drive exclusivity. Or, you can use them to filter through your ticket members. Slowly accept each customer based on when they got onto the waitlist. Whether you have a limited amount of spots or not, you’ll find that attendees will be clamoring to attend.
A pre-order works in the same way. If you want to set a release for a product launch, like a book launch or video game, get a pre-order list going. Those who attend the event and are part of your loyalty program are the only ones who get access to the pre-order list.
6. Book a Prestigious Venue or Don’t Disclose the Venue
Sometimes a prestigious venue can really make all the difference. People love prestige. The glam makes them feel good! So, by booking a prestigious venue, you are showing your crowd that you can afford that venue, that you want to spoil your attendees, and that you are going all out for the event!
Marketing your event in an undisclosed or mysterious location piques interest. More attendees will want to sign up just so that they find out about the location. And, chances are, the location is really nice so they know that they can expect a high-quality event.
Promote the prestigious or unknown venue on your event website early on. Depending on how you want to do it, you can ask that attendees sign up for the newsletter or register for the event to find out where the secret location is!
7. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing campaigns can be highly effective. Think about the Fyre Festival, which only used influencers for event promotion and had a highly successful attendee rate. While the event itself was unsuccessful, the marketing plan was perfect.
Consider developing a strategy when working with influencers. They won’t be part of your sponsorship package, however, they will be promoted on your marketing materials and should be used for Facebook promotion events, through content marketing or experiential marketing efforts, and on their social media platform of choice (i.e., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram).
Exclusivity is one of the best-selling marketing strategies to market your event. While a marketer might focus on getting the event details out to everyone so that they can reach their target audience, exclusivity also has a powerful impact. It can be powerful when hosting physical events, hybridevents, and even virtual events.
By tapping into these exclusivity marketing techniques, you can set yourself up for a successful event. You might raise interest, see your tickets sell out faster, and find that the attendees who make it to the event actually have a higher level of interest and engagement!
Helpful Hint: Looking to host your next event soon? Accelevents can help. We support onsite, virtual, and hybrid events of any format and size. Schedule a demo to see our features in action.
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