[Welcome back to the You Can Be a Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius! newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.]
Events have naturally exciting elements: Travel, meeting new people, and seeing live performances or presentations. That said, there’s still a lot you can do to boost the word of mouth. Get started with these tips:
1> Have great artwork
2> Give talkers passes to give away
3> Help them share at the event
1> Have great artwork
Great artwork is a subtle way to encourage fans to spread the news about your event. Offline, give them posters, T-shirts to wear, and tickets worth saving; online, give them badges to use, videos to embed, and pictures to share. Remember: Nobody is wearing an ugly shirt or slapping a boring badge on their website — good design is an investment in your word of mouth.
2> Give talkers passes to give away
Help big talkers spread the word about your event by giving them passes to give away. Bloggers, media personalities, and businesses that your attendees frequent are great at hosting contests and giving away passes to build buzz about your event. And because these contests help the talkers generate excitement about their stuff, you might be surprised at how willing some key influencers will be to share a few free passes.
3> Help them share at the event
With the surge in popularity of tools like Twitter and Facebook, the concept of letting everyone know where you’re at and what you’re doing is now the norm. Announce an official hashtag for Twitter (which will organize all event tweets) as well as a Flickr group or category that attendees can post photos to. Though not everyone will use these tools, those that do are likely to be big, active talkers.
