In Episode #478, Eric and Neil share their own personal checklist for throwing a successful live event. Tune in to hear them discuss whether to use a free venue or one that costs money, the various methods to get the word out about your event, the importance of getting help when planning and running a conference, and why your should focus on building relationships rather than making money.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:28 – Today’s topic: Conferences Are Going to Lose You Money Unless You Follow This Checklist
• 00:34 – Map out how much the venue is going to cost you.
  • 00:45 – For their Marketing School Live event they wound up booking one that costs $2,500 instead of a free one because the venue took care of everything.
  • 01:20 – If they’d used the free venue, it would have been an inferior experience for the guests.
• 01:29 – You need to have contingencies for how you’re going to get attendees.
  • 01:40 – Email blast only works if you’ve segmented your list.
  • 01:50 – Partner up with other organizations in the area to get more attendees.
  • 02:20 – Invite people from your Meetup group.
  • 02:39 – Use ads.
  • 02:45 – Use Dux-Soup, an automation tool where you can, for example, hit up all your contacts with “marketing” in their title.
• 03:05 – You’ll lose money if you don’t create the right experience because over time people will come to know you as someone who hosts bad events – and will likely assume that your business isn’t very good, either.
• 04:00 – Get help because it takes a team to run a successful event.
• 04:24 – Eric and Neil’s goal was to break even, not to make money off it.
  • 04:39 – If you lose a couple hundred dollars, that’s a win!
  • 04:50 – Don’t just measure how much money you make from throwing the event, measure how much you make in total: networking, long-term contracts, etc.
• 05:05 – Build relationships from going to conferences and learn from others who’ve thrown events.
• 05:55 – Marketing School is giving away 90-day FREE trial for Crazy Egg which is a visual analytics tool
  • 06:02 – Go to SingleGrain.com/giveaway to get your FREE copy
• 06:06 – That’s it for today’s episode!

3 Key Points:

1. A good venue is critical so that you give your event attendees a great experience.
2. Plan ahead how you’re going to get attendees to your event – email, partnering up with other organizations, advertising.
3. The point is not to make money off of a live event, but to build in-person relationships – which will pay off in the long run.

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