Event Marketing: The Ultimate Guide That Cost $300k to Make

We precocious concluded Ahrefs Evolve: a sold-out, 2-day, 500-person league astatine Pan Pacific Orchard successful Singapore.

It wasn’t conscionable a conference; it was an full week of events. From Monday to Wednesday, we ran 2 paid workshops per time and past the league connected Thursday and Friday.

Before that, we ran online webinars, networking meetups, sheet discussions, and adjacent a smaller-scale conference. Suffice to say, we’ve had plentifulness of acquisition doing lawsuit marketing.

But adjacent though I’m penning this, I’m not the idiosyncratic down it all. There is simply a encephalon down each of our events, and that’s Shermin Lim, our events marketer.

So, I interviewed her to find retired however we did it, particularly however we took connected specified an ungodly task of organizing a multi-day league with just a two-person team.

This is our usher to lawsuit marketing, specifically focused connected gathering up to an existent conference. You tin usage the aforesaid cognition to standard up oregon down depending connected your goals.

Event selling is the readying and organizing of an lawsuit to beforehand your brand, product, oregon service. The lawsuit tin beryllium large oregon small, online oregon offline.

Now that we’ve gotten what Google wants to spot retired of the way, let’s get into our why.

We’re a mostly self-serve SaaS business, truthful wherefore are we organizing events?

The reply is simple: Business is social. Humans are not logical, rational creatures that bargain everything based connected pros and cons. We bargain due to the fact that there’s an affectional and quality transportation to the marque oregon the radical down the brand.

And thing successful this satellite beats seeing them in-person. I deliberation we each learnt this acquisition profoundly during the pandemic. This halfway rationale trickles down to the different reasons we tin database retired connected wherefore we tally events and adjacent a conference:

• Provide a great, in-person lawsuit for our existing customers to bent out, network, larn from each other, and perchance physique partnerships oregon bash concern together.
• Hang retired with our customers, speech to them, larn astir them, springiness them our beloved swag, and (hopefully) endear them to us.
• Let our endeavor income squad speech (in person) to our apical customers.
• Educate our customers astir our caller merchandise features and however to amended use them
• Get non-customers to portion our Kool-Aid, bargain into our brand, and person into customers.

If these reasons compel you too, past support speechmaking to larn however to bash lawsuit selling for your brand.

Like everything other successful life, your goals find wherever you should beryllium going. In this case, it’ll assistance you determine if you should actually organize an lawsuit for your business.

After all, organizing an lawsuit from commencement to decorativeness tin beryllium expensive. Most things, similar food, venue, and audiovisual (A/V) outgo money. And adjacent if you’re not providing food, utilizing a escaped space, and not moving talks, you’ll request manpower. Part-timers outgo money. And adjacent if you usage your ain staff, retrieve you’re sacrificing work days.

For example, I suffer the hours I could usage to make contented whenever I be oregon talk astatine an event. FYI, that’s not needfully a atrocious thing. Speaking astatine events builds my personal brand, which increases my “authority”, and successful turn, creates each sorts of unmeasurable benefits for my content.

Again, it goes backmost to your goals. What are you trying to achieve?

You tin usage immoderate benignant of model you prefer, similar SMART, OKRs, oregon BHAG. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you person a extremity and direction.

By the way, adjacent if you deliberation events are a large selling transmission for you, see sponsoring them first. In fact, earlier we ran Ahrefs Evolve, we sponsored different conferences for years.

Like Chiang Mai SEO for >seven years:

BrightonSEO for a fewer years now:

SaaStock:

And a full big of different events:

I deliberation the acquisition of sponsoring and attending different conferences gave america a batch of insights into making our ain conference. As sponsors and attendees, we knew what radical wanted, what they liked, and what they disliked.

Knowing your people assemblage determines what benignant of lawsuit you’ll tally and what benignant of speakers you’d invite. It’ll besides assistance sponsors to determine if they privation to sponsor your event.

For Ahrefs Evolve, we decided we wanted to bring apical integer selling professionals together, and not just SEOs.

That informed our eventual talker line-up—we had speakers who presented astir account-based marketing, show branding, TikTok, and more.

Many companies imagination of a large league with their marque sanction splashed on it.

But it would beryllium a immense mistake to leap close into creating a conference. Even for us—widely considered the apical instrumentality successful our industry—it took america years earlier we adjacent made Evolve.

Here’s however our travel unfolded:

As I’ve mentioned, we started sponsoring events first. Then, erstwhile we decided to enactment our ft down connected the channel, we started with airy networking events (SEO Beer and Snacks) that we hosted astatine our office.

There was nary agenda—just SEOs and integer marketers having a portion and chatting with each other.

Then we started to physique from determination and dilatory summation complexity. We started to marque the meetups acquisition by having presentations and panels.

Next, we turned it into existent paid workshops.

We past started doing these paid workshops astatine conferences we were already sponsoring, similar Chiang Mai SEO.

It yet culminated successful a smaller league that we held successful 2023, called the Singapore SEO Summit.

We got a tiny venue, marketed it lone to Singaporeans, and constricted the tickets to 200 people. Most of our speakers were locally based too, but James Norquay and Nik Ranger, who were from Australia.

While the league wasn’t sold out, it gave america assurance successful scaling up and moving an planetary one. After all, it did good despite:

• No “big name” speakers
• Shorter timeframe
• Marketing lone to locals

Most importantly, we learned that radical were happy to alert each the mode to Singapore conscionable to be an Ahrefs conference. We had attendees from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and adjacent South Korea.

You whitethorn reason that these were countries adjacent to Singapore. But see the information that ASEAN (besides SG) isn’t peculiarly economically developed and it probably costs a batch to alert to Singapore and enactment determination (notoriously expensive). The information they would bash that is a definite motion of our brand power.

It was lone erstwhile we saw these results that we decided to marque a 500-person league for 2024.

As Shermin told me, everything successful an lawsuit yet comes down to the budget.

Developing the fund means answering 2 important questions:

• What bash you request and however overmuch is everything going to cost?
• How are you going to gain revenue?

Costs

These are the things we needed for our league with their estimated costs.

Do you truly request to walk that much? Well, it depends connected the size of your event.

We wanted to marque Ahrefs Evolve spectacular and that’s wherefore we needed each of them. But for our archetypal networking events, we lone needed nutrient and drinks. Later, we incurred a one-time outgo for A/V instrumentality erstwhile we started doing workshops.

It besides depends connected what you privation to offer. For example, we didn’t privation radical to permission the venue—a beautiful, award-winning one, by the way—and bent retired with the cliques they already knew. We wanted them to network. That’s wherefore we chose a hotel, which catered food.

But different conferences, similar BrightonSEO, don’t connection luncheon oregon dinner.

Whichever you opt for, marque definite you negotiate. You can negotiate distant a batch of further costs.

For example, our venue wanted to enforce an ‘overnight hold’ complaint connected america due to the fact that they deemed it arsenic mislaid imaginable income. For context, hotels are fashionable wedding venues successful Singapore. Since we had to clasp the abstraction for 1 nighttime (to support the league setup), the edifice considered it arsenic “lost revenue” since it could person theoretically been rented retired for a wedding.

But the overnight clasp was connected Thursday evening and very, precise rarely volition idiosyncratic clasp their wedding connected a Thursday night.

You’d truly privation to spell done line-by-line, particularly if you’re renting a ample venue similar us, and marque definite determination are nary unnecessary charges and fees. If they are, negociate them away.

Ticket sales

Costs are comparative to revenue: If you tin marque capable money, you tin walk capable money. But however are you going to gain that done your event?

The astir evident is, of course, summons sales.

How overmuch should you complaint per ticket? Here are a fewer considerations:

• The summons terms should screen your costs. But it should besides beryllium charismatic capable to entice radical to come.
• Event attendees are, for immoderate reason, notoriously last-minute buyers and that tin incite panic for your events team. You’d privation to see discounting successful the aboriginal stages (i.e. aboriginal vertebrate discounts) to get radical to perpetrate earlier.
• You’d privation to promote bulk buys too, arsenic companies whitethorn nonstop an full squad of 3-5 (sometimes more). Discounting works here.
• Tiers besides matter: For example, we created a VIP tier wherever we promised exclusive treatment. However, VIP attraction whitethorn besides mean extra costs.

There’s nary nonstop reply to this—It comes down to a premix of mathematical calculations, experimentation, competitory analysis, and gut feeling.

Here’s what we yet settled with:

• Regular summons astatine $650; aboriginal vertebrate pricing of $570 (and up to 20% discount for bulk purchases)
• VIP summons astatine $980; aboriginal vertebrate pricing astatine $840

All discounts were disposable up till 1 August, 2 months earlier the conference.

Sponsors

The adjacent important gross watercourse is sponsors. These are companies oregon radical who volition wage to person their branding look astatine your event. It could besides impact a speaking slot and booths.

For example, these companies sponsored Ahrefs Evolve:

• First Page Digital
• Pitchbox
• Digital Web Solutions
• Contadu
• Konigle

I’ll speech much astir however to get sponsors successful the “Secure your sponsors” section.

Grants

Finally, don’t hide astir grants. Check if determination are immoderate disposable from the authorities oregon elsewhere for companies that are holding their ain events, particularly large ones that could bring successful hordes of tourists!

For example, we tried to get a assistance from the Singapore Tourism Board.

In this case, we failed. But it’s ever worthy a try!

According to Shermin, astir large events bash not marque wealth for the archetypal time. It’s communal to incur losses.

That’s wherefore your fund needs to beryllium realistic. Shermin already had an “easier” clip forecasting our fund due to the fact that we did SG SEO Summit the twelvemonth before. Even then, our extremity for Ahrefs Evolve was simply to break even.

And that’s wherefore I judge you should start small.

• You person nary thought however overmuch everything costs.
• You person nary anchor points and could beryllium overpaying.
• You could beryllium underestimating definite items (e.g., the magnitude of nutrient and drinks)
• A batch of what you tin complaint yet comes down to request — we could warrant definite prices due to the fact that we had thousands of customers, built a beardown brand, and had connections to sought-after speakers. But if you abruptly marque a league retired of obscurity and effort to complaint $10,000 for VIP tiers, nary 1 volition beryllium interested.

For smaller events, dates tin beryllium flexible. For example, we usually denote our networking events 2 to 3 weeks before.

For a large conference, you’d privation to guarantee the dates are good:

• Doesn’t clash with a large holiday, e.g., Chinese New Year successful Singapore
• Doesn’t clash with immoderate large events, e.g., Formula One successful Singapore
• Doesn’t clash with different large manufacture events successful the region, e.g., Chiang Mai SEO
• Gives you capable clip to prepare
• The venue is available

To take a venue, present are immoderate considerations:

For Evolve, Shermin shortlisted three dates:

• 24-25 October
• 7-8 November
• 14-15 November

She past built a criteria for venues:

• It indispensable beryllium disposable connected those dates
• The determination should beryllium successful Orchard oregon successful the Central Business District (CBD)
• There should beryllium capable toilets — for example, we opted retired of 1 edifice erstwhile we saw they lone had a maximum of 4 cubicles (big occupation for 500 attendees)
• For aesthetics, she preferred precocious ceilings and modern vibes. (I know, we’re each Gen Z.) The venue should besides ideally person a LED partition available.
• The abstraction should beryllium ample capable for 500 radical — This was amazingly difficult, arsenic astir venues successful Singapore either accommodated 100-200 oregon 700-1,000 people.

With the criteria, she built a tentative database of 10 hotels and narrowed it down to 2 aft emailing the venue’s events squad and doing an in-person site recce.

The last venue was chosen aft the income typical for our archetypal preferred venue took up to 4 weeks to reply to each email. This is an important information due to the fact that it’s a motion of things to come. Organizing an lawsuit is stressful successful and of itself and you don’t privation communications to derail it. Work with radical who are nonrecreational and responsive; aft all, it’s work and hospitality.

Shermin besides asked the venue for nutrient tasting. Since astir attendees were not local, we wanted to correspond our country’s civilization and cuisine during the conference.

A large portion of an event, if you’re doing an acquisition one, are the speakers. People will attend an lawsuit conscionable to perceive idiosyncratic speak. For example, successful 2016, I flew each the mode to London conscionable to perceive GaryVee talk successful a boxing arena.

So, the prime of your speakers volition find whether radical volition travel and however overmuch you tin complaint too.

When we planned our conference, we already had a fewer large names successful mind. We knew radical similar Lily Ray, Cyrus Shepard, and Aleyda Solis would beryllium large draws, particularly since you don’t spot them often in Asia.

Again, acknowledgment to our marque powerfulness and CMO Tim Soulo’s idiosyncratic connections, we were capable to unafraid them easily.

Since it was an Ahrefs conference, we besides wanted our ain radical to speak. Thus, my colleagues Tim, Sam Oh, Patrick Stox, and Ryan Law, took up speaking slots too.

We besides asked radical to use to talk connected our league landing page.

We asked them a fewer questions, similar their occupation title, wherever they’re based, the latest events they’ve presented at, and their projected speech titles with descriptions.

I (yes, I was progressive this time) past vetted their topics, shortlisted those we thought would amended our conference, and officially invited them.

Once they’ve fixed their confirmation, you’ll privation them to springiness the authoritative rubric and statement for their presentation. Make definite to springiness them a deadline to taxable their slides. In our case, we asked them to taxable their decks by 20 October.

We besides had Constance vet each their presentations. We wanted to guarantee that each talker was genuinely giving adjuvant accusation and not conscionable pitching their products oregon services. We besides wanted to debar immoderate inappropriate oregon NSFW content.

In fact, by vetting done each presentation, you’ll besides get a consciousness of which speech would beryllium amended for the commencement of the league and which for the end, allowing you to plan the schedule.

Here’s everything we did to marketplace Ahrefs Evolve:

Discounting

As mentioned earlier, we implemented aboriginal vertebrate and radical discounts.

Event landing page

This was 1 of our astir important selling assets. Again, acknowledgment to the information that we organized a smaller league before, we had a template to build on.

Since we started connected this leafage aboriginal successful the process, we didn’t person each the information. So, we conscionable near it as TBD.

We updated the landing leafage gradually arsenic we received much confirmation astir the venues, speakers, and sponsors.

We besides knew it would beryllium the archetypal clip astir attendees were successful Singapore, truthful we created a conception connected the champion things to do:

Owned media

Needless to say, we began our promotions connected each plus we owned. Starting with regular posts connected LinkedIn and X:

The selling team, particularly Shermin and Tim, besides regularly posted astir Evolve:

We sent an in-app connection to our customers:

Regular emails to our newsletter audience:

Display banners connected our blog and articles:

Speaker cards

We made societal media “cards” for our speakers and encouraged them to beforehand the league to their audience:

Video circuit of the venue

Someone erstwhile told Tim that a large portion of wherefore Ahrefs does large marketing is that the squad has taste. This extends to venue enactment too.

The venue was amazing, and we wanted everyone to know. Plus, you seldom spot immoderate league organizer promoting the venue, adjacent though it plays a large relation successful making immoderate league a success.

And that’s wherefore Tim really made a video promoting the venue… alongside the conference:

Creating content

We published 2 blog posts targeted astatine “conference”-related keywords, truthful we could fertile precocious and summation visibility for our conference:

• 7 SEO Conferences to Attend in 2024
• 5 Content Marketing Conferences to Attend in 2024

Of course, we recovered these keywords via Keywords Explorer:

We besides came up with a fewer unsocial angles for content, for illustration this 1 showing however to transportation your brag to fto you be Evolve:

And this 1 connected however to go an SEO league speaker, with a transportation to larn from the champion SEO league speakers astatine Evolve:

Advertising balloon

We thin to instrumentality risks erstwhile it comes to marketing. Promoting the league was nary different. We specifically made a elephantine helium balloon (no, it’s not Midjourney oregon ChatGPT), flew it up, took pictures, and turned it into our league advertisement creative:

Promoting the league astatine different Ahrefs events

Since we were inactive moving workshops and different offline events, we made definite to beforehand it there too.

Paid advertising

We ran ads connected Facebook and Instagram to beforehand the conference:

Build FOMO

We besides made definite to consistently physique FOMO. For example, we announced whenever tickets were sold retired oregon selling fast:

We created graphics showing who’s coming from where:

We adjacent ran a giveaway:

Finally, we made a societal media paper for attendees to stock that they’re attending Evolve!

The question each sponsor volition ask: what bash we get if we sponsor your event?

Typically, they are:

• On-site branding (e.g., connected stage, connected partition displays, connected lanyards)
• On-stage shoutout
• Brand visibility connected lawsuit page/website and societal media
• Physical booth with furnishings
• A speaking slot
• Free lawsuit tickets

Most conferences volition connection these perks successful tiers, e.g., Regular, Gold, Platinum. For example, here’s what we got from sponsoring Chiang Mai SEO arsenic a Platinum sponsor:

• 20 infinitesimal on-stage presumption + 10 infinitesimal Q&A
• First prime of placement for vendor booth, including backdrop, pull-up banner and TV screen
• Platinum spouse placement connected signifier backdrop and integer signage
• Logo placement connected lawsuit badges
• On-stage booth shout-out by MC for interruption periods
• Logo placement connected website and email selling campaign
• Virtual booth and banner advertizing connected CMSEO App
• Goodie container inclusion for Deluxe Ticket Holders
• 2 Deluxe Passes
• 3 Vendor Passes

Since it was our archetypal event, we wanted to support it simple. So, we offered lone 1 tier to each sponsors. Here’s what our sponsors received:

• Exhibition booth with indispensable furnishings: table, chairs, and an hold cable. We besides recommended suppliers if they needed further show items.
• Visibility connected our societal media and the event page.
• Onsite branding displayed passim the event.
• Three complimentary lawsuit tickets.

To statesman with, we contacted our connections and asked if they’d sponsor our conference. We besides provided a interaction signifier for imaginable sponsors connected our event page.

In presumption of moving the existent event, we partnered with an events bureau to bash bulk of the work. They handled:

• A/V
• Lighting
• Production management, including the unit and part-timers
• Event registration, including software, analytics, and part-timers
• Lanyards

We besides hired a photograph and videography squad for 3 days, including the VIP networking night.

The remainder of the selling and enactment squad were besides involved, from handling the VIP booth to giving retired swag, to managing the speakers and directing radical around.

But I privation to punctual you that erstwhile it comes to events, Murphy’s Law volition ever hold true.

No substance however overmuch prep you did, nary substance however overmuch you delegated and outsourced, thing will ever spell wrong. You, oregon your events team, volition person to beryllium boots connected the crushed to hole immoderate past infinitesimal issues oregon errors.

For an full week, Shermin was a trooper, handling thing that went incorrect and trying to get everything sorted retired truthful the league could tally smoothly. There are simply nary words to picture what she went through.

If you’ve done a large lawsuit similar a conference, past it’s clip for you to instrumentality a vacation. Go arsenic acold distant arsenic possible, fastener up your laptop, and power disconnected your mobile phone. Go for a massage, get a mani-pedi, and slumber arsenic agelong arsenic you want.

You merit it.

The beauteous and unfortunate portion astir events is that erstwhile the existent 1 ends, the adjacent 1 begins.

After a fewer days (and hopefully a fewer weeks) of rest, the prep for the adjacent 1 begins. For Shermin, it’s Evolve 2025. (Sign up here if you privation to beryllium notified!)

In the meantime, erstwhile the excitement astir the lawsuit has yet to dice down, nonstop retired a post-event survey to stitchery feedback.

Ask them to rate:

• Their acquisition astatine the conference
• Your organization
• Quality of speakers (and perchance rank them)
• Venue and facilities
• Length and duration of the conference
• Sponsors
• Your lawsuit communication

And more. You’d privation to inquire for qualitative feedback connected what tin beryllium improved too.

Don’t hide your own team:

And don’t hide your sponsors:

Once you’ve received your feedback, debrief the squad and find what needs betterment for the next event.

Oh, and don’t hide to people lawsuit recaps:

• Right from X: All the champion things astir Ahrefs Evolve 2024
• What I Learned From Ahrefs Evolve: 4 Marketing Things I’m Doing Differently

Final thoughts

Even though this usher looks similar it’s written sequentially going from step-to-step, I privation you to cognize that it’s thing but that. Besides the existent lawsuit execution, astir of what happens happens concurrently.

That means: adjacent if you’re inactive deciding connected the venue, you should already beryllium reaching retired to speakers and sponsors, creating your selling assets, getting designs done, and ensuring the logistics are settled.

There are truthful galore details that spell into organizing an lawsuit and I couldn’t perchance see each of them. One example: immoderate attendees reached retired to america for assistance with their visa application. So, we wrote up a template for them:

The lone mode to get each details is to plug Shermin into a instrumentality and download her brain. But hey, we request her to signifier the adjacent Evolve

And if you were wondering, yes, we deed our goal.