Live events can be a lucrative form of increasing revenue in a business. They can also be the biggest headache you will ever have to deal with. That’s why it’s important to figure out some key details before you decide to do live events for your own business.
What are live events?
Live events are in-person events you organize for your business. You can charge per ticket or you can put on a free event and sell from the stage.
Basically, it’s just the first part of a sales funnel where you get people in the door. The only difference is that it’s in person instead of online. Because they are in person, they usually require you to figure out more logistics.
Live events may also refer to your business having a presence at another event. For example, perhaps you’re a designer who participates in a pop-up or a service provider for small businesses.
What type of live events you decide to do will depend on your business and your marketing strategy.
How much money will you make?
The first thing you need to determine when deciding whether or not to do live business events is how much money you are going to make. Depending on which type of event you’re talking about, it can go in a few different ways:
- How much money you can make in ticket sales
- The amount of money you can make from a free event where you upsell
- How much of an item or service you can sell at an event where you have a presence.
Sometimes you won’t know the answer to these questions until you run an experiment. For example, you may decide to test an idea at an event to see how people respond to it. Or, you may not realize that participating in events doesn’t yield as much revenue as you need it to.
Does it make sense for your business?
People have been asking me to do live events and workshops in my local area for years. To this day, I still haven’t done it. The reason is that it doesn’t really make sense for me or my business.
First of all, I don’t have the patience or attention to detail to put on a live event. It also costs more money that I am currently not willing to invest. Second, I want to run a business from my laptop for a reason. I have webinars on auto-pilot running 24-7 and it’s doing just fine for me.
That being said, just because it doesn’t work for my business doesn’t mean it won’t work for yours. For example, do you have a mostly local audience? Or do you have an actual brick and mortar business where you need foot traffic? Then you may need to do live events as a part of your marketing strategy.
Final Thoughts
Live events can be a good marketing strategy if you’re able to make money and if they make sense for your business. Before jumping into hiring event planners, make sure this is something which will actually move your business forward.
