Event Launch Guidelines

Web 2.0 Tips & Tricks for Event Launch Marketing

Archive for October, 2008

5.2.3- Final Launch Countdown – cash management

In the days leading to your event, make sure you have your cash plans in order so that there is no confusion on the event day. A few things worth mentioning here;

1- You need to establish the amount of petty cash needed for tips and emergencies and put it aside. You can even assign somebody from your team the duty of keeping and managing that fund. Write down the amount along with the name of the person responsible in your Task Manager at your event page. This will allow easier followups. You can check out eventslisted.com/tours to see how that can be done.

2- Write checks for payments to be made for the day of the event. Some vendors require payments to be made immediately, so always note the payment dates down when finalizing contracts. You can use blinksale.com to manage your invoices. If there are any payments that need to be done on the event day, then make sure you have the checks ready, signed and stamped.

3- Use WalletProof.com for a quick and easy way to track your spending, and set cash budgets.

4- Make sure you add your petty cash withdrawal amounts to your management software. If you don’t have one already, try Mint.com. It allows you to view all of your banking and credit card transactions side-by-side, making identifying all of your transactions much easier and faster than ever before.

5- Another good site to bookmark is SalaryBase.com. It allows people to know their true market worth and to shift compensation information power to employees. SalaryBase aggregates anonymous and comprehensive up-to-date salary data and share this knowledge back to the community.

5.2.1 – Final Launch Countdown – last minute details

Now that the event is ready to go - here are some of the important last minute details:

1- Hold training session with volunteers and secure two or three volunteers to assist with emergencies. This is also a good time to confirm the number of volunteers and make sure everyone is acquainted with each other. Let everyone know their schedules. Meet with all committees for last minute details. If anyone is falling behind, explain your concerns to them so that they can set things right. If you are located in different cities, you can use
Skype.com to communicate in live conferences.

2- Have a final walk through with all personnel. You can record this walk through and upload it in a private setting using mydeo.com. In this way the team can go through it again before the event day.

3- Finish seating/table arrangements. This will involve making sure that the vendors are there on time. Double-check arrival time and delivery times with vendors. Managing the contact details of vendors and suppliers can be tricky. You can use Keepm.com to download and view your contacts on your phone, laptop, or iPod.

4- If you have been using a good management tool then by now everything should be in order and under control. You should start using a management tool from the initial stages of your event planning. centerd.com is a tool specifically designed to plan and manage volunteers and teams for events. Its only good if you are planning private parties or smaller scale events - for bigger events you have to use other tools like planzone.com

5- Confirm attendance numbers. You can get this using the RSVP tool of your EventsListed.com event page. Make follow-up calls to news media for event coverage. Send reminder pings to your guests using pingg.com. It allows you to send professional and businesses stylish reminders and invitations.

5.1.2- Launch Campaign – Final content

By this time your content should be ready. This includes your prelaunch emails, your launch messages, your launch website content.

1- Creating pre launch content. This includes everything from autorepsonder emails to your blog posts. Have good writers on board by selecting those writers who can deliver effectively. You can look for them on Odesk.com

2- Creating Launch content. Your launch content should match your launch story. You can read up on how to build good launch stories on EventsListed.com/EventLine

3- Its good to have a run-through action guide for your customers. You can make it in docs.google.com and save it as a PDF online.

4- Your day by day launch plan should be added to your timeline management tool such as lovento.com so that everyone knows what content needs to go out. You can also make sure that your autoresponder series is completely insync with these dy by day plans.

5- Oh and make sure to use copyscape.com to ensure your content is original. It finds content duplicates online for you in a matter of seconds.

5.1.1 –Launch Campaign – Seed launch

Please enlist the points this should cover.

You may want to have a small initial mini-launch before your actual event. For example, a ticket discount sale or an ebook, or a special giveaway project. Each of these are launches, and should be treated as such. Since they come before your actual launch, they can be considered seed launches of sorts.

1- Its good to have a source for launching strategies. Since these seed launches are based on hitting the right emotional triggers, you should read up on these tactics before taking the leap. EventsListed.com/eventline are designed just to help you get acquanted and comfortable with these strategies. It will be a good idea to subscribe to its RSS feed.

2- Speaking of RSS feeds, if you don’t already use a good RSS reader, try using
Feedreader.com or look for Google’s Reader. They are both great and non-intrusive.

3- To notify your customers about the seed launch, you can segment your email lists in
aweber.com and send the notification to only those people who are going to be part of your seed launch exercise.

4- The idea is to have spurts of income flow before and after the launch, so that your revenue is not totally dependent on the launch ticket sales. You can manage your cash using mint.com

5- I would advice you to follow the internet marketing teachings of ProductLaunchFormula.com

4.3.1 – Launch preps - Email lists

Your emails to your prospects should be written in a direct and friendly manner. Its all about having a conversation with them and letting them know about the value that they can get from you.

1- You can use aweber.com for managing all of your email lists. Its lets you segment your lists and send auto-generated emails to each segment.

2- The best way to warm your lists before launch is by building buzz at the right time. The buzz and excitement can be created by giving one chunk of info at a time until their curiosity and thrill peaks at launch. Try using bzzagent.com to monitor and track your the Word of Mouth and buzz around your event.

3- Also, try seeing what the heaviest influencers of the industry doing right. A great way to start is to read about them on buzznumbershq.com. Its like an amalgam of the top best practices and experiences.

4- Use Google.com/analytics to test your opt-in rates on your landing pages. You need to be able to convert visitors to email opters - and a lot of that depends on how well your landing page content is structured and written.

5- Run a survey with your existing customer list. If you are using surveymonkey.com, you can try to send the surveys directly to them in email and encourage them to respond. A good way to do that is by tying it with incentives.

4.2.2 – Event planning – identifying early objections

So event planning involves making sure everything is always under control. Part of this means you should have contingency plans- another part of this means that you need to identify and solve possible bottle-necks before they arise.

1- Market Objections: Your audiences and customers are the most important to please. If you think they may have any objections regarding your event proceedings or ticket prices, you need to get a feel for them early in the planning stage. Use surveymonkey.com to conduct surveys of your sample audience.

2- Venue Objections: A lot of people don’t bother attending if they can’t make it to the venue easily. If the location isn’t ideally suited for the majority of the attendees, it might ruin the event altogether. You can try to make sure you can identify possible objections related to your shortlisted venues and then select the best option. Use lovento.com for shortlisting interesting venues.

3- Legal Objections: To make sure your event security and everything else is according to law, you can get quick access to a free web2.0 public law library called plol.org

4- Once you have the objections identified, simply add them to your Task Manager in your EventsListed.com page and you can make amendments to your plans one by one. Your Task Manager will make sure that you don’t forget any of those important tasks.

5- Kampyle.com enables you to manage feedbacks left on your websites or event pages. Its a great way to correspond with individuals who represent your targeted customers.

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