[vc_row][vc_column][gem_quote custom_style=”1″ quote_color=”#08a7e1″]If you build it, he will come. It is the most famous line from the film Field of Dreams.[/gem_quote][vc_column_text]But no, it does not work the same way for events.
Organising an event and hoping attendees will turn up in droves, or running the same event format over and over in the hope that attendees will come back again and again, is a pleasant dream. The reality is that to get plenty of registrations you have to put in the work on every front, all the time.

The event description is perhaps the first thing that gets written, and it is certainly the most important thing an attendee reads — or simply looks at — when deciding whether or not to go to that event.
It sounds obvious, but it is not. Writing a good event description, one that draws the reader into the mood of the event, is the first and perhaps the hardest step towards increasing registrations for your next event.

How do you do it? Our strategy is to speak to the crocodile first.

Oren Klaff, in his book Pitch Anything, which is worth reading in any case, explains how the human brain is divided into three parts: the primal brain, also known as the crocodile brain, the midbrain and the neocortex.
When we write a description we do it very analytically. We immerse ourselves in a context we know well and describe every last detail. As we write, we assume that the more information we give and the more precise we are, the more the reader will be captivated by that mass of data.
That would be ideal if it were true, but unfortunately it is not.
We write a description using the neocortex. The neocortex is the most evolved part of our brain, the part that allowed us to invent the wheel and send people to the moon. Anyone reading us for the first time, however, does so with the crocodile brain, the most instinctive part, the one we used first in our history as human beings and the one that saved our lives during evolution.
The crocodile brain tends to discard anything it considers dangerous, boring or too difficult, and it does so instinctively. Within seconds it weighs up whether there is an opportunity, and only then does it decide whether to pass the information on to the neocortex for a proper analysis.

If you are boring, long-winded and fail to catch attention, the crocodile will simply ignore you.

At the start of this article I tried to be a little unconventional, and if it worked you will have felt the small jolt needed to get me past the crocodile’s guard and speak directly to your neocortex.

So, to win over the crocodile and avoid wasting the work done by marketing, there are a few rules worth following. Let us look at them.

A picture explains more than many words

Choose an evocative image, one that captures the spirit of your event. If the event features an industry guru, use an image that conveys their enthusiasm and their ability to get a message across. If you are organising a meeting and want to encourage networking, show a photo that highlights it.

Do not settle for a picture of the city where the event takes place. It is certainly true that events are a chance to travel and discover wonderful places, but if your client really insists on the inevitable “skyline”, try to add other images with a sharper focus as well.

Keep it simple

We have partly said this already: avoid writing too much. Your description is not The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It is the reason someone will or will not attend your event. Avoid piling adjectives onto everything. Instead, set out clearly the speakers who will be at the event and what attendees will get out of it, and do it with text that is easy to read.

Listen to your attendees

If you have followed our advice, you should have collected a good number of surveys with a healthy volume of answers that showed you what you were getting wrong and what you were getting right. Now is the time to write about it. Be concise, but if something went well, use it to your advantage. If something went badly in the past, avoid excuses and present the solution as news.

Optimise the description for SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and refers to the techniques used to make your site appear higher up in search engines. Use the words and phrases you know your attendees will use when searching online. Avoid writing the same word 100 times, though, or you will be penalised, and remember that readability matters most.

AdWords

Not everyone does this, but if time is short and some budget is left, you can run advertising campaigns with Google AdWords.
AdWords is Google’s advertising tool: by paying a fee for each user click, you can be placed above the natural organic results. It is certainly a risky strategy, but it can be the only way to give your event visibility when it has no history of its own and there is very little time to build one. You may want to rely on an expert for this kind of campaign, to get the most out of a sustainable spend.

These are a few immediate tools you can use to tell your audience about your event and to grow the number of registrations. If you want to know more, get in touch and we will find out together what SharEvent can do for your event. Request a live demo.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]