Driving Attendance To Your Next Reverse Mortgage Community Education Event....Putting More Butts in Seats
Written by Valerie VanBooven Friday, 18 September 2009 15:37
Articles - Sales and Marketing
A strong online social media marketing campaign is designed to do multiple tasks all at one time.
The first is to develop relationships with consumers and other professionals in your area who may be future customers or referral sources.
The second is to develop good quality back-links (link bait)- and in turn giving your primary website a leg-up in the search engines.
If you are engaging in social media marketing- and you should be- you can also use this platform to generate higher attendance rates at seminars and community education events.
A Social Media Trifecta
What drives the attendance surge? In the past year we’ve all become a lot more sophisticated about social media networking.
Twitter, Facebook and blogging are essential to creating awareness and capturing registrations among consumers and professionals in your local area.
How exactly do you do it? The approach is very straightforward. No deep, dark social media magic here. Consider:
- Blogging. Frequent blog posts in weeks and days prior serves to educate consumers and professionals and other blog visitors about the upcoming event. Whether the post focuses on another speaker recruited or an occasional countdown of days left until the event, every mention matters.
- Twitter: Experienced Twitterers are encouraged to answer, “what are you doing?” with frequent tweets about the upcoming event. Each tweet should include your URL.
- Facebook: Similarly, put a mention of the upcoming event in your Update fields, and mention the event in any “what’s new” kinds of messages added to your pages. Take advantage of widgets that automatically generate tweets as a blog post is published, fast-cycling the process of keeping both channels regularly updated with event news and promotion.
Where’s the Beef?
The true power of social media comes in its ability to leverage the networks and connections of people who already have an affinity to your organization, brand, and event — and through them reach fresh, high-potential prospects.
Business owners who are still asking ‘where’s the beef?’ are wasting time. You do not use these tools as just another way to mass market. You use them to target specific segments in an increasingly fragmented market. It’s a good way to reach people with common interests. Not large numbers of people, necessarily, but people who are very likely to have shared interests.
If you regularly engage in social media marketing, you will find that as you establish yourself online, and build your audience, you will be spending less marketing dollars on print, and increasing your bottom line at the same time. This isn’t a fad or a quick fix, but a long-term commitment to a communication and marketing method that will exist for the foreseeable future.
Engage now and don’t play catch up later!
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