How To Sell Tickets For An Event Fast? A Complete Guide With Event Launch Checklist

Are you questioning yourself about how to sell out an event? Well, there can be multiple strategies you can follow to sell out your event. Selling tickets using event ticketing software is easy, but selling out is a different ball game altogether. 

In today's article, I will talk about many proven strategies suggested by eventprofs that excel in selling out conferences. You must already have a rudimentary knowledge of marketing and ways to pitch your event to a large audience. Once you know how to sell tickets to an event, you have mastered the art of selling out.

However, if you do not know the rudimentary marketing, I will give you the basic marketing strategies that will allow you to gather a crowd on the go. 

First off, your marketing strategy should deploy all the online tools covering email marketing, SEO campaigns, and social media campaigns to effectively reach out to your target audience in real-time and more. You can also give a push to your event sales by collaborating with influential sponsors. 

Good Old Email Campaign Still Works

People might have moved on from the traditional methods of communication, but email marketing has still secured its place in the marketing industry. However, there are ways you can make your marketing emails stand out among overflowing inboxes.

• Hook the readers through your compelling call-to-action sentence in the beginning. Make your emails phone-friendly, compact, and readable for commoners. Your compelling 200-word email has a better chance of a click than the ones with longer paragraphs.
• According to research, almost 61% of emails are accessed through mobile phones. 61% is a strong enough figure for you to turn your emails phone-friendly with flexible layouts, designs, and formats.
• Never rely solely on images for email marketing because spam filters also block emails with no text. In addition to this, in remote areas where the internet connection is weak, loading an image can be irksome.
• You can also retarget your past audience. The ones who have already attended your events and got some value from the event will definitely return to your new event.

Social Media Campaign

The social media side of things for event marketing should align with the size of your event. A simple Instagram page or an X account is enough for an entry-free event that won’t be conducted again.

However, for a series of events, you can create customized content on TikTok, Instagram reels, and even live streams. You can recruit a copywriter who knows the art of words. These freelancers will help you curate content that suits the algorithm of each app.

Collaborative Marketing

You can market your event by asking your event partners, such as the speakers, sponsors, and even the venue hosts. They can promote your event through their social media accounts and reach out to the wider masses. 

You can also request your loyal fanatics to spread the word about your event. Furthermore, you can offer them incentives by asking them to repost about the event and get a gift. Likewise, you can ask social media influencers to educate their audience regarding the event. 

One best way to sell tickets is to collaborate with:

• Your event partners and sponsors
• Social media influencers
• Your loyal fans

Make Your Tickets Accessible

One of the best ways to sell tickets is to make your tickets accessible to all. You can sell the tickets on different social media apps. Reaching out to people and spreading the word is not the mission. Instead, selling out your tickets is the primary goal here. Hence, you must always link the tickets to your social media content. 

You can sell your tickets more easily by using Eventify event ticketing software, as it provides a variety of ticketing features. One of the ways to sell out your tickets is by using Eventify, with its diverse ticketing features.

"Knowing your target audience is critical to selling event tickets. Their demographics, interests, and online behavior will inform your marketing strategies." (Michael Stelzner, Founder of Social Media Examiner)

8 Ways to Attract The People and Selling Out Tickets Through Social Media

If you succeed in selling a sufficient number of tickets, it means that this event is going to have a greater audience. Selling event tickets is often the hardest part of the event preparation, in addition to being the most significant one. However, there are some ideas to give a push to your event ticket sales.

1. Claim Limited Availability 

You can boost the sales of your event tickets by claiming a short or limited availability of slots for this event. There can be a limit on the number of seats for the audience and the time for registration. 

It is a valuable technique for molding the minds of the target audience to buy tickets for your event. Sometimes, there are customers who are hesitant to buy tickets for the event. 

You can encourage them by offering some kind of motivation or attraction for them. You should announce special offers like discounts for those who register earlier and prizes and awards like certificates of participation with limited time and seats. 

Every time when you share an advertisement on social media, mention the deadline for registration, how many tickets you have sold yet, and the number of tickets left. 

2. Marketing Through Email

You can enhance the sales of your event tickets by using the marketing strategy through emails. This is a great idea to send personalized messages to the guests who have attended your last event. There are more chances that your email will get acknowledged by them. 

You can also grab more new leads and promote your event through it. However, you must be very vigilant in carrying out advertisements through mail. 

Make separate lists of the audience and categorize them according to your content and the way you are going to communicate with the invitees. Use the tone and content that is suitable with respect to the profession and the status of your desired guests.

Remember that it is not enough to send an invitation mail to ensure the successful selling of your event tickets. You have to follow your invitation by sending reminder messages and informing them about the limited availability of time and slots.

Also, send them updates related to the event, like attractive offers, guest speakers, approaching deadlines, etc. It will ultimately lead to a worthwhile increase in the sales of the tickets for your event. 

3. Leverage Social Media Advertising

The campaign for your event relies on your social media presence. All the lead brands use social media to market, advertise, and sell their products.  There are different groups and pages on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram where different contents for advertisements are shared.

You can also get a considerable number of leads on these platforms that can buy your event tickets. For more fruitful results, you can invest money in advertisements on social media. Run customized advertisement campaigns that will help you reach the interests and details of the audience you want to target. 

In short, if you advertise your event through social media, it will make it possible to reach the right audience. 

4. Include Your Past Attendees

Your guests and ticket buyers from the previous event are a major source of promotion of the event. So, it is a good idea to motivate them to share their excitement and experiences related to your event on social media. 

You can also schedule Twitter trends and create hashtags related to the event. Ask the customers to share these hashtags on social media and also share and retweet them.  

Share the experience, feedback, and comments from your customers on your official social media channels. Portray the content to tell that people are impatiently waiting for the event to come. It will show how excited and enthusiastic the people are about this event, but the content must be real.

Also read Best Practices Of Using Social Media Content For Event Planners.

5. Cross-Promotion with Other Conferences

If you want to reach a larger audience, you should work together with event planners from other conferences or relevant sectors. 

Form alliances or take part in cross-promotional initiatives to tell your respective audiences about one other's events. You may connect with prospective attendees who have already expressed interest in comparable conferences by using this tactic.

By partnering with other event coordinators, you may build a helpful network within your sector. Moreover, it improves your chances of drawing guests from other conferences. Your guests can get better experiences of the event by this cooperative strategy. It plays a valuable role in making your event successful.

6. Create Engaging Content

You can use social media to sell event tickets and draw in high-value guests by creating compelling content. 

Engaging content consisting of eye-catching illustrations, intriguing videos, or provocative posts can hold the interest of your audience. Provide content that speaks to your target audience and is consistent with the interests and values that set your event apart. 

It is a good idea to add the experiences of participants from the previous event in the form of their interviews and videos. Create a narrative around your event using storytelling strategies to build excitement and anticipation. 

You can use interactive components, polls, and questions to interact with your audience. It will generate interest and create a sense of community around your event. Also, highlight the elements that make your event special and motivate attendees.

7. Leverage Influencer Marketing

It is a powerful strategy to attract high-value attendees and sell your event tickets by leveraging influencer marketing. 

Partner with Relevant Influencers

You should find out the key figures whose followers are relevant to the theme and the targeted audience of your event. Once you identify the relevant influencers, create a partnership with them. After that, you can take advantage of their influence and reputation in the market. 

Offer Exclusive Content or Experiences

Give influencers early access to your event, unique content, or sneak previews. You can encourage them to promote your event to their audience actively. It is a successful strategy to offer them exclusive benefits like early bird tickets or access to behind-the-scenes activities.

Encourage User-Generated Content

Encourage influencers to produce user-generated content about your event in order to increase engagement and organic promotion. 

Challenges, critiques, and inventive postings with particular hashtags associated with the event might all go under this category. User-generated material will broaden the audience for your event and act as a real endorsement.

Track and Analyze Results

Use special promo codes and tracking tools to keep an eye on the effectiveness of your influencer marketing initiatives. 

Examine indicators like event ticket sales, website traffic, and social media interaction to gauge the effectiveness of each influencer's work. You can improve your plans for upcoming events with the help of this data.

8. Build Community and Excitement

To create excitement, you should start early and build anticipation. Moreover, you should initiate the promotional activities of your event well in advance. It will gradually unveil the details about your event to create a buzz and build anticipation among potential attendees.

Host live Q&A sessions

Engage with your audience through live Q&A sessions and address their queries and concerns directly. This fosters a sense of connection and transparency, building trust and interest.

Encourage social sharing

You can encourage your audience to interact and participate will in the event by using hashtags, contests, and shareable material. There are multiple benefits of using social networks for the promotion of your event. This tactic not only increases the organic reach but also turns your guests into the promoters of your event.

Create a sense of urgency

As discussed earlier, you can show the limited availability of slots or time for purchasing the tickets for your event. Instill a sense of urgency by stressing the limited availability of tickets, early bird specials, or VIP packages. This sense of urgency in prospective attendees encourages them to make quick decisions for purchasing the event tickets.

Moreover, you can enhance your community building by leveraging Eventify's community feature. This software facilitates a smooth interaction among attendees and fosters a dynamic atmosphere in the community leading up to the event. 

"People buy experiences, not tickets. Focus on creating a unique and valuable event that resonates with your target audience." - Amy Knapp, Author of "The Art of Engagement"

Attracting Greater Attendees 

You can attract more attendees by taking your marketing plan a step ahead. The best way to sell tickets is to promote your events by following your promotional strategies.

You can start promoting your event by defining your promotional goals. For instance, many marketing campaigns, including account-based marketing, target social media accounts that are somehow relevant to your events. 

Likewise, you can target more registrations for certain types of tickets. For instance, if you are selling tickets that are either paid, discounted, or free of cost. In such cases, you may want the masses to buy premium tickets.  

To plan the promotion, you will have to start with the basics and target registration count for each type of ticket. You should set your goals to the number of registrations attributed to a certain ticket.

In addition to this, you can also keep track of which site is bringing you more results than the other. For instance, you should scrutinize your marketing team's performance on social media compared to email marketing. 

Being an event organizer, you should also bring into action your communication and collaboration skills to increase sales and marketing. When the marketing and sales teams align, the effect doubles.  

Here are a few tips I suggest to newbie event managers:

1. Coordinating with Teams

Before you start planning your event, you should coordinate with your marketing and sales team. You can collaborate with these teams to strategize account-based marketing. Account-based marketing involves the efforts of the sales and marketing teams to create a customized buying experience for high-value accounts.

You can coordinate with these teams to identify your targeted accounts and even organizations. Furthermore, you should also discuss the potential buyers for your event tickets.

You can coordinate with these teams and find out the best social media platforms that have earned you plenty of ticket buyers. After you have identified the best social media platform for your marketing, you can then streamline more efforts on that specific platform.

2. Reach out to Businesses/Corporates

You will need solid support from the corporate industry as well. Reach out to the relevant business empires and explain how this event can influence their business. 

You can produce PowerPoint slides to convey your objectives to the business owners. Furthermore, using facts and compelling figures you can explain to them how these events can turn out to be a game changer for their businesses.

3. Communication and Instructions

As an event manager, most of your work depends on different teams. Start by assigning teams for different tasks and making their duties and obligations clear. Once you have your teams for different tasks, you should start working on your plans. 

You will have to call all the team for weekly update meetings and keep instructing them. Furthermore, you can call a meeting to deliver your targets and deadlines for each task. You can also discuss the possible opportunities you can get your hands on to make the event a success.

Your instructions should be clear, precise, and to the point. That way, your team will be able to execute their roles without any confusion and with all the clarity.

4. Boost Your Registration Process                                

You can motivate your team members by offering them incentives. You can do so by keeping track of the number of registrations referred by a specific team member.  Subsequent to that, you can reward the top three employees who brought a stream of registrants.                                                               

In addition to this, you can assign the target count to each team working under your supervision.  You can share your templates and event collaterals with each and every member of every team working under you.

At the end of the day, you can compare the performance of each team and reward the winning team on the whole. That is one of the ways to sell tickets to an event.   

In addition to this, you can give a push to your registration process with Eventify’s matchmaking, email designer, and social feed features.      

Pricing Strategies to Sell Out Your Event

Price is one of the important factors for the financial success of your event. Here are some tactics you can use to sell your event tickets.

Early Bird Pricing

This is a very common and successful strategy to attract those who are confused about whether they should invest in buying the tickets or not. Give different discount offers for those who register earlier and set different deadlines to avail them. 

For example 50% discount on the first ten tickets or on registration till January 20, 2024. Similarly, the second offer can be a 20% discount for the next ten tickets or on the registration till January 22, 2024. 

Such strategies are chosen to motivate people to get committed early and help you gauge interest and secure initial sales. 

Tiered Pricing

Make different categories of tickets and set criteria for their accessibility.  You can associate various benefits to each category of tickets with respect to their prices. Some organizations offer golden tickets at a high price with special access and facilities and keep it as a top category. 

The category with lower prices is silver tickets, in which the customers can get fewer amenities compared to the former one. You can also make a simple category of tickets with the lowest price and the least benefits. 

It provides the customers with different choices, and they can choose the one according to their budgets and preferences. By making a diversity of options for customers, you can get revenue from people with all financial backgrounds. It decreases the probability of losing the buyers of your tickets due to their prices. 

Group Discounts

You can increase the sales of your event tickets by offering discounts for those who purchase in groups. Usually, many people like to join an event with friends, and their presence is conditional on the presence of their colleagues, friends, and teammates. 

Such kinds of people can serve as ambassadors to invite their companions to your event. If you offer group discounts for buying multiple tickets at a time, it will attract groups of friends and colleagues towards the purchase of your event tickets. 

This tactic is particularly successful for events like seminars, workshops, expos, festivals, etc.

Bundle Packages

To enhance the sales of your event tickets, you need to offer something exceptional. It is a wise strategy to keep some motivation or attraction to convince the customers to buy the tickets for your event. This motivation can be in the form of bundle packages. 

Presenting the tickets along with offering some special items or services to the buyers is a great idea. It can attract larger traffic of customers and urge them to take more interest in the event. 

You can also offer the tickets for two different events at the same time, i.e., a workshop ticket along with the ticket for an expo ticket that includes the merchandise of your event.

To make your event a success, you should always carry a checklist. The Event Launch Checklist will help you launch your event like a pro.

Student Discounts

This is a wise and successful strategy of offering student discounts to attract youngsters. Most of the youngsters are students, and they have a limited budget. It can be difficult for them to afford an event ticket at full price. 

When you create different categories of tickets with respect to their prices, add the pricing structures at reduced rates for students. It will increase the attendance of youngsters, particularly students, in your event.

This pricing tactic, no doubt, drives a large number of students to buy your event ticket, yet the chances of fraud are also there. You must have a proper and fool-proof verification system. 

You can verify the status of the student by implementing some conditions to get the discounted tickets. These conditions can be providing a valid school ID, enrollment, or registration ID of the student, etc.

Free Ticket Offers

Provide a limited number of free tickets as part of a promotional strategy. This can generate buzz around your event and encourage early registration. Free ticket offers are particularly useful for attracting individuals who may be hesitant to commit without experiencing the event first-hand. 

Additionally, you can tie free tickets to specific conditions, such as social media sharing or referrals, to amplify your event's online presence.

"Limited-time offers and early-bird discounts can incentivize early purchases and create a sense of scarcity."- Tim Ferriss, Author of "The 4-Hour Workweek

Startup Packages

One of the special categories of the audience of your event is startups and small businesses. You should not forget to target them in any event. To get the majority of attendance from startups, create specialized packages for them. 

Offer bundles of tickets at a discounted rate, including perks like access to exclusive sessions, networking opportunities, or a booth at the event. 

Generally, startups are seeking cost-effective platforms for the promotion of their brands and gain exposure through such events. You can address the special demands of startups and the difficulties they face by offering them discounted packages.

Discount for Recurring Customers

Reward loyalty by providing discounts for recurring customers who have attended previous editions of your event. Offer tiered discounts based on the number of times they've participated. 

This not only acknowledges their ongoing support but also incentivizes continued attendance. Implement a customer loyalty program or a tiered membership system that grants additional benefits, such as early access to tickets or VIP privileges, to your most loyal attendees.

6 Ways to Sell Out Your Webinar or Virtual Events

Webinars are a customized format for connecting one-on-one to your target audience. You can present the event plan, explain the registration process, and clear up their confusion. However, the best way to sell tickets for your webinars is given below:

1. Facebook Ads

If you are looking for the best way to sell tickets to an event like a webinar, advertise your event on Facebook. It is widely known now that Facebook ads are the biggest marketing asset in today’s age.

You can reach out to your audience through Facebook in real-time by creating a compelling Ad. Hence Facebook ads are the best way to sell tickets fast.

However, other social media platforms like X and Instagram are also the best ways to sell tickets fast. These platforms also have an impressive number of users. Thus, you can use these social media platforms to drive more attendees to your webinar.

Target the Pain Points

One of the best and most basic marketing tactics is to target the pain point of your target audience. If you are questioning how to sell tickets to an event? Here is the answer: target their pain points.

You can sell your webinar tickets only when you tell your audiences what they need and are the one who provides what they need. For instance, if your webinar is on “How to create an impressive CV?”, you can target your audiences by hooking them through the pain point. For example, you can start with 

“Are you tired of applying for jobs and never getting a response?” 

Here, you have hit their pain point.

Now, you can move on by calling for an action. For example, after targeting the pain point, you can continue, “Here’s what you should try to land an interview call!”

Be Relevant

If you develop your ads that are way too sophisticated and formidable, the commoners may find them unapproachable and irrelevant.

Your relevance to the daily life of your target audience plays a significant role. You will lose your potential customers when your ads are irrelevant to the audience.

2. Be Conversational

You can get their attention by being conversational and using phrases like, “Stay Connected to find out more!” It might be annoying in some cases, but curiosity can not only kill the cat but also keep the cat clinging to your content.

That was the first, easy step. After you have grabbed their attention, sparked their curiosity, and spilled the tea, you have to make them trust you. Here, numbers can help you. You can add facts and figures and their authentic reference as well to earn your audience’s trust. Earning your audience’s trust is the best way to sell tickets to an event.

3. Collect Email Addresses

Needless to say, your registration process should ask your customers to provide their email addresses. You can then keep the connection with your clients ongoing and update them about all the upcoming webinars as well.

You can share the webinar’s address with your previous attendees through their email addresses. After you have emailed and reminded your clients about the upcoming event, you can turn them into your business leads through your compelling marketing on webinars.

All in all, email addresses can be the best way to sell tickets to an event.

4. Express Your Gratitude

Once your customers have registered for your webinars, never forget to send a gratitude email afterward. You can add further information in this gratitude email and serve your audiences with the suspense that will leave them waiting for the webinar.

In addition to this, you can also offer them some gifts or incentives after they have registered for your webinar. It also adds to your brand image.

5. Offer Value in Your Webinar

Your webinar should provide your customers with knowledge that is not known to all. After the webinar ends, the attendees should learn something that can help them in their daily lives. 

That way, they will keep track of your upcoming events as well and might recommend their friends to register for your events as well. Hence, your webinars should have a profound goal and should provide value that helps the masses.

6. Host a Weekly Webinar

To create buzz about your upcoming conference, you will need to keep the audiences connected to your event. Spark curiosity among the masses and update them about every news related to the event.

For instance, you can host a webinar to introduce the speakers of the conference. Furthermore, you can inform the target audience about the topics of discussion and how important it is to get an awareness of those topics.

Different Ways to Build Anticipation

Building anticipation about the webinar is one of the best ways to sell tickets to an event. It validates the demand or need for your webinar’s topic or course in the market. When you build anticipation for your webinar, it helps understand your target audiences and what exactly they want and need. You can research and curate the content according to the needs of the time.

1. Early Registrations

You can collect the contact information of those who are interested in your webinar and share some highlights of your webinar. After you have shared the thrilling highlights of your webinar, you can further push their excitement by telling them that they will be the first person to know about the webinar date and time.

That way, you will make them invested in waiting for the webinar and getting the information before anyone else.

2. Keep Your Audience Updated

As you see behind-the-scenes of many blockbuster movies online, you can also share the behind-the-scenes of your webinar prep. For instance, you can share the snaps of your notes for the webinar, which will help boost the interest of your potential attendees.

3. Flash  Sale on Tickets

Furthermore, you can keep your attendees interested and excited for your upcoming webinar by offering them discounts on your tickets for the last 24 hours. This will speed up the registration process, and the registered clients may tell their friends to register for discounted tickets. 

Furthermore, you can also incentivize your connected audiences to get their friends registered to qualify for a gist. Such a marketing strategy is the best way to sell tickets to an event.

Wrapping Up

What are you waiting for now? Gear up and focus on targeted email marketing, social media campaigns, collaborative marketing, and making your tickets accessible. These are proven effective methods that will make your tickets sell like hotcakes. 

If you are focusing on social media, then place special emphasis on making it easy for customers to use their phones to access the tickets, claiming limited ticket availability, sending emails to everyone, and leveraging social media advertisement, especially including your past customers. 

As an event manager, you should make sure to coordinate between your marketing and sales teams, reach out to businessmen, give clear-cut instructions, and promise rewards to teams showing results to boost your employees’ morale and work efficiency. 

As for your pricing strategies, early bird pricing, tiered pricing, group discounts, and bundle packages are effective methods to employ. 

For webinars, targeting Facebook ads, being conversational, collecting email addresses, expressing your gratitude, and offering value in your webinar will prove fruitful. Lastly, build anticipation through early registrations, keeping your audience updated, and having a 24-hour sale on tickets.