Precision Event Promotion Using the 3% Rule

Accepting that only 3% (or less) of your local population is predisposed to attend your event is a good thing. How so? If you and your event team focus on those most interested, you will significantly boost the effectiveness of all your advertising. Think of the 3% rule as a precision targeting method.

A critical component of targeting is channel selection. You need to identify which marketing channels provide you with maximum impact for delivering your advertisements. Clients have run the same ad on two different channels with massive differences in response rates. Make sure you select only the best marketing channels.

How can you target those most interested in attending your event? Fortunately, it has never been easier. Facebook's advertising platform makes demographic targeting easy.

One of the greatest target marketing secrets can be found in your previous customer database. Your customer database embodies the 3% rule. The person most likely to buy from you is a previous customer. It can also save you a ton of money on marketing. According to Lee Resources Inc., "Attracting new customers will cost your company 5 times more than keeping an existing customer."

And here's a shocker: Most events don't have a well-thought-out program for retaining and reactivating previous customers. Sending email is not enough.

Recently, one client discovered over 50,000 previous customers hiding in a neglected database file. These customers were the result of an initial advertising expenditure of $400,000+ that took place over ten years. Over those years, the client spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on “mass” advertising just to reacquire their previous customers.

Following this discovery, the client is now leveraging their entire customer database to develop marketing campaigns that specifically target previous customers. As a result, the client increased their year-over-year online ticket revenue by 38%.

An important note on re-engaging previous customers via email … be very careful! One email to the wrong person could cost you as much as $16,000 (or more!) in fines. Yes, that's per email. Make sure to look into the federal CAN-SPAM, CASL, and GDPR regulations. Additionally, please consult with an attorney who has extensive experience in Internet law before emailing previous customers.