In a previous blog post I wrote about our client, Lorraine, who ran a very successful event. Click here to read about what made it so successful.  Here’s the story of Jeremy’s event and what made that such a success.

Jeremy is a consultant who specialises in change management. He has created a new methodology and training course that he wants to promote to his contacts, starting with a launch event in London. Nearly 50 people attended the evening, where Jeremy told his audience about the new concepts, which generated some healthy debate about the topic and a lot of very good leads.

How did Jeremy persuade nearly 50 busy people to go to London to listen to him speak? As with Lorraine’s event, in the previous blog, the secret is in the segmentation. The first thing we did was look at all of Jeremy’s 600+ contacts on LinkedIn. They were ranked according to their potential to attend the new course. We divided them into three groups and wrote emails to invite them to the launch event. We focused on why those people should attend and the benefits they would get from the event.

Then we sent out the emails and waited … for less than an hour for the bookings to start coming in! Not only did we get to nearly 50 bookings, but on the night a few interesting things happened. Firstly, about 90% of the people who had booked actually turned up – quite high for a free event, which would be easy to duck out of. Secondly, although the event started at 5pm, people who couldn’t get there until 7pm still attended, so they could take part in the discussion after the presentation.

So why did this event work so well?

• Because the majority of Jeremy’s contacts are ideal clients for him
• Because the new course he developed was aimed specifically at them
• Because he is known for his area of expertise among his contacts
• Because we ran an event at a location that many of his contacts could easily get to
• And because rather than just inviting absolutely everyone on his contact list, we made sure that we only invited the right people.

Of course, we also used a great venue that we knew people would be interested in going to, laid on some nice food and plenty of wine … If you are interested in Change, Programme and Project Management see videos of the event on the Agilesphere website.

So the next time you’re thinking about promoting a new service or an event, be really specific about who it’s for and tell them about it – just them!

Are you planning any sort of event to promote your business? What are you doing and who will you invite?