Increase event attendance

Hosting an in-store event can (and should be) fun! Check out these three important tips on how to keep your customers coming back to your events again and again!

Plan ahead and have a clear CTA. Respect that your customers have busy schedules. Give them enough time to plan to attend. Depending on the event, start inviting people 2-4 weeks ahead of time and tell them WHY they should come to your event. The name of the event and the first 1-2 sentences of the description should include all the information a person would need to know to decide if this event is for them.
Offer extras that encourage people to stay awhile. Food and drink are always standard crowd-pleasers, but consider discounts, gifts with purchase, Instagrammable photo walls, swag, face-painting, games, drawings, projects, etc. exclusive to the event.
Collect info and be consistent. While you have people in your store, invite them to Like you on Facebook, Follow you on Instagram, join your email list, opt-in for your loyalty program, etc. Then (very important) make sure to follow up! Post a thank-you message on the Facebook Event Page. Send an email. Post a video to your FB and IG. Then do it all over again and have another great event. 😊

If you’ve been following us for any period of time, you already know what I’m going to suggest to get people to your event- send an invite email to your lists and advertise your event with a Facebook and Instagram ad. Psst… Facebook makes this pretty simple with an Event Response ad that you can find under Engagement in Ads Manager.

Pro Tip: When setting up your Event on Facebook, use an image that represents the feelings or experience people will have at the event. If you have images of a packed store from a previous event, use that. Don’t use a “flyer” image that simply shows the event name, date, and time. It’s messy to look at and all that info is already listed below the image. 😊

Do:

Don’t:

If you’re using Facebook to market your business and to share any upcoming events your store is hosting or participating in – you need to be using the Facebook Local App. Facebook wanted a way to compete with companies like Yelp and Foursquare, so they rebranded the Events app into the Facebook Local App. The app allows potential customers to discover new places to go and to see events happening in their community – which is why this is a great place for your business to be showing up.

Watch the full episode:

There are 4 steps you should take to successfully get your events seen on the Facebook Local App.

Step 1: Merge your Facebook Place and Business Pages

You’ll have a Facebook Places page if at some point someone checked into your business before you had an official business page set up. Facebook doesn’t notify you when one is created, so you’ll need to do a quick search to see if there’s one associated with your business. You then have two options – you can merge the page with an existing business page or claim and verify the place if a business page has not yet been created.

Step 2: Create an Event for Your Business

To set up an event you’ll want to go to your business page and then select “Event” from the menu in order to create and publish your event. Once it’s been published the event is live on both Facebook and the Facebook Local app. It is worth noting that Facebook ranks events and page listings in the app based on “relevance.” Relevance is determined by weighing an event across factors like…

proximity to a person
the event’s start time
the number of friends who have RSVP’d as “going” or “interested”
total number of people “going” or “interested”
the star rating of the page (or place)
and number of friends who have checked-in at your page

…this is what makes the final two steps so important!

Step 3: Promote your event

There are plenty of ways you spread the word about your event both on and offline. One way is to use a Facebook Event Ad. Yes, this costs some money to do but can help increase your events reach. You should also consider inviting people via your email list or have your staff talk about the event with people who shop in-store.

Step 4: Encourage people to check-in and leave reviews

Check-ins and reviews are two of the factors Facebook looks at in order to determine your events relevance, so they should be something you focus on getting people to do regularly. An easy way to do this is to simply ask people who are shopping with you as they’re checking out! You can also have in-store signage at the register or printed on their receipt.

Facebook Local is a great way to attract new customers and increase traffic to your brick-and-mortar business, plus some of the strategies you use to get your events seen on the app can help increase your local awareness and engagement at the same time.

You can catch new episodes of The Modern Marketing Show every Monday at 10 a.m PST on our Facebook Page. Replays will be available on the blog each week.