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It’s 430am, and my notebook says I have less than an hour’s typing time before it dies on me so I’d better make this quick. I can’t sleep partly from excitement at playing at a Bluegrass Festival this week and partly because I’m thinking of some good people in my life who are having difficult times at the moment.
With that said, this is a copywriting lesson, but above all else, in the words of the inspirational Colleen Wainwright (more on her later this week) I’d like you to spend some time with people you love if you can, or to reach out to someone who’s been on your mind lately.
On with the lesson!
This summer I wrote a sales page for a client hosting an event and wanting to attract an international audience. It was a meaty project and fantastic fun to work on. The event was a success with people flying in from all over the world to attend the 3 days it was on. Thinking about the other events sales pages I’ve worked on, I thought I’d share with you what I think worked well in getting people off their seat and on a plane to a high-ticket occasion.
Now, it goes without saying that you should include benefits, cover objections, create urgency and have a strong call to action, but here are a few tips that work well specifically for events.
Details, Details, Details
If you’re running an event, some of the most boring things to deal with in the sales copy are details. Ugh. You know, repeatedly typing the dates, the location, the itinerary, the nearest train station or airport to the event. This is the kind of writing which feels like chewing cardboard. It’s dreary and hard work.
But it is so important to your customer’s decision-making.
It is far easier for people to rule out going to an event straight away if they think it’s going to be tricky to get to or doesn’t fit in with their schedule. If you don’t spell out the details , it’s easier for them to assume it’s going to be difficult because this makes their decision process much easier.
So give them the details. Show the dates at the top, tell them the city or town, and then further down include more details about how to get there, what time they need to arrive and what they’re going to do when they get there.
If it’s really painful for you to do this, have a VA create a blurb of all the important details that you can cut and paste and insert into your sales copy simply.
Show The Change
For people to attend an event, they need to feel like something is going to change. Even if your event is relatively affordable to your crowd, we are lazy creatures – think about how many people you invite to a free party compared to how many people actually show up.
You know your event will rock, but your customers have to justify that time away from their family, friends or their business. For this reason, they have to feel like something has changed by the time they leave your event. This might include:
- Acquiring a specific skill
- Being entertained
- New knowledge that saves them time or money
You might know that your audience will leave feeling inspired, happier or less stressed, but telling them this alone isn’t enough. You have to give them the proof of logic and show them how they will achieve this.
It’s a bit like enrolling on a college course. A prospectus would be far more compelling if it explained you would be going for trips to Spain, using role-play in class, listening to audios and watching videos rather than simply saying:
“You’ll learn Spanish”
Show your customer HOW they will get to this goal.
Welcome Them To The Family
One of the reasons I hate New Year’s Eve parties is everyone’s inability to commit to plans. Why? Because people want to hold out for the “best” event.
Ironically, the best event is usually the one that involves most of the people we like the most.What happens is everyone hangs back, waiting to see what everyone else is doing until the last minute and as a result, nothing big tends to get planned. Ironically, if just a few people committed to one plan, chances are it would snowball and everyone else would jump on board.
That’s good ole social proof spoiling New Year for you right there 🙂
Your event is very similar.
No-one wants to turn up thinking that no-one else is going. So what can you do?
- Show that others have attended in the past (use pictures if possible)
- Include any tweets or emails from people attending the upcoming event
- Recall anything interesting that happened last time you ran it (E.g. “Remember the fun we had when our MC had to fill time ahead of a late speaker and sang Ricky Martin’s Living La Vida Loca?!!!”
This makes people feel like they are going to be part of a fun group at the upcoming event and make them NOT want to miss out the fun stuff they didn’t see by not going last time (if you’ve run the event before).
So – hopefully that helps you a little!
And with 17 minutes spare on the notebook battery!
Hello Amy!
This is the second time I read your article for a how to write event copy. Thank you for the great article. Even tho it took you no time to write it!
Hope you’re events are successful!
Andrew
If you start off with the city and the dates at the top, don’t you run the risk that people will tune out before you have told them why they need to be there?
If the event is in Europe for instance, I will rule it out immediately. However, if the event is so crucial to my business that I don’t want to miss it, I may actually consider it.
However, with the city at the top, I probably have already clicked off.
Hallo Daphne!
Great point, and you may rule out people who are put off by travel alone. As you mention, if an event is crucial to your business, you might consider it, so the combination of those “first-look” details such as headline and opening statement will be very important. There’s definitely no one-size-fits all as events vary in location, cost, audiences etc, but I have found that people hesitate taking action if details about the event are ambiguous or hard to find.