Attending and speaking at conferences can be a goldmine for content, networking, publicity and lead generation. While many companies might rate a “B” on achieving these outcomes, the speakers could do a lot better by effectively promoting their presentations. The more people that attend a presentation, the more opportunity there is for:
- Your session to be liveblogged or covered by an industry journalist
- To persuade prospects to contact you
- To persuade clients to explore other services
- Attract new employees
- Inspire new vendor and partner relationships
There are many other possible outcomes, but I think you get the idea. Here’s a list of 18 ways to promote your next speaking engagement and possibly make it a more meaningful and relevant experience for those attending.
- Submit to event listing websites like Upcoming and lanyrd
- Contribute a guest post to the conference blog
- Run a house ad in your newsletter
- Publish on your Newsroom
- Promote the event on your own blog
- Publish a “Top 10 List” of resources relevant to your industry that would cause those resources to link back to you
- Distribute press release(s) through a news distribution service (We like our client, PRWeb for that)
- Create a fulfillment piece (Report or Guide) to act as a giveaway for promotions and during the presentation
- Find a way to identify attendees and make them an offer
- Incent any tweeting or liveblogging during the session
- Guest post on other industry blogs & mention your session
- Collect speaking endorsements
- Run Social Ads on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (appropriate to your audience)
- Do a giveaway during the session
- Ask attendees of the session to do something, where the outcome is a creation that benefits all, & recognizes the participants
- Promote your speaking testimonials from conference organizers, industry influentials and attendees
- Invite journalists and bloggers that are on the press list to sit in on your session and then do an interview after
- Tweet and update Facebook, LinkedIn that you are speaking, about what and when. Tweet during the intermission right before your session using the conference #hashtag. Many people don’t plan what sessions they’ll attend and “go with the crowd”. A last minute tweet may catch their attention
- At the end of your presentation, mention the next event you’ll be speaking at
What did I miss? What tactics do you find to be the most effective for promoting speaking events at conferences?
