Researching Viability
1.29 Researching Viability - Keeping updated
When planning events, we have to keep a watch on what else is going on around us at all times. Finding ways of keeping updated is a part of our daily routines as event managers.
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1- A great desktop RSS reader to use is RSSreader.com - subscribe to relevant blogs that can effect your event and get regular post updates directly to your reader. The reader aggregates the posts so that you can follow a number of blogs by spending a minimum amount of time online.
2- Another good way to keep updates is by following Yahoo groups at groups.yahoo.com or groups.google.com. There are hundreds of thousands of different groups to pick from who are all discussing your the same topics & issues daily.
3- If you want to find blogs that have a high authority level in the events industry or in any other domain that you are marketing your event to, use Technorati.com for detailed blog searches. When you have found blogs that are popular amongst your target market, you can subscribe to their RSS feeds.
4- If you are keen to see whats brewing up in the industry and what kind of trends are taking place, use google.com/trends (Google Trends) to find out. You can even compare the trends of two different things or companies directly from their search bar.
5- Go to desktop.google.com/plugins to see a full range of plugins that you can download for your PC. Specifically you can download small widgets that stay on a corner of your screen and show RSS updates to your favorite blogs. Definitely something for the busy event managers.
1.28 Researching Viability - Joint Collaboration
As a next step in your event planning process, you would want to launch a wiki for joint collaboration and planning amongst your team members. We’ve narrowed down some collaboration options here:
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1- twiki.org is a flexible collaboration and knowledge management tool for small businesses. Its ideal for working on event ideas together.
2- As the name suggests teampage (traction.TractionSoftware.com) is a great way to keep your team on the same page regarding your event plans. It has elaborate linking and commenting features as well.
3- When planning, the work also involves a lot of brainstorming sessions. In fact, thats a source of some of the best event ideas. To record those brainstorming sessions we use Mindomo. Its a powerful and free collaborative mind mapping service.
4- If you’re big on productivity, you can install the firefox GTD plugin (www.gtdgmail.com) with which you can turn your g-mail into a list of action items. You can turn your emails into tasks and can browse through your emails as a personal task management information database.
5- With so much planning going on, you can use www.iScrybe.com - its an online shared calendar where you can also jot down quick thoughts and ideas in a neat thought pad.
1.27 Researching Viability - Establishing Keywords and Advertisements
Driving traffic to your event web pages through pay per click advertising or through organic search requires a carefully planned keyword structure to say the least. The success of your search engine marketing and paid search advertising depends on what words people are already searching just how relevant these keywords are to the audience you need your event pages to be in front of.
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1- The first step is to establish your keywords research so that you start this process with a list of all right words. KeywordCalculator.com or Wordtracker.com will help you find currently searched keywords for your ads that have a good volume and lower competition. They are both powerful and free tools for finalizing your campaign’s keywords.
2- Once you create a list we place this list of estimated key word phrases (searched) into a google PPC (pay-per-click) add campaign. We monitor the number of key word impressions that are triggered per phrase and the number of times each phrase attracts a click. To do this go to adwords.google.com. Investing money into an Adword advertising campaign will give you exact numbers on how many times your key word phrases are being searched before you commit to deploying this strategy as part of your marketing campaign.
3- Wikipedia has a good list of all of the different advertising cost options to choose between. You can find it by searching for online_advertising on wikipedia. Use this to determine which advertising model will work best for your event marketing.
4- Use regional search functions to list the top 10 websites that appear in organic search results pages for particular key words. Try using Ask’s city search - that is city.ask.com for localized and map based searches.
5-With so many keywords to manage, try using this cool internet personal assistant called PageOnce.com. Trust me, you’ll need the extra help and advertising checkup reminders.
1.26 Researching Viability - Finding similar events
After listing your target demographics, it is important to check who else is launching similar events targeting the same demographics and regions. Do a thorough search for finding relevant events that may effect your marketing campaign.
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1- The first and surest place to search for is using google’s blog search - www.blogsearch.google.com. This limits the search results to those mentioned in blogs and shows the most recent posts on the top. Definitely a good way to see how much vibe is being created by early adopters and competitive event planners & promoters across the blogosphere.
2- Next up are event calendars - another good way to get pinged whenever there are similar events taking place around you. Check out eventful.com for a massive database of local and global events.
3- The point of looking for events around you is to keep a competitive watch out. You wouldn’t want your pre-launch campaign to be jeopardized by competitive forces. Find all of the event organizing teams or companies that you want to watch out for (or follow) and subscribe to their blog feeds using feedburner.com
4- If you’re lazy about taking the time out for regular research, you can add your business interests by key word into Google alerts (thats Google.com/alerts) and it will email you the latest information posted onto the web with your key words in it, this technique can be applied to monitoring press for similar events.
5- For localized searches, go through ask.com for city based event searches. Its colorful, easy to use and gives great results.
1.25 Researching Viability - Target Market Listing
Narrowing down your targeted customers is important for a successful marketing campaign. The more specific you are about your market, the better you will be able to communicate with them. I have some tools that can help you identify your target market.
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1- Be sure to check out freedemographics.com - A premier online resource for conducting progressively advanced market analysis with U.S. demographic reports, maps, charts, data and more.
2- Another good stop is MarketSegmentation.com. It has structured methods for finding the critically important market data that you need for your events and target markets.
3- If you want to check whether your market has social communities already communicating in one conversation on Facebook, simply go to facebook.com/ads to see an estimation of the number of Facebook users that fall into your events specific demographics. It gives you immediate numbers without having you commit to advertising.
4- If you already have a customer list use SurveyMonkey.com to conduct survey questionnaires for your targeted audiences. This can help you get an early feel regarding trends and opinions associated with things that can effect your event’s success.
5- You can even conduct focus groups for a sample of your audience online using e-focusgroups.com. Focus groups are good for detailed qualitative research and idea generation whilst you are finalizing your launch campaign strategies. Be sure to adjust your plans according to the data gathered in these focus group sessions.
1.24 Researching Viability - Sponsors and Resellers
Two of the most important strategic stakeholders in your events are resellers and sponsors. Both of them are sources of revenue, and so, they should be handled properly.
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1. With Google.com search for your event related keywords that lead you to websites that could be owned by potential resellers, partners or sponsors. You want to find the sites that have an opt-in form (so have a leads list) or are selling something (so have a customer list). Check the paid ads to the right.
2. Use linkedin.com to find individuals throughout your extended network of contacts. Bringing your contacts into the platform allows you to search and access people who are contacts of your contacts, contacts 4 levels deep. Thats a lot of people. Search by industry and qualifications.
3. You can also use Twitter.com to search for people who have your niche keywords in their profile description. Twitter them in a conversation & build a relationship with them directly.
4. Another tool to use when you are searching for potential partners is clickbank.com. Go to their market place to see what electronic and information products are selling in your niche. Click through to find the sites and or merchants (affiliates) for the products that are selling well. Build a data base of these websites who are selling the most products, tickets or information in your niche.
5. Use Google alerts to execute strategies to catch ego surfers. Ego surfers are the top line industry players, promoters & marketers in most niches. These people actually place Google alerts on their own names, events or products so that Google can let them know every time their names are posted online. Put yourself in their radar by blogging about them, their event or products in a positive way. They will know about it and they will click through and read it.
And a bonus link for today:
6. If you find websites that are of interest to you but they don’t have a contact us page with their contact details, use BetterWhoIs.com to find the webmasters contact details. They cover most websites.
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