What I learned from marketing for TEDxPortofSpain 2019 and how you can apply it to your own marketing.
I have been volunteering with TEDxPortofSpain since 2014. I have always loved TED and TEDx talks and when the opportunity arose to volunteer with the local chapter, I jumped at the chance to work with the team, primarily in social media and communications.
Fast forward, this year, I was given the honour of taking lead on marketing. While there were many factors that contributed to another successful TEDxPortofSpain, I thought I would share with you just a few of the things we did with our marketing and communications that could be applied to your own business. Let's get started...
1. GOAL setting
We announce it on stage each year and it is no exaggeration, as one TEDxPortofSpain ends, we start planning for the next year. At each year's post mortem we analyze data collected from the most recent event, discuss what was done well and what could have been done better, and determine what goals we would like to set for ourself for the next year.
This year, a huge goal for us (among others) was to increase attendance by 25%. So as marketing lead, it was very clear to me from day one that a significant part of our strategy would be dedicated towards increasing ticket sales.
2. Consistent Communications
Consistent communications play a key role in how effectively you deliver your main message. For TEDxPortofSpain, all roads led to our event page. With an event like this, we have many things to announce before the big day: the theme, how and where to get tickets, the speakers, the hosts. We have earlybird ticket sales, flash sales and mini-competitions to win tickets. However, I was adamant that where appropriate, ALL messaging was to funnel back to our event and/or ticketing page.
Every social media post, every email about the event, at the end of every speaker bio, every media interview, all messaging must lead back to our ticketing page.
You have to keep user experience top of mind. If it becomes too difficult for them to find information, they will move on.
To avoid losing any potential sales, I wanted to design our communications in such a way that the event and ticketing page was never more than a click away. All the information our audience needed to know about the event should be easily found to minimize the number of messages coming to us asking about things like pricing and where to get tickets.
3.Tapping into your network
The majority of our marketing for TEDxPortofSpain has always been online and through social media. This being our 9th year, we have grown quite a following, including past-speakers and volunteers. It was important to us that we engaged this community to spread awareness.
If there is no internal buy-in, how can you expect outsiders to be convinced the event is worth attending?
Speakers for this year, as well as volunteers, were sent specific communications to share with their networks the same time TEDxPortofSpain was sharing it. As best we could, we tried to treat with it in a similar way in which party committees and Carnival committees treat with their communications, i.e. with each committee member posting the same message or image within hours of each other. The intended effect being, if they did not hear it directly from TEDxPortofSpain, they would hear it from our network.
Speakers active on social media were also tagged regularly in new announcements, allowing them the option to reshare with their own networks. This created an effective way of reaching a more targeted audience, i.e. persons who may not be following TEDxPortofSpain but already following and interested in this year's speakers.
ON THE DAY, "tapping into our network" translated into reposting content from our audience and volunteers throughout the day. While there was a small team dedicated to social media, for such a big event it was near impossible for our team to capture every angle.
Audience posts also added to the authenticity of the experience.
Intermingling our guests' honest reactions allowed viewers a perspective other than our own filtered content. It helped to build our community and portray genuine excitement we could not recreate even if we tried.
4.Briefing your team
Each team lead is designated volunteers only about a week or two before the conference day. We meet with them in person the day before, or in my case due to clashes in schedule, the morning of the event. When you have such a short space of time to meet and prepare your team, you want to be sure you have a very clear directive.
On the day of the event, the brief for all of the volunteers on my team: We are to create "fomo". I wanted everyone not at the event to feel like they were missing out, and promise themselves not to miss next year. I also wanted it to seem like there was so much happening that even if you were there it almost felt like you could not soak it all in one day, reinforcing the value being offered at the event.
A couple of us focused on capturing moments from inside the auditorium: primarily moments from the stage and live quotes from the speakers. Outside, I had a team dedicated to capturing everything happening outside the auditorium: guests registering for the event, all the different booths participating in the Tech Hub in the lobby area, the vegetarian lunch, reaction of the crowd, the bustling lobby, etc.
For both teams, while multiple persons were involved in capturing information, pictures, videos, etc. only one person was designated to post. You want to avoid the chaos of team members posting the same or similar content over each other. More importantly, from the branding perspective, this allowed us to control the storyline and consistency of the style and tone used for posting, making it easier for anyone to follow along.
5. Plan Ahead
As much as the team and I were focused on our short-term goals for this year's event, much was also put in place for our long-term vision for our brand.
While many resources were dedicated to capturing live content and planning for the present, equal efforts were dedicated toward content for the future. We had to consider which moments we would want to capture and the resources we would need to dedicate towards it.
The camera(s) providing my team with photos from the stage could not also be the cameras capturing audience interviews. A videography team was assigned to interview the audience during the break and after the event to capture their reviews. Another team was designated to capturing post-talk interviews with the speakers as they came off the stage to get their unique perspective.
While I did request social media capture the interviews being done, none of this footage was primarily for live use. Pretty much all of it would be packaged and edited for follow up content post-event, as well as for promotional material for next year.
Why invest in staged or stock photography and videography later on in the year when the event is rich with authentic moments and content?
By planning ahead and taking into consideration what we would require for next year, we were sure to maximize the original content we were creating on the day. We would not only be able to use this content throughout the year but for next year's promotion as well. See an example below of how we used footage from TEDxPortofSpain 2018 for this year's promotion.
And I know what may have crossed your mind, "They must have had a really big budget." And no, we did not. TEDxPortofSpain is a nonprofit organization. Our team is made up of unpaid volunteers. These are persons who are simply passionate about our values as an organization and who believe strongly in what we have to offer. "A collective of people who are deeply concerned about what happens in this country." Our team is driven by a common vision.
When you have the right strategy, you do not need unlimited resources to get results.
As TEDxPortofSpain heads into its 10th year, I am eagerly awaiting how we will make next year's conference even bigger and better than ever before. For now, I hope you enjoyed this sneak peek into some of our marketing strategy. I want to challenge you to think about how you might be able to apply some of these to your own business. Regardless of what you are planning next, whether it is an event or your next campaign, you may be surprised how these small changes can make all the difference to the effectiveness of your marketing.
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