7 Powerful Ways to Make Event Promotion Easy for Speakers

Speakers are a crucial part of any event, whether it’s a conference, seminar, or workshop. They bring value, expertise, and often help draw in attendees. However, relying solely on your event marketing team to spread the word about your event may not be enough. Speakers are an often underutilized resource for event promotion. 

When they share details about your event with their followers and professional network, they can significantly boost event visibility. The key to getting speakers involved is to make the promotional process as easy and effortless as possible for them.

In this blog, we will walk you through seven powerful ways to make event promotion easy for your speakers. By implementing these strategies, you can turn your speakers into your event’s strongest advocates, amplifying your event’s reach and attracting a larger audience.

What Is Event Promotion?

Event promotion is the process of creating awareness and driving interest in an event, with the ultimate goal of encouraging people to attend, participate, or engage with it. 

It involves using various marketing and communication strategies to reach the target audience and highlight the value, experience, or purpose of the event. Event promotion can apply to different types of events, such as conferences, trade shows, webinars, festivals, product launches, or networking events.

7 Ways to Make Event Promotion Easy for Speakers

Event promotion can often feel overwhelming, especially for speakers who may not have a background in marketing. However, facilitating this process can significantly enhance their engagement and, consequently, the success of your event.

Here are seven powerful strategies to make event promotion easy for your speakers.

1. Provide Pre-Made Promotional Content

The easier you make it for speakers to promote your event, the more likely they are to do it. One of the simplest ways to help them is by providing ready-made promotional materials. These can include:

• Social Media Posts: Draft social media captions for platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Create versions with both short and long-form content to suit different platforms.
• Event Graphics: Create visually appealing, shareable graphics with your speaker’s image, the event name, and date. Ensure they have different dimensions suited for various platforms (e.g., square for Instagram, landscape for Twitter).
• Email Templates: Pre-drafted email templates make it easy for speakers to send invitations to their networks. Include key event details, a registration link, and a personal message they can modify if needed.

By preparing and packaging this content, you’re saving your speakers time and effort while ensuring that your event’s promotion is consistent and professional.

How to Implement:

• Work with your design team to create speaker-specific images that include their name, photo, and speaking time.
• Prepare editable documents with pre-made captions for social media and email templates.
• Send these materials well in advance of the event so speakers can schedule their posts.

2. Create a Speaker-Specific Landing Page

Speakers will feel more invested in promoting your event if they have a personalized connection to it. One way to do this is by creating speaker-specific landing pages. These pages can include:

• Speaker Bio: Highlight their expertise, credentials, and why they’re speaking at the event.
• Event Details: Include information about the event, their speaking session, and how to register.
• Shareable Links: Include buttons or links that speakers can share with their audience, allowing easy promotion on social media or email.
• Customized Messaging: Tailor the messaging to fit each speaker’s audience and niche, making it feel more personal and relevant.

A personalized landing page gives speakers a unique tool to promote the event while showcasing their involvement. It can help build excitement and give potential attendees a better idea of what to expect from that specific speaker.

How to Implement:

• Use a simple web-building tool to create these personalized pages, ensuring they include all relevant speaker and event information.
• Offer these pages to speakers as a tool they can promote on their website, social media, or email newsletters.
• Provide speakers with a unique referral code, if applicable, so they can track how many registrations come through their promotion.

3. Host Pre-Event Interviews and Webinars

Speakers love having opportunities to showcase their expertise. Hosting pre-event interviews or webinars can serve multiple purposes: it gives your speakers a platform to promote their session, provides value to your audience before the event, and creates buzz around your event.

Here’s how you can structure it:

• Pre-Event Webinar: Host a live or recorded webinar featuring one or multiple speakers. They can offer a sneak peek into what attendees can expect at the event and answer audience questions.
• Podcast or Blog Interviews: If your organization runs a podcast or blog, consider interviewing speakers about their upcoming session. Let them share their insights and talk about the importance of the event.

These interviews or webinars can be promoted through both your and the speaker’s networks, amplifying your event’s visibility. They also give potential attendees a reason to register by offering exclusive pre-event content.

How to Implement:

• Schedule short interviews or webinars with each speaker in the weeks leading up to the event.
• Record the sessions and edit them into shareable content for social media, websites, and email campaigns.
• Encourage speakers to promote their interview or webinar to their network.

4. Encourage Speakers to Share Personal Stories or Experiences

Attendees often connect more deeply with personal stories than they do with generic promotional material. Encourage your speakers to share a personal story or anecdote related to the event topic. Whether it’s a personal challenge they’ve overcome, a lesson they’ve learned, or why they’re passionate about the subject, personal stories resonate with audiences.

When a speaker shares a personal experience related to their talk, it not only humanizes them but also creates an emotional connection with potential attendees. This can be shared via:

• Blog Posts: Ask speakers to write a short post on why they’re excited about the event, what they’ll be discussing, and why their topic matters.
• Social Media Stories: Encourage speakers to share personal stories or behind-the-scenes moments on Instagram Stories, LinkedIn, or Twitter.
• Video Messages: A short, authentic video message from the speaker explaining their excitement for the event can work wonders in creating anticipation.

How to Implement:

• Discuss with your speakers what personal stories they’re comfortable sharing, and assist them in shaping these stories into engaging content.
• Share these stories across multiple platforms, using a mix of written content, videos, and social posts.
• Provide examples or prompts to help speakers get started with crafting their story.

5. Offer Incentives for Speaker Promotion

While speakers may be enthusiastic about your event, offering additional incentives can further motivate them to promote it actively. These incentives could be:

• Commission on Ticket Sales: Provide speakers with a unique referral link and offer them a percentage of any tickets sold through their promotions.
• Special Recognition: Acknowledge and reward speakers who bring in a certain number of attendees. This could be through social media shoutouts, special recognition at the event, or a speaker award.
• Exclusive Offers for Their Audience: Give speakers a discount code that they can share exclusively with their audience, offering a percentage off tickets or early bird pricing.

These incentives not only encourage promotion but also show your appreciation for their efforts. Additionally, speakers who feel valued will be more likely to invest their time and energy into promoting your event.

How to Implement:

• Set up a system for tracking referral sales and provide speakers with their unique referral link.
• Publicly recognize speakers who contribute to ticket sales through their promotion.
• Create discount codes for each speaker to share with their audience.

6. Leverage Speaker’s Existing Platforms

Many speakers have their own platforms, such as personal websites, blogs, podcasts, or YouTube channels. Encourage them to use these platforms to promote your event. Here’s how you can support this:

• Guest Blog Post: Offer to write a guest blog post for your speaker’s website about their session, with links to the event registration page.
• Feature on Their Podcast or Channel: If your speaker has a podcast or YouTube channel, suggest a feature episode or a short segment where they talk about their upcoming participation in your event.
• Collaborative Social Media Campaign: Partner with your speaker for a series of social media posts that cross-promote your event across both your platforms.

By leveraging your speaker’s existing platforms, you tap into their established audience, which may overlap with the target audience for your event.

How to Implement:

• Research your speaker’s platforms to see where they have the most influence, and approach them with collaboration ideas tailored to those platforms.
• Provide promotional copy or ideas for them to use on their blog, podcast, or social channels.
• Create co-branded graphics and hashtags to make the collaboration feel official and polished.

7. Make It Easy to Track and Measure Promotion Efforts

Speakers are more likely to stay engaged with promoting your event if they can see tangible results from their efforts. Provide them with tools to track and measure how their promotion is performing. You can use:

• Referral Codes or Links: Provide each speaker with a unique referral code or URL that tracks registrations or ticket sales generated through their promotion.
• Dashboard Access: Offer access to a simple dashboard where they can see how many people have registered through their efforts.

Being able to see the impact they’re having not only motivates speakers to continue promoting the event but also allows them to adjust their efforts if needed.

How to Implement:

• Set up unique tracking links for each speaker, which could be done through your event management platform or a referral marketing tool.
• Create a simple, user-friendly dashboard that allows speakers to track registrations, social media clicks, or other relevant metrics.
• Send regular updates to speakers on how their promotion is performing, and offer suggestions on how they can improve their efforts if needed.

Conclusion

Promoting an event effectively requires more than just your internal marketing team. By tapping into the networks and influence of your speakers, you can significantly increase your event’s reach and visibility. 

The key to success is making the promotional process as easy as possible for them. By implementing these ideas, you’ll not only make event promotion easy for your speakers but also create a stronger, more cohesive marketing effort that draws in more attendees and ensures the success of your event.