Slashed marketing budgets and a public that is saving their money for uncertain times could mean lower attendance rates for the events industry in 2009. We’ve talked with some of the industry’s top event organisers to see how they are beating the economic crunch. Across the board, the feedback we received shows that everyone is trying to accomplish one thing in particular: Increase attendance while lowering costs. This can be a real challenge but here are some low cost marketing ideas many are using that could also help you grow your event in a down economy.

Email Advertising
Minimise the amount of print advertising you are doing. Paper, ink and labor involved can be very expensive and oftentimes, it is very difficult to gage the success of a print advertising campaign. With a limited budget, you need to be able to show a return on every cent you spend on marketing. Email marketing costs nothing in materials and you have access to reporting that will instantly show your return on investment.

Social Media
The best advertising for an event is word of mouth. Social Media is a very low cost and effective way to create word of mouth on the internet. Make a presence for yourself in places like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs or forums where the audience would be interested in an event like yours.

SEO
If you have an official event website, you need to focus on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The goal is to get your website at the top of the search returns for keyword searches such as “Marathons in Singapore” or “Singapore Marathon”. With some small adjustments to your website, you can vastly improve your Google rankings. Just imagine all of the people out there searching for what you offer – they just don’t know about you yet!

Offer Online Event Registration
Collecting participant data online with an event management system will streamline your staff’s workload and open up more time that you can devote to all of the above.

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