By now, you're probably familiar with my "3% rule" targeting rule.
If not, here is a brief overview:
Accepting that only 3% (or less) of your local population is predisposed to attend your event is a good thing.
How so?
Because if you and your event team focus on those most interested in attending your event, you will significantly boost the effectiveness of all your advertising. Think of the 3% rule as a precision targeting method.
One question that rarely gets asked, "what about the other 97%?" or more precisely, "shouldn't I try to target outside the 3%?" Yes, but please understand that the amount of ad spend is prohibitive for practically every event.
It is not a matter of spending thousands of additional ad dollars; it's more like millions or tens of millions of advertising dollars.
Most event organizers simply don't have that kind of money to invest in advertising. If you decide to target outside the 3%, you must carefully track advertising effectiveness!
In 2016, two clients ran carefully targeted and tracked online marketing campaigns. Both campaigns showed that the cost of capturing people's attention outside of 3% becomes astronomical.
The same ads (design and copy) were served to two different local audiences in the advertising test, the 3% audience and the general population. The advertisement presented to the general population was displayed three times more, at four times the cost, while generating 86% less revenue than the 3% campaign.
Thus, targeting outside of your 3% can be astronomically expensive.
Here are some additional articles on planning a successful event:
- The Importance of Market Research in Planning Your Event
- An Extremely Dangerous Event Planning Mistake
- Your Event Promotion and Marketing Strategy - Start Point
- Event Planning: The Customer Avatar and Your Event
- Two Amazingly Powerful Event Survey Questions
- A Killer Social Media Promotion Strategy for Your Event