Author Archives: Chris Bradle

The Tennis Show drives traffic to exhibitor booths

The Tennis Show is a tradeshow/expo for the tennis industry. The Tennis Show’s mission is to provide a venue for the tennis industry to gather and share ideas, present new opportunities, and build a network to help grow the sport! The event takes place in NYC the night before the prestigious U.S. Open.

“Once exhbitiors began to understand the concept, they were really pleased with results” – Laura Bracken, Event Coordinator

The Tennis Show’s event bag had 48 offers, many of which were from event exhibitors. Sponsors offers were unique, ranging from “register for free shoes” to “free shipping on all offers placed at booth 10”. Exhibitor offers were well received by participants, and helped to drive traffic to exhibitor booths. Bracken promoted the bag both at the event and on the event’s website.

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Are you attracting Millennials?

We just got back from a fun filled 4 days in New Orleans for Running USA. For those who are not familiar, Running USA is a non-profit organization that was created to improve the status of road racing in the US through collective marketing and promotions, services to runners and events and the development of American world class stars.

Every year Running USA puts on a conference that allows over 600 people to come together and share ideas/network with other endurance organizations. One of the topics that was covered at the conference was: How are you Attracting Millennials?

They were pretty spot on with their methods for attracting those 20-something year olds. So spot on, in fact, that I had to share a few tips with you!

1. Cause and consumer assets

People look at a cause and purpose as the ultimate driver. Most millennials are pretty passionate and want to know that they are helping a good cause in addition to doing something adventurous. Example: Team in Training- Not only does a participant get to run a fun race, but they know that the money they raise for this organization is going towards lifesaving research.

2. Tactics

You have to promote offline as much as you do online. I know, I know. I bet you are thinking, “but millennials are ONLY online”. The idea here is that you get people talking about your organization online AND offline. If you have someone who is signed up for your race, talk to them about asking a friend or two to join your event for free. The idea here is that you focus on the acquisition not the dollars made. You are getting people in the door to experience your cool event first-hand.

3. Experience is in the details

Every minor detail matters! Was the sign up process short and sweet? Were there fun unique details to your event?

Take the Myrtle Beach Marathon, for example. They had a photo booth at one of their mile markers and everyone was looking forward to reaching that marker to jump in a take some fun pictures.

Another example was the Nike Women’s Half in DC. At the end of the Half there were volunteer firefighters dressed in tuxedos handing out Tiffany’s necklaces! What a sweet reward! Your details don’t have to be extravagant, they just have to set you apart from the rest.

Millennials are looking for 3 things: Are they serving a good cause? Can they easily get their friends involved? What separates you from the rest?

Thank you Running USA for a fantastic conference! We look forward to joining you again next year in Los Angeles.

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Running Zone grows sponsor relationships with event bags

The Running Zone Foundation was established to encourage health and fitness through running, jogging, walking. The Running Zone Foundation is headquartered in Florida and puts on premiere running events such as the Space Coast Marathon. Running Zone Foundation’s Events Manager, Laura Sanchez, recorded a video sharing what challenges the Event Bag has solved for their events.

“We love Virtual Event Bags and find it’s a great way to get information out to our participants”

Reflecting on the experience, Laura references three key points why their sponsors found so much value in the event bag:

  • The platform is a very cost effective way to create and manage the digital event bag program.
  • The platform and process is easy both learn and use
  • The platform is one of the only ways possible to provide measurable and personalized marketing to event participants.
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Customer Success Story: Running Zone Foundation

The Running Zone Foundation was established to encourage health and fitness through running, jogging, walking. The Running Zone Foundation is headquartered in Florida and puts on premiere running events such as the Space Coast Marathon. Running Zone Foundation’s Events Manager, Laura Sanchez, recorded a video summarizing the challenges the Event Bag solves for their events.

“We love Virtual Event Bags and found it’s a great way to share information and sponsor offers with our event participants”

Laura references three key points why their event sponsors found so much value in the event bag:

  1. It is cost effective
  2. It is easy to use
  3. It provides measurable marketing
Chris BradlePublished:

3 Event Essentials That Are Often Overlooked

1) Setting Your Budget Early
Event directors often have a long list of brilliant ideas for their event. However, these ideas can be dangerous if they’re too expensive to afford. Acting on too many cool ideas can prevent an event from profiting. To avoid putting your event into bankruptcy, make sure to set a budget – and follow it!

Once you’ve set your budget, make sure to communicate the budget to your team. It’s important to have everyone in the orgnaization on the same page. While some ideas may seem ‘fun’, make sure to balance what’s fun and what’s practical.

Areas to consider when budgeting include: rental costs, catering costs, transproration costs, event staff hourly fees, printing charges, etc.

2) Finding a Mentor
Even the most established event directors can benefit from a mentor. Your mentor could be someone who has managed your event previously, someone who has managed a similar event, or someone whose event has a similar goal to yours (i.e. raising money, raising awareness, etc).

A mentor is important not only to provide guidance, but also to help you avoid mistakes. Hearing what mistakes your mentor has made can help you avoid the same pitfalls at your event.

3) Making Sponsorship Fulfillment a Priority
Lots of event directors make the mistake of taking a sponsor’s money and never talking to them again. Don’t do this! Make sure to deliver on all promises to sponsors. If you want your sponsors to return each year, make sure to maintain your credibility. Fulfill promises early.

For example, one of my organizations recently sponored an event. In exchange, that event promised to write a blog post about our partnership. The event staff never wrote this blog post, and I had to follow-up twice. This experience left a bad taste in my mouth, and we will not be sponsoring that event again.

Give your sponsors the VIP treatment they deserve. If you do a good job, it will be easier for you to secure sponsors in the future.

Chris BradlePublished:

Best Practice: Promotions For Your Expo

Many events are using Virtual Event Bags for both their event and their event’s expo. Lately, tons of trade shows and conferences have been jumping on the platform as well. When done correctly, a Virtual Event Bag can be a great way to drive traffic to exhibitors booths.

Laura Bracken, Event Coordinator for The Tennis Show, decided to try the Virtual Event Bags platform for her event this year. The Tennis Show takes place at the Grand Hyatt in New York City the night before the prestigious U.S.. Open.

“Once exhbitiors began to understand the concept, they were really pleased with results” Bracken said.

Laura’s exhibitors did a great job of putting engaging offers in her bag, such as the offers show above.

An event bag is a great way to let attendees know what companies will be at the event. Many successful bag coordinators include an expo map in the bag (typically in the premium offer section). Having a map included in the bag ensures tradeshow attendees don’t get lost and allows them to find sponsors more easily.

Statistically, the highest performing offers are discounts or freebies (vs. a simple advertisement). Tradeshow attendees love sponsor offers that provide a service (ie: free post-event massage) or a discount (ie: free shipping in orders placed at the expo). Giveaways, video offers, and links to app downloads are also a great way for sponsors to get attention from attendees.

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Success Story of the Month: Yale University

This month, Yale University is using a Virtual Event Bag for their university orientation. Both college freshman and first year graduate students will be receiving access to the bag when they arrive on campus. In addition to distributing local business offers, Yale staff used their bag to convey university information such as safety policies, a visitors guide, and more.

Read on to learn how Alyssa Seifert positioned Yale’s orientation bag to sponsors and what problems the bag is solving for the university

Q. Can you explain what problems your Virtual Event Bag is solving for your staff? 

A. Previously, orientation staff would spend a great deal of time and money collecting, printing, and organizing paper advertisements and coupons. We would put these into books and bags, and most students disregarded them. We sought to avoid these inefficiencies and cut down on waste, yet still expose new students to the best parts of the university and city. We decided to leverage tools that students frequently use – smartphones. We’re committed to making orientation as fun, accessible, informative, and sustainable as possible. Virtual Event Bags has been an excellent way for us to achieve those goals. An added bonus of Virtual Event Bags is that local businesses will get useful metrics on how their offers brought in business. This strengthens the symbiotic relationship between Yale and [the town of] New Haven. 

Q. How did you position the bag to local businesses? 

A. Yale Graduate Student Life (GSL) representatives met with representatives from various merchant associations to pitch them the idea. These merchant associations then trickled information down to business within their association. As GSL has existed at Yale for 16 years, we have numerous contacts for amenities on and around campus. Thus, we were able to use a recognizable email address to send out the invites. We were also vocal around town – luckily most GSL staff are outgoing – and picked up various business cards to invite people.

To summarize, you can use Virtual Event Bags in creative ways. Networking in your community is a great way to build long-term business relationships. When a sponsor knows you personally, it’s a lot harder for that sponsor to press the delete button on an email. Like Seifert, going the extra mile and presenting your ideas in person can be a great way to secure funds for your event.  

Chris BradlePublished:

5 Ways Event Organizers are using Twitter to Promote Their Virtual Event Bag

Sending out an email to your participants is a good way to get the word out about your Virtual Event Bag…but why not go further? Event directors are doing a great job using social media to promote their event bag and even sell sponsorships. Read on to see 5 creative ways event directors are using Twitter to promote their Virtual Event Bags.

Read More

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Success Story of the Month: Pearl Street Brewery

Tami Plourde, director of sales and marketing for the Pearl Street Brewery, is a first-time Virtual Event Bags customer. Tami decided to try the platform for two of her brewery’s events this year. Despite being new to the platform, Tami was able to sell 42 sponsorship placements for her event in La Crosse, WI and 21 placements for her event in Madison, WI.

When asked if she had any advice on selling sponsorships, Tami said “I think that person to person contact on the benefits of putting out a high quality offer is helpful to get companies to participate.”

Tami continued, “I didn’t have trouble explaining the concept to companies who were sponsoring my event. [On face-to-face sales calls] it helped to bring my phone to show potential sponsors examples of offers that had already been done in a demo bag.”

Tami also did a good job of coaching companies to create quality offers for participants, rather than just advertisements. She found that, with a little creative brainstorming,  the company quickly understood what was possible.

As a result, her event bag delivered mostly discounts for local restaurants and businesses, with very few advertisements. Tami said, “Our sales approach was: you want participants to ‘redeem’ the offers, so companies should create offers which were something worth using.”

What was the participant reaction? Tami states, “We had a great participant reaction to our bag. I think a lot of people used their phones. Basically, the better the deal, the better the participants liked the offer. A lot of the deals were buy one get ones, but they also liked the combination offers such as: buy a beer, get 10% off a meal.”

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Best Practice: First-Time Customer Gets 49 Sponsors

Sue Mattison, co-director for the Weston Memorial Day 5K, found amazing success this year using Virtual Event Bags. Despite being a small event and a first time user of the platform, Sue was able to get 49 offers into her bag. What’s her trick? Sue shares her advice on how to sell new sponsorships:

“ My best advice is to create a mock ad for a potential sponsor and send it as a screen shot. First of all, most sponsors may not know what a Virtual Event Bag is. Second, they may not be able to figure out how [an offer in an event bag] would work for them.”

Sue proposes the following steps:

  • Take the nicest image from their website then take one minute and dump it into the offer builder.
  • Look for an image that is crisp and clear and has tons of energy.
  • Put the company name in… and mark it this is not a valid offer (for demonstration purposes only).
  • Screen shot it then email it to your sponsor.

Sue explains further, “These steps show them 1. What the virtual bag is. 2. How great your sponsor’s company looks in the ad. 3. How easy it will be for them to just keep what you done and add some text. 4. How concerned you are about their business because you marked it not valid, for demonstration – to protect them. Now they see what they can get and they see that you care.”

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