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This post is part of the series, and is based off the book 'Top 21 Marketing ways for membership sites', written by The Subscription Coach Amanda Northcutt.

 Download the whole series as an ebook >

Opportunities for marketing creativity are plentiful at trade shows and industry conference: purchase a booth, buy sponsors through the event's organizer, hold an event that spins off with the event or conference or conference, and many more.

If you're lucky enough that someone else in your sector is organizing an annual gathering where your target audience comes together, it is your responsibility to attend.

In relation to hosting your own event, attending a conference that someone else has organized is like clicking the "easy" button. BUT, if you just go to the event without planning, you might as well remain at home.

There are often conference/event/trade show sponsorships available for purchase, booths, and other opportunities to get amplified exposure to attendees over what you can accomplish on a one-to-one basis. One of the Holy Grail of event engagement in the context of an other event is to be a speaker. The topic of speaking engagements will come up in the future and, however uncomfortable it might be at first, public speaking before your intended public is just as effective as gold. This is a quick way to gain confidence and trust, provided that your presentation is entertaining, valuable, and relatable.

Consider sponsorship opportunities the same manner as you do in any advertising paid for. They should be quantifiable and the responsibility lies with you when you're a sponsor for an event. Your presence at the event, brand experiences you build, as well as your calls to action are likely to be the determining factor in your success or failure thereof. Your strategy for your event should comprise pre-event preparation, an on-site strategy, as well as a follow up sequence. This is true regardless of regardless of whether you've got a paid sponsorship, though this will be much more straightforward if you've got one.

Preparation: If you can have access to the attendance list before the event you can move their sales funnel quicker. If you're a sponsor you can ask the event organizers for ways to maximize the value of your sponsorship. Request more than is provided in the package of sponsorship If you are able to come up with a unique method to offer value to attendees and make the organizer look great.

If you don't have a sponsor and are not an influencer in your space, you're unlikely to get the attention of organizers in any significant manner. You can overcome this issue by joining Twitter and Instagram and using the appropriate hashtag to find others who are coming. Begin to get acquainted with these people and consider hosting a happy hour, meal, or mini-workshop on site during the hours and days in the days and hours leading up to the main event.

The day to: Sponsor or not Find a way to get leads. You can definitely do this with a one-to one basis, with a pertinent resource or offering the prospect you are interested in exchange for their contact information or permission to connect with them on social media. Take a look around and don't be pushy or pushy. If you can help someone, tell them you believe you could be of assistance and then ask permission to contact them. Making a point of writing a quick note about the person you are contacting to create a personalized follow-up message will put your self apart from people who have generic follow-up email messages completely lacking personal details.

Track the event hashtag on social media during as well as after the event and then use it for your personal hashtag. It's an easy method to increase your visibility and increase your visibility to guests. It's also a good method to find potential customers and influencers during and after the occasion.

If you have a booth in a conference, then it is important to find a way to make your presence known. It's not my expertise however, you can go to Pinterest and look for some innovative ideas. Get noticed and if your business is a good fit for some fun and lighthearted entertainment make sure to play with it. A good way to achieve this is to set up the booth themed, and then have staff members or volunteers dress a certain way.

Another thing I've seen well is having employees walking around and asking people whether they'd prefer to join an exclusive bar/restaurant to enjoy cocktails following the event. After that, they must go into your booth and learn more about what you have to offer and to sign up (lead capture) for an invitation. If you're doing this, then you must ensure that you have an enjoyable group of people running your booth - people that your prospects actually want to spend time having drinks with. Rent out a popular bar or room inside a popular restaurant and make the payment after the evening. Something like this creates a little buzz (no no pun meant) during the event. It lets potential customers have a positive experience with your brand which in turn acts as a direct lead magnet.

Follow-up: The preparation and preparation on site will go to waste when you fail to follow-up on the follow-up strategy. Remember, lead capture during the event is essential because otherwise, you'll not have enough people to follow up with. Oops.

The day after the party, send them an individual email including the personal details you made notes of your time with them (you have done that, didn't you?) and make a connection to them via their preferred social media site for the two-in-one punch. Don't put it off for too long. It is imperative to profit from the hype surrounding your event and momentum and if you put this off for a week, you've likely been missing the mark. After you've sent the customized email, you can trigger the automatic drip sequence that you created prior to the event. This can be done through your email provider (you got permission to email them, too, right?) And then, move them through your sales funnel the same way you would any other person who visits your website. But, you've met that person face-to-face and your calls to action (CTAs) ought to have greater significance (attend an informative webinar, begin the trial, purchase) than someone who is only beginning your drip process when they click on the lead magnet from your site.

If you are only able to hand out cards and not capture names and contact info for some reason, create your own landing page and include an offer for leads specifically for attendees of conferences. Make a specific collection of business cards designed with the web address of the landing page and an overview of the amazing free resource you've created just to them on it. Make sure you have an email capture form on that landing page , in exchange for downloading and start an automated nurture sequence for them to follow.

 There's a hundred ways to work this, but the main takeaway is that you require an prior event, post-event, and during method that's quantifiable.

Webinars

Webinars are 45 to 90 minutes value-for-money online webinar that is live on the internet to an audience or pre-recorded and consumed at any time. Webinars make excellent top-of-the-line sources as well as email list-building instruments. They could also be utilized towards the final stage of a sales funnel to request the sale.

Webinars are produced by yourself as a one-off, produced in a set of events called the summit, with or without guests, or even as the guest speaker on other people's. Whatever the case, they could and should be used to display your expertise as well as establish credibility and confidence in your industry space. They can be used for a single time, or you can create permanent webinars, the content of they should be relevant for the next 12-24 months.

If you operate an open model for your membership (meaning that you open your website to new members couple of times per year) an individual conference or webinar can be a great way to close the deal. I would recommend offering such a webcast live, and then mentioning an extremely exclusive and time-sensitive offer within your marketing materials that is only available only to attendees who attended live at the end of the webinar - not people who are watching the replay. The replay of the webinar should still be sent to those who don't attend live, but you can boost your live participation and closing ratio when your viewers know there's something very special happening at the end.

Hosting a summit is one of the best moves you can make to become an authority/influencer. It is essential to have an extensive email list to get expert guests from other industries however, if you are able to achieve this feat, your efforts will be well-rewarded. This can be a significant amount of work, so I wouldn't recommend doing it unless you're willing to invest enough time to ensure that your tech, your summit marketing, guests, content planning as well as scheduling and follow-up done.

As a guest at someone who is hosting a webinar and inviting their attendees to participate can be a fantastic chance to get your feet into the water and become comfortable on camera without putting forth all the effort hosting your own. If you are working with other companies on cross-promotions, and you already have an effective influencer strategy implemented, you're likely to be in the forefront of mind on the guest list for those who are hosting webinars as well as summits.

Much like fully leveraging the power of a conference or an meeting, having a pre-webinar promotional strategy and follow-up plan is essential. Because summits and webinars provide such a wealth of information to your target audience (not to mention a ton of work on your part) be sure that you are repurposing the content of the webinar. You can turn your webinar content into blog post series, ebook, podcast or videos on YouTube, podcasts as a lead-generator, and on.

 The key factor to remember whether you are hosting or guesting is to offer an overwhelming quantity of value for the attendees of your webinar. It's not the time to hold back your secret sauce. It's moment to show that you've got the secret sauce and that there's plenty more where it came from under your membership paywall.

Meetings in-person or meetings

In-person events and meetups could include anything from holding happy hour, in-person classes/lessons, workshops, sponsorship of in-person events in cities where a critical mass of your members live as well as any other place it is possible to bring people together in real life. Events can be unpaid or free, educational in nature, or simply enjoyable for gatherings that build community.

The majority of membership websites we work with offer an online community element as part of the membership. Since a community is among the most important differences between a membership and a course. If you can gather your community in person and host events that your members (and prospective members) appreciate and rave about online You'll improve sales, cLTV and conversion rates, and your overall strength as a community.

These types of gatherings can be a fantastic opportunity for members, both current and future to mingle and chat. Let your current members perform your "selling" for you potential customers through casual conversations. If a handful of your current members value your membership enough to be present in person discussing your membership, it will come up naturally in the conversation.

For industry events or trade shows You must plan in advance, ensure that the conference live up to the expectations, and plan the ability to follow-up. The way you prepare and the follow-up is contingent on the type of event you're hosting.

If it's a workshop, you're likely charging people to attend, and will need to prepare marketing materials, and then the workshop details themselves (workbooks, handouts, a slide deck, your presentation, guest speakers/instructors). The follow-up should consist of an audience survey, bonus materials, and a special offer for other items. If you've just met with an individual in person and gained the trust of them, turn the momentum to create relevant upsell opportunities.

If you are hosting an event like a happy hour, only a small amount of planning is needed. Make sure you choose a good place, offering snacks or drinks, as well as getting people to the event. Once you're there, engage with all attendees and ensure that you don't have anyone awkwardly absent. Inviting members who are already there to invite a friend who is similar with them is an effective method to increase your attendance as well.

And while a happy hour is not the ideal time to sell, if you're inviting prospective members to join, you should have a clever strategy to ensure that you're able to follow up with the people you invite. The lead-capture strategy could include entry into a contest for a free membership, some merchandise, etc., or things like passing the prospect cards with an exclusive promo code printed on them.

Whatever the occasion, make sure you've got the right plan to capture leads and follow-up with prospects who are attending. In the same way that your marketing materials for memberships have to match the materials that paying members receive behind the paywall, your event promotion must match what you're capable of delivering on the spot or you risk being badmouthed on the internet. Make sure you have raving supporters of your event, not naysayers so you can successfully hold events in the future. This is the ideal time to make use of the underpromise overdeliver rule.

Speaking engagements

Maybe this is more frightening than direct sales for some However, it's incredibly effective when done well recording, recorded and used. If you're new to public speaking, it's fine. Things such as blogging, guest-podcasting, hosting or being a guest on webinars, making video and so on. All of these are great preparation for public speaking.

There's no need to aim at the stars as you're starting out. Find a local business association and make a presentation on the spot or lead the workshop in-person to a small group. There is even the option of going to a nearby town that you do not know to make a presentation in order to ease the burden. Begin small and, as your comfort and skills improve, you can up level to a bigger job.

Offer to lead breakout sessions at conferences, hold an unofficial breakout event prior to or following another's occasion (in an ethical manner, naturally). Once you've done those things successfully, start to harness your organic influencer, guest blogging/podcasting/webinar hosting strategies to move further up the speaking ladder. If you're able to access relevant speaking opportunities because you have a strong network and you've put in the effort to create an online presence within the network, then you're much likely to be selected as a potential speaker, even if you're not particularly well known at the moment.

Speaking gigs with a higher profile are on par with creating your own book, hosting a conference, or perhaps a summit alongside other experts from the field with respect to the reach and impact. However big your speaking engagement, you should make sure you maximize your presentation by repurposing it for different media. Make sure that you're able to take a quality video footage of your talk or presentation. Then post your video to your website, both between and behind the paywall. Post it on YouTube or use it to create a series of blog posts, podcast topic, to spark discussion in your paid and free communities, and include an embedded video under the "About" or "Resources" section of your site.

 Also, make use of the recorded video as a basis for other speaking gigs. Once you've proven yourself as an effective speaker, and have promoted your presentation accordingly, using a recorded footage of your speech and some social proof (positive reviews you got from your audience) and your public speaking career will become a whole lot simpler.