Academic conferences are the birthplace of new ideas, fostering innovation, expertise, and critical research. But these goals can only be achieved if the right people attend.
The unfortunate truth when planning an academic conference is that behind the more obvious jobs—like organizing the venue or coordinating speakers—there’s still a more difficult task that academicians may not be familiar with, namely marketing.
How do you gather the right audiences and ensure a good turnout? Here are some tips.
- Define Your Audience
The attendees of an academic conference are likely to be a mix of intellectuals, industry players, and thought leaders. But, at the same time, they can also include students, casual enthusiasts, and young entrepreneurs.
The first step in any marketing effort involves identifying which groups are most relevant to your conference. This can be done by creating comprehensive audience personas and segmenting them based on factors like:
- Reason for attending
- Interests
- Pain points
- Income
- Location
And more!
By stepping into the shoes of your audience, you understand what they want to see and can then streamline future marketing and promotional efforts accordingly. This activity will also help you devise better programs and find more relevant speakers for your affair.
- Generate Buzz on Social Media
An Eventbrite study recently concluded that 25% of all traffic that visits a conference booking page comes from social media. If you aren’t making the most of these platforms, you’re losing out on a huge chunk of your audience.
But generating buzz on social media is easier said than done. To promote your conference, you’ll have to focus on a wide range of tasks, including:
- Using relevant trends and hashtags
- Joining appropriate groups and communities
- Designing clear and attractive posters and flyers
- Analyzing platform-specific trends and audience behavior
- Optimizing your social media profiles to enhance visibility
- Generating organic content and paying for sponsored content
- Writing informative articles and offering tips to potential attendees
Moreover, social media is a great place to share any offers, incentives, or discounts that you’re prepared to give.
This may sound like a lot of work—and, well, it is. But several online tools can help you improve your social media game, from websites that locate trends and hashtags to online libraries with thousands of conference flyer templates.
It’s worth spending some time familiarizing yourself with these resources as they can seriously improve the quality of the content you release while increasing your number of bookings.
- Work With Relevant Influencers
Sometimes, you need a leg-up to get your name in front of a larger audience.
This boost can be achieved by partnering with influencers who will promote your conference to their own massive audiences. In the last few years, social media platforms have continued to rise in prominence. Hence, influencer marketing has proven to be an exceptionally effective tool for marketing events, products, and brands. Here are 20 stats to prove it.
Typically, you’ll be expected to look for influencers with the most relevant followers; think educational YouTubers or prominent researchers. However, these partnerships may involve offering something in return which can increase your costs.
In this case, a more effective tactic could be to leverage your keynote speakers. The professionals you invite to speak at your event will likely have immense respect and authority online. They can thus be a very effective marketing channel in their own right.
Once you’ve finalized the dates of your conference, request your speakers to create videos teasing viewers about upcoming discussions, sharing selfies from the venue, or using your event-specific hashtags before the event.
Alternatively, you could leverage the expertise of your attendees to earn mentions in prominent industry magazines and blogs. This will help you enhance visibility and credibility while ensuring your event promotions reach the most relevant audiences.
- Highlight Reviews and Testimonials
If this isn’t the first conference you’ve hosted, you’re likely sitting on a vast amount of social proof that you can use to increase bookings for your upcoming event.
You could highlight posts from former attendees and researchers as they talk about their experiences. Another tactic is to leverage video testimonials, news articles, and post-event surveys to emphasize the benefits of attending your upcoming gathering.
According to 2023 research, positive reviews increase trust among 72% of potential clients—or, in this case, potential attendees. This is no figure to scoff at. It’s why almost every brand highlights customer testimonials in 2024.
How do they do it? That’s the easy part.
Testimonials can be shared across your websites, social media profiles, user-generated content, and more. They can also be highlighted in the bios and descriptions you have on various ticketing platforms, or shared directly with the most relevant attendees through an email marketing campaign.
Meanwhile, for all your design needs, use a resource like PosterMyWall.
Apart from its massive library of poster and flyer templates, this tool helps you create more attractive designs even if you have limited design experience and are working with a tight budget.
Hyperlinks:
- https://www.eventbrite.com/blog/academy/essential-guide-social-media-events/
- https://www.postermywall.com/index.php/s/conference-flyer/all/all?safe_content=safe
- https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/20-influencer-marketing-statistics-that-will-surprise-you
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2024/03/03/how-to-increase-brand-trust-by-upping-your-social-proof-game
- https://gradient.postermywall.com/2024/09/27/12-short-form-content-ideas-to-promote-your-business-and-events
- https://gradient.postermywall.com/2023/12/11/how-to-create-an-event-schedule-a-step-by-step-guide
References:
- https://www.cvent.com/en/blog/events/conference-marketing-ideas
- https://www.accelevents.com/blog/best-ways-to-promote-a-conference
- https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/about-um/faculties/faculty-law/research/how-promote-your-research/step-2-create-%E2%80%98how-%E2%80%99-guides-4
- https://fourwaves.com/blog/conference-marketing
- https://armacad.info/blog/how-to-promote-academic-conference-call-for-papers
- https://fmwaechter.com/conference-need-social-media
- https://www.eventbrite.com/blog/academy/essential-guide-social-media-events
- https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/20-influencer-marketing-statistics-that-will-surprise-you
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2024/03/03/how-to-increase-brand-trust-by-upping-your-social-proof-game
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/importance-customer-testimonials-south-coast-social
