There are countless ways to promote your event, from creating an event website to posting on your social media channels to emailing everyone on your email list. While you may have a decent reach, your marketing efforts can only go so far. One way to extend your reach even further is with an event affiliate marketing program.
What Is an Affiliate Program?
An affiliate program is an initiative/endeavor in which you recruit others to promote your event to people they know. In exchange for their successful efforts (ticket sales), you provide them with a reward. While it’s a relatively recent trend, affiliate marketing has grown significantly. Just 10 years ago, revenue from affiliate programs was $2.1 billion, according to Statista. In 2022, experts expect that revenue to balloon to approximately $8.2 billion. Additionally, 40% of merchants report that their affiliate program is their top customer acquisition channel. Events.com has an affiliate program that allows you to increase your event revenue from ticket or registration sales by partnering with promoters, who earn a fee set by you for their marketing efforts.
Many people associate affiliates with product promotion. However, it can be just as effective for events. Creating an event affiliate marketing program can go a long way in increasing ticket sales (and, therefore, your event revenue). The right event marketing strategies, however, can make all the difference. Here are 7 tactics to consider:
1. Look for Relevant Social Media Influencers
Social media influencers are gaining a lot of popularity and with good reason. They’re individuals who have worked to build a rapport with their followers. Their followers trust them as if they were a friend. In essence, using influencers is like word-of-mouth, only digital. Building a relationship with them allows you to tap into their networks.
Look through social media platforms for influencers relevant to your event type and audience demographic and reach out to see if they’d like to work with you and promote your event. Check out their profiles and check out their followers. Pay attention to their engagement with those followers. Working with quality influencers can help encourage more people to check out your event and buy tickets.
2. Reach Out to Niche Bloggers
Like influencers, well-established bloggers can have a lot of sway with their audiences. They’ve worked to build their brand and establish a strong relationship with their readers. As such, they can be an invaluable asset for event marketing.
Bloggers have a way with words. They can craft a post that attracts more people to buy tickets. Be sure whomever you reach out to is related to your industry. That way, you’ll get the most effective, authentic promotions possible. As with influencers, don’t forget to provide each blogger with a unique code. They can then post that code in their blog posts for their readers to use if they decide to attend.
3. Tap Into Your Attendees
The people already attending your event are clearly interested in what you’re doing and what you have to offer. Otherwise, why would they buy tickets? As they’re already interested, these individuals could be some of your best event promoters.
When someone purchases tickets for your event, mention your affiliate program. That can be on the confirmation page that appears after they complete their ticket purchase or in their confirmation email. Be sure to provide them with a link to your affiliate page and let them know some of the best benefits of joining and promoting your event. Events.com offers a Refer-a-Friend feature that allows attendees to refer up to five people and receive a discount for spreading the word about an event either via email or via social media.
4. Create an Optimized Affiliate Program Page
Instead of reaching out to potential affiliates, you can attract them to you with an optimized affiliate program web page. Using search engine optimization (SEO) can make your program more visible. In turn, you can attract more individuals who might be interested in attending and promoting your event. You can use SEO strategies similar to those you use to optimize your event website, such as incorporating keywords and improving the overall user experience. Don’t forget to highlight all of the benefits of joining your affiliate program to entice them to not only sign up but actively promote your event, too.
5. Take Advantage of Paid Ads
Paid ads provide you with another fast way to make the presence of your affiliate program (and your event as a whole) known to more people. Taking out ads on Google is one of the most well-known solutions that can help get your links to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) instantly. Whether people are looking for events in their area or something related to your event, they’ll see your affiliate program front and center.
Again, attracting more affiliates, especially when those affiliates actively promote your event, can help boost your ticket sales — thereby increasing your event revenue.
6. Provide Enticing Rewards
When it comes to affiliate marketing, it’s common for brands to provide a reward to the individuals who bring in sales. For those companies that use affiliates to promote their products or services, those rewards are frequently monetary. Affiliates may receive either a set percentage of each sale they make or a set dollar amount for reaching a predetermined sales goal.
While you could provide a monetary reward, you don’t necessarily have to follow the same path. You can reward your event affiliates in several different ways, including:
- Discounted tickets
- Free tickets
- Event swag
- Special prizes
- Gift cards
- Special VIP access (such as a VIPs-only event or the ability to upgrade their standard ticket to a VIP one for free)
Manage Your Affiliate Program with Events.com
A solid event affiliate marketing program can help to spread the word about your event even further. Reaching more people helps to drum up more interest. That can turn into more ticket sales, which ultimately leads to more event revenue.
Thanks to the Events.com affiliate program, you can incentivize your affiliates to promote your event to their networks by rewarding them for their successes. Not only that, but you can also view and download detailed data regarding each affiliate’s activity. Creating your program and adding affiliates is quick and easy. Visit Events.com today for more information!
