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clipped from ezinearticles.com Event Planning Checklist Tips The key to successful event planning is being resourceful and avoiding uncertainties. The more you research your available resources, the simpler it is to overcome any obstacles to your objectives and pull off the perfect social function. When putting together any social function, business party, special event, or mini festival, you can’t begin advertising or producing promotional material until you have chosen and contracted a fitting location. Likewise, it would be putting the cart before the horse, to sign up a speaker or book your entertainment before your event visions have been brought clearly into view.

I stumbled across this article by Donna DeClemente about a company called House Party that simply floored me by what could be considered one of the most powerful viral marketing ideas ever (seriously).

Read the full post at:

House Party Combines Social Events with Social Media

Basically, a House Party helps a company that wants to:

• Direct sales and new customer acquisitions

• Drive traffic to retail locations – brick and mortar as well as online

• Create an intimate, immersive product trial experience where consumers can interact with a product in a hands-on, in-context way that can’t be achieved via media campaigns or showroom sales opportunities

• Activate a viral, engaging product sampling and new product introduction session offering numerous purchase opportunities. (Can you see a huge need for promotional products to hand out at these events?)

• Build an instant, highly engaged fan base for about-to-be-released media properties (e.g., television shows; music; movies; books; magazines)

• Enhance and grow the fan base of existing media properties (e.g., television programs for season premieres, season finales, or other significant programming milestones)

• Build excitement for event-driven programming (sporting events; award shows)

• Develop a new or enhanced fan base for music releases

• Dramatically improve ticket sales or unit sales for new theatrical or DVD release

One of the coolest things about this concept is the way it utilizes social marketing and social networking both before, during, and after the event.

Not only are the Host’s friends, family members, co-workers and other social contact invited to and engaged in the event, but as the event is happening, House Party provides the tools and technologies to update the event’s page during and after the event.

So, a single House Party event, happening 1000+ homes and attended by many times that number of people at the event is also followed online by many times that number and discussed and talked up for days or weeks (or longer) afterwards

How does it work? Well, go to this page to get the full scoop!

You’ve seen them - big, colorful moving billboards that advertise all sorts of products and services.

These mobile displays are hard to miss, and are relatively inexpensive from a cost-per-impression standpoint. So why not market your event using this form of event marketing?

Mobile Event Marketing a New Age Strategy

These roving billboards get upwards of 40,000 impressions per day, so read the above article to find out more about event marketing with vehicle wraps.

OK, I’m going to reveal something here that I don’t think anyone else has thought of yet - how to do event marketing using Entrecards.

What’s Entrecard, you ask? Basically, it is a reciprocal advertising network made up of bloggers that install the Entrecard widget on their blog, and other bloggers earn credits by dropping their ‘card’ onto the Entrecard widget, like a business card is dropped off at an office.

Every time someone ‘drops’ their Entrecard onto another blogger’s Entrecard widget, credit is earned which can then be used to buy advertising on someone’s blog - your ad (which is your Entrecard graphic) appears in the Entrecard widget on the blog you selected to advertise on.

There’s a little more to it than just that, but of course you are asking yourself “How do I use this to market my event?”

Good question…here’s the answer:

1) Create a blog for your event (this is Event Marketing 101 - there is no better way to quickly create a website, get indexed by Google FAST, keep interested parties up to date on what is happening with your event, and get free marketing and publicity for your event).

There are lots of ways to get a blog up and running quickly as your ‘Event Website’ - you can use Blogger.com, Wordpress, Moveable Type, or any number of other hosted blogging platforms that provide simple, easy to use templates and tools to throw a blog together at internet speed.

2) Start posting about your Event - be sure to answer the Who, What, Where, When, Why questions thoroughly. Clearly describe what your event is about, who should attend, what will be happening there, guest speakers (if any) and their credentials - everything.

3) Open an Entrecard account, and create your Entrecard ‘card’ which will function as the ad promoting your event, so make it pretty and effectcive with a ‘Call to Action‘ (you know, ‘Click Here’ or ‘Party ’til you Drop’ - whatever). Direct marketing principals apply here, so make sure your ‘card’ functions like a banner/tile ad in terms of getting clicked. How to create compelling ads is beyond the scope of this post, so I’ll address that in the fuuture - check back here to learn more.

4) Install the Entrecard Widget into your blog - be sure to place it high up for visibility - if people are going to want to advertise on your blog, they are going to want their ad SEEN.

5) Start dropping your ‘card’ off at other blogs. The more you drop, the more credits you earn, and the more credits you earn the more your ‘card’ can be shown on other bloggers’ sites.

6) Once you’ve earned enough credits, find relevant blogs in the Entrecard system to advertise on - the key here is RELEVANCE - if your Event is in San Francisco, advertising on a blog that caters to Singapore is probably not a good idea. If your Event is for Gen. Y people, advertising on ‘Life after 60′ blogs also sounds like a bad choice, no?

Entrecard and Blog Marketing Tips and Strategies:

5 easy ways to build backlinks for you blog

There is lots more to this technique than just what I’ve written above - for example, you could also join in the community on Entrecard.com to generate interest. Be a good ‘citizen’ and converse with like-minded bloggers to build relationships that will help you in ways I couldn’t even begin to enumerate.

Also, be sure to post often on your blog, and encourage those that drop by your Event Blog to tell others about your event. If your event is truly something people would want to attend, it isn’t shameless promoting to get those that are enthusiastic about it to talk it up for you. That’s what Social Marketing is all about!

There are many other ways to do event marketing with Web 2.0 and Social Media sites, but this is one way that will promote your event to the people that would be interested in attending. With a little effort, your event promotion with Entrecards should result in a roaringly successful event.

They say there is nothing new under the sun, but entrepeneurs sure do find ways to mash up old ideas in new ways, and starting a business via crowdsourcing certainly qualifies.

Usually, when trying to launch a new business, or get a new product off the ground, the typical hunt for venture capital or institutional investors takes time, patience, perserverance and a LOT of work.

It’s refreshing to hear about a new business model termed ‘crowdsourcing’ which taps the power of social networks in a way big corporations could only dream about.

Upstarts: Launch Your Own Apparel Company for $50 - The apparel brand, which is still in the design phase, is using a creative business model, known by a variety of names like crowdsourcing, crowdfounding, and community managed, that raises small amounts of money from a large group of …

Read the above article for the full scoop, but the practical upshot of this business model is to get large quantities of people to contribute small amounts of money for input and managerial control of a new product line or business.

Crowdsourcing is also used for mass collaboration projects like Wikipedia or simply designing a new graphic or logo, but raising capital using crowdsourcing may be the ticket for a budding entrepeneur to get started using ‘other peoples money.’

Simon Ford has a great article on how to use the latest social media trend of microblogging to market your event.

Basically, microblogging involves posting updates in real-time, either text, photos or video, using services like Twitter, or the ’status update’ features of social sites like Facebook. Using these types of services means the information is more readily accessible because people can both post and see these updates on their cellphones.

So, how is this used to market your event?

Read the full article at:

Marketing Events by Micro-Blogging

There are some great ideas in that article, like how to incorporate microblogging with Google Maps or putting a watch on Twitter updates to find people that may be interested in your event. Visit the above link to get the full story.

Hiring a professional guest speaker is an important step in planning an event.

Most events feature guest speakers, or at least one professional guest speaker. Sometimes, the main feature of your event is the celebrity guest speaker, so finding one is usually on the event planning agenda.

The following list of event speaker directories and bureaus should provide a thorough resource the next time you are trying to locate the best person for your event. There are lots more than only the ones listed below, but you’ll have your hands full with these to get your started:

www.allamericanspeakers.com - Professional motivational speakers, sports speakers, celebrity speakers, famous keynote speakers, sports figures, best selling authors, corporate business speakers, celebrity chefs, top celebrity talent and comedians

www.totalaccessspeakers.com - Motivational Speakers, Business Speakers, Keynote Speakers, Celebrity Speakers

www.internationalspeakers.com - Internationally Acclaimed Motivational and Celebrity Speakers

www.ovationtalent.com - A fresh approach to solving a number of breakdowns in the current field of speaker management and representation.

speakerresource.com - Provides motivational speakers, celebrity speakers, and professional keynote speakers for any business, association, school or college

speakersrus.com - A Speakers Bureau that will help you find the perfect keynote speaker or entertainer for your event.

www.isbspeakers.com - International and National Professional Public Speakers Bureau for Motivational, Keynote and Christian Speakers

www.leighbureau.com - The world’s longest-established premium speakers bureau

www.speakers.ca - Canada’s leading Speakers Bureau

www.bigspeak.com - Motivational Speakers, Keynote Speakers, Consultants and Trainers.

www.playingfieldpromotions.com - A leading speakers bureau specializing in bookings of celebrity sports speakers, baseball speakers, Olympic speakers, motivational sports speakers and athlete personal appearances and endorsements.

www.nationalgeographic.com/speakers - National Geographic speakers are leaders in the worlds of science, photography, journalism, exploration and adventure.

www.insightbureau.com - Asian and global speakers, moderators, advisors on Asian and global economy, insights for business conferences, client meetings and confidential strategy and planning meetings.

www.dynamicspeakers.com - Sales motivation, keynote speakers, public speakers, personal growth, staff development, personal development, management consulting, motivational speakers, motivational, seminars, management training

premierespeakers.com - Motivational speakers, keynote speakers, or professional speaker

www.speakerservices.com - Free and fee speakers for events, conferences, seminars and banquets.

Whether the purpose is simply to entertain, or your event is geared towards motivating or inspiring your event participants, there are guest speaker bureaus available online that make locating the right talent for your event easy.

Everyone is getting on the Web 2.0 bandwagon, which includes using social media and social marketing to promote events.  Websites like Facebook and MySpace get more traffic than Google on any given day, and that is fertile ground for promoting an event since events are social activities anyway.

So the question is:  How do you utilize social media to do event promotion and event marketing?  Read the following article:

How to Leverage Social Media to Build Hype

Not every event can benefit from what social media has to offer, but the above article will get you started in tapping into the communities of people that would be interested in your event.  Social media sites like HubPages and Squidoo can also be used to create an event information page with interactive Web 2.0 goodness that provides a social, collaborative atmosphere leading up to your event and getting feedback after your event.

Here’s a great list of ‘Dos And Don’ts For Your Next Annual Sales Meeting‘ you are going to want to follow. These same event strategies can be applied to other types of business meetings and conferences. A great article on what to do and what not to do.