Marketing Your Event With Videoby Daphne Bousquet, CMP

The question that occupies the mind of many aspiring

or even veteran workshop planners is

How do I get the butts in the seats?

Of course, the way to fill up your event is to market it, and market it early and often

In fact, the time to start marketing your event is when you have made the decision to have one

One of the most effective tools to market your event is video

Just YouTube alone has 2 billion video views per day

Google ranks videos very high in their search rankings.

If you don’t have a date or place yet, this is the time to plant seeds in your clients’ minds and get them curious

At this stage, you can even survey them and ask them

about the topics they want to learn about most

When you get their most pressing questions, you can use their words

in your marketing materials

This is a great way to enter the conversation that is

going on in their head.

Once you have your date, depending on how far away it is,

you can start sending save the date messages or

start signing people up for advanced notifications

This way you can start building a list of interested people

who may or may not sign up for your event later on

The key is to keep them engaged and curious

about the event and your topics,

so that they are more likely to listen to your

messages about the event.

When it comes time for them to make the decision to

attend your event, they’ll be ready.

If this is a repeat event, a great way to get people

curious and excited about your event

is to create a video with people who attended

your last event

Include pictures and testimonials from attendees,

showing how much fun it was to be there.

If a picture says 1,000 words, a video says 100,000 words!

What if you don’t have any video footage to use?

Perhaps you made the mistake of not having a videographer

or at least bringing your FLIP video camera

Use pictures and slides!

You can even create a video for free on http://www.animoto.com

just using pictures, slides and music

The key is to use what you have.

Put something together, make it exciting and create anticipation

That will make people eager to be at your event and

sign up when the time comes.

What if this is your first event?

This may be a little more challenging, but if you have some pictures of clients and

their testimonials of the great results they have achieved because of you, use that!

You can also shoot a video of yourself

talking about the event,

what you are planning to teach and why

it’s important for the viewer to be there

And don’t worry about this being

a million dollar production

All you need is a simple camcorder,

like a FLIP

Make sure you have some good (preferable natural) light on your face and start talking

It is surprisingly easy!

So start marketing that event as soon as you can

Don’t stop until the doors are open and

the people are filing into the room

You never know when that last minute decision maker

becomes your best client

Your videos may not be perfect the first time around,

(or ever), but that’s OK

You need to be out there in a big way,

video is an increasingly important marketing tool

that you need to take advantage of.

For more strategies to fill your workshops and seminars

without driving yourself crazy,

Pick up a copy of my FREE seminar marketing eBook at

EventStrategySolutions.com