Effective (or Ineffective) Ads

A few years ago an organization I worked with started a marketing trend for their annual event and it was a hit with their attendees. They loved it. We noticed a visible increase in attendance when we used this strategy. Now, I’m seeing it used by other events across various industries. It’s clever and engages potential attendees with your event in a fresh way when done well. That said, this week I saw the same marketing tool used poorly and it had the completely opposite effect on me.

Guest speaker announcements. It used to be that a generic lineup was made available on an event website or a pdf of speakers was posted and possibly their session titles were released in some way. Then, a designer and a marketing specialist (potentially one-and-the-same person) thought of an innovative and creative way to introduce speakers and started to brand these announcements to match the theme of the event. Brilliant! Now, not only are you informing the registered and potential attendees who is speaking at your event, you are introducing the event brand, exposing them to the event theme, and getting them ready and excited for their experience.

I have seen this most successful with a social media campaign but have also received emails with a similar look. Truly, if your organization is still sending out fliers, postcards, or relying solely on emails, you are going to be left in the dust. These eye-catching posts with the speaker’s picture, name, and some basic information about them or their session, can motivate someone to take the plunge and register for your event. It’s much more compelling than just a link to your website.

The ad I saw recently that turned me off wasn’t about the speaker, it was the design; bad color choices, awkward placement of images leaving tons of blank space, and a poor font choice that was hard to read. It made me think that if this is the quality of ad for a headline speaker, how poorly would the rest of my experience around the event be? I certainly wouldn’t want to register for THIS event. If nobody was paying attention to these details, what other details would be missed? And, as an event planner with a whirling mind for the minutiae, you know how quickly my mind reeled into a thousand “what if” questions.

As I was thinking this to myself, it dawned on me that I never had these thoughts as we were reviewing our ads.

We checked our ads for accuracy; saw that the speaker’s name was spelled right, checked grammar, spelling, and punctuation of all other text, matched the colors of the ad with the event brand, and confirmed the font was in the event style guide. What didn’t run through my mind was, “Is this readable and is there a clear action step?” Clearly we didn’t have too many issues because the ads always prompted a boost in ticket sales but it causes me to pause and add another item to my list of things to review. This can only benefit my future clients.

I say all this to warn planners working with organizations who use this type of marketing strategy. Remind the team to review their ads with the eyes of someone who doesn’t know their event, brand, or organization, from Adam. Suggest they check the font for readability, review the spacing for aesthetics, and ensure only important information is included in the ad.

Have you had an experience with an ad of this type, positive or negative? Share your response here or send me an email.

I’m sure you know someone who plans events, share this blog with them and be sure to like it!