A fact about human nature: gratification is so much more intense after you've been made to want something for a long time. This is something you need to remember as you roll out your "event marketing" campaign to your list of subscribers and participants. They don't know it, but your listeners want you to tease them. They like it when you dangle the carrot, press their hot buttons and walk away. It makes them respond, and it makes them want what you have. For this reason, it's worth "pacing out" your event marketing email drip campaign and schedule of "events leading up to the event." Event marketing can get pretty crazy. You have a lot to do, and little time to do it. I know, because I'm currently coordinating the first annual Web Content Awareness Day, which you can read all about and bookmark for our big launch on Feb 9, right here: http://WebContentAwarenessDay.com You don't think you'd like to create an event? Well, maybe you wouldn't, but maybe you would if you knew what the event was. Planning an "event" can inject new life to your sagging, lagging online network. It can make you a little bigger in your niche. It can even make you something of a celebrity, if you think you can hack "high profile." You can design your event to be as big or small as you like. Create a "Buy Me a Drink" website like John Delavera's at http://buymeadrink.com, and earn a few dollars for your efforts while making people laugh and smile. Throw a virtual Halloween bash and have your colleagues send hilarious costume pics, maybe hold a "guess the marketer" masquerade online. You can do anything you'd like, as long as your ultimate goal is to endear your audience to you, build better business relationships and expand your connections. But as I said, the trick is to be something of a tease. If you're always in everyone's face all the time, your readers will grow weary of you. A well-planned event will include 'milemarkers' as you edge closer to the big reveal, the grand finale website launch, contest results or whatever it may be. At milemarker three, maybe you hit your audience with a mini blog-launch. The response is overwhelming, everyone's thrilled! But milemarker six, "Take this Survey," is not received so heartily. What happened? Did you overstimulate? That can easily happen, you know. If you fail to pace out your marketing, leaving adequate time to be missed and sought after, your audience will grow immune and you'll lose your effectiveness. So DO pace it out, change it up, toss in a surprise or two, and let yourself be missed. Event marketing isn't necessarily the way to go for you. If you think that "rallying up the group" is something that you can pull off, then start with a small project and include a crop of close-knit colleagues who will lift their megaphones and sound you off in celebratory style. Test the water; if it's not as massive of a production as you'd envisioned, that's okay, it was your first time after all. :) Just know that if you're going to pull people along with you in your online event endeavors, then you should probably tweak your teasing and coaxing skills. Think back to high school. You big flirt, you. Want to witness event planning live in action? Please join me and my marketing friends for the First Annual Web Content Awareness Day, scheduled to launch on February 9, 2006 at http://WebContentAwarenessDay.com. Sneak Peek: Visit the Countdown to Web Content Awareness Day Blog and learn how you can ride our wave of high web traffic! Paste in this link: http://wordfeeder.typepad.com/web_content_awareness_day/ Copyright 2006 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved. |
