Hosting Virtual Fundraising Events

The most exciting project I worked on in 2023 was boosting registrations for an event. Here is what we did: Context: 5 weeks before the event. Message We benchmarked the event against the competition. We diversified the message, in this case, to move from education to networking and entertainment. Early bird canning This event overdid early birds. Our recommendation was to start marketing price increases instead of price reductions. Inverse psychology that, while stimulating FOMO, contributes to the overall perception of the event. Destination Leverage The destination was under-leveraged. We crafted email and social messages to showcase what the destination offered to stimulate last-minute sign-ups. Reg Software In most cases, reg is not optimized. Making sure every single option to sell better is turned on is paramount. We set up remarketing pixels and group codes. Social We coordinated a campaign to get the whole team to share the event on LinkedIn to boost last-minute peer pressure. LinkedIn is often ignored and it has a major impact on last minute conversions. Ambassador tech We recommended using referral platforms such as InGo, Snoball, or GleanIn. These platforms can be very different in their impact, and some integrate better with specific software. We projected a 30% increase in reg based on a proper implementation. Cart abandonment We found hundreds of abandoned carts and created a sales and email strategy to reach this audience. Understanding why they are not committing or proposing a discount code does wonders. Sources We optimized higher sources of conversions. In this case, email. We devised an email campaign with different levers to pull (community, team discount opportunity, destination showcase). This was key to diversifying the message. We turned this around in two weeks. Objective: achieved. Steal these tactics for your event.

Google just changed the game for event marketing. The big winner? Publications and associations. I’ll explain. But first. How are events discovered? Whether you want to admit it or not. It’s word of mouth. You hear about an event. You google it. Well ‘googling it’ is changing. On Monday, google released “AI Mode”. It hasn’t replaced the default search…yet. But it will. Showing up in AI Mode isn’t the same as ranking on google. Here’s what you need to do: 1. Get event page schema right Crawling a site is expensive. It uses token. The easier an event site is to crawl, the sooner it will get picked up. Add schema. org/Event, FAQ, and How-To markup to your reg page. Feed it clear dates, speakers, prices, and “Get tickets” actions. No markup = no mention. Event platforms like Accelevents do this automatically. 2. Earn citations, not backlinks AI Mode loves credibility. Niche trade publications & associations matter again. Land guest posts, podcast, speaker quotes. Visibility first, referral traffic second. 3. Keep Content Updated Stale pages will be punished. Update schedules, seat availability, and pricing in real time. AI Mode surfaces up-to-the-minute info. 4. Drive user-generated content Get attendees to share “One thing I learned at YourEvent” posts. AI Mode loves human content from social, reddit, quora, etc. The volume of brand mentions matters. 5. Tighten the trust signals Keep speak bios consistent. Link to verified social handles & get mentions from them. Credibility & authority are huge ranking factors. 6. Answer the long tail & hard questions Create an event FAQ (using schema markup) E.g. “Is XYZ Summit worth it?” “What’s the ROI of attending?” Publish cost-breakdowns, who your event is and isn’t for, etc Control the narrative. Better you than someone on Reddit. Simply put. When people hear about your event. Make it easy for them to find it. How are you adjusting your event discovery strategy?

Too many marketers treat webinars like one-off lead gen plays. Run the event, send the recording, plan the next one. But the teams getting the most out of webinars treat them like content engines, using multiple touchpoints to promote them and creating multiple assets from each one. Here’s how: 🔹 Before: plan & promote. Design the webinar around what you want the final content to generate. Think about how you can pre-plan the moments to clip later. Start outlining that blog recap now. And when it comes to promotion, don't stop at email invitations. Find ways to embed the registration link into existing content channels — a new or popular blog post on an adjacent topic, the bios of all your social channels, etc. (At SparkToro, I can consistently add 100-200 extra registrants by embedding the registration link in a new blog post.) 🔹 During: reward active engagement. Having live attendees is nice; having active chat participants is even better. Invite people to engage directly in the live chat. Ask open-ended but simple questions that are easy for people to respond to. Make sure you're also using that chat in real-time — drop notes, reactions, answer quick questions that don't need to be verbally addressed during the presentation. 🔹 After: remix & reassign. One recap email isn't enough. A single well-run webinar should become multiple LinkedIn posts, a blog post, YouTube clips, and sales talking points — assets that serve social media, content marketing, and sales. Give each content asset a new job. This mindset has mattered a lot for SparkToro Office Hours, which typically gets ~1,200 signups. It’s also very aligned with how Goldcast talks about online events too — not just hosting webinars, but turning video into clips, blogs, social posts, and more. Link below in the comments to learn more. #GoldcastPartner

I’ve been having lots of conversations about LinkedIn for events from organisers wanting to drive visibility and engagement, to exhibitors heading to upcoming tradeshows, and everyone in between. Whether you’re hosting, exhibiting, or attending LinkedIn can help you get more out of every event: ✨ More visibility 🤝 More connections 📈 More business outcomes Yet LinkedIn is often underused in the event space. A one-and-done post. A quick thank you. A flurry of activity... then silence. But here’s the thing: the event isn’t the beginning and it shouldn’t be the end. To get the most value, LinkedIn should be part of your strategy before, during and after the event. Here’s how to make the most of it: 🌠 1. Be LinkedIn Event Ready Your profile and company page shape your first impression often before anyone meets you. They should tell a clear, credible story that aligns with your event involvement. Organiser Tip: Create a LinkedIn Brand Kit for your speakers, exhibitors, and team – banners, hashtags, talking points, and example posts. Exhibitor Tip: Use an event-themed banner to show your stand details or branding. 🌠 2. Build Relationships Before the Event The most valuable connections rarely start cold on event day. The lead-up to the event is prime time to increase visibility, build familiarity, and position yourself as someone worth connecting with or visiting at the stand. Organiser Tip: Spotlight speakers, exhibitors, and sessions early and use tags to amplify. Exhibitor Tip: Shortlist people you want to meet - clients, prospects, collaborators, media and start connecting early. 🌠 3. Maximise the Event Experience Use LinkedIn to take people behind the scenes, amplify moments as they happen, and make your presence visible to those who couldn’t attend. Organiser Tip: Have someone live post from the floor, tagging participants and sharing session soundbites. Exhibitor Tip: Make it easy for people to connect with you it creates immediate pathways to keep the conversation going. 🌠 4. Keep the Momentum Going This is the stage where most people go quiet, but this is when the real relationship-building begins. Use LinkedIn to keep the conversation going. Share your takeaways. Follow up with new connections. Repurpose content into future posts. Organiser Tip: Share a highlight post and set the stage for what’s next even a “Save the Date” works. Exhibitor Tip: Send a personalised follow-up message referencing your chat. 🌟 Key Takeaways LinkedIn is one of the most powerful tools you have to extend your event beyond the room. It allows you to build relationships before the first handshake, stay visible throughout the event and strengthen credibility and connection long after the banners are packed away. And if you'd like support to develop your own LinkedIn event strategy that's more than one and done, I’d love to help. Because showing up is just the beginning. #linkedin #events #eventmarketing

I've attended 6 webinars/virtual events in the last 2 weeks. These have been hosted by very small teams/early-stage startups to billion $ companies whose brand names are synonymous with B2B SaaS. A few things I see across these events that are problematic: - Not enough context was given before the event - beyond the title and speakers, I don't know what to expect from a flow of the session perspective. - I have the event on my calendar but the pre-event reminder email frequency is super low. My recommendation is to use the 7-1-4-1 approach. 7 days out, 1 day out, 4 hours out and 1 hour out. Build excitement and drop hints on discussion points, value to the audience and who is attending in these emails. - Speaker and host energy - this is a big one. If the people on stage aren't excited about being there, your audience isn't going to be either. One Slack DM, one WhatsApp notification or an email and you've lost their attention. You need to think of your event as a captivating show on your favourite OTT. They need to be gripped as a result of your energy and the value you are bringing to the event. - Engage outside of the stage - Whether it's summarizing points from the stage to replying to chat or sharing resources in real-time. The chat better be active AF. - Always start with housekeeping - Run through the agenda and flow, and let people know about the assets they can expect, and what will they be able to learn and apply after. Getting them there IS NOT ENOUGH! - Post-event follow-up - every single event host sent out a follow-up email but only with the recording link. You need to share key takeaways, the assets and resources shared during the event and give them something they can engage with further. One and done is not going to drive your results here. What did you think of these observations? Is there something else you feel virtual events for marketers should have? Let me know in the chat. This is a topic close to my heart! LFG! #virtualevents #webinars #marketing

Investing in an exhibition stand? LinkedIn® needs to be part of your marketing before the doors open. That was our conclusion during a recent Disruptive Business Leadership event exploring LinkedIn’s True Role in the Age of AI. Roy Kowarski, exhibition specialist and Lynnaire Johnston, LinkedIn and AI visibility strategist, identified a significant missed opportunity. Companies invest heavily in exhibition space, displays, collateral and staff time, yet many fail to use LinkedIn to build interest, demonstrate expertise and encourage people to visit them before the event begins. Simply turning up at an exhibition is not enough. Before an event, an organisation and everyone representing the company need to know what it wants to achieve and how their activity contributes to it. LinkedIn can then support the strategy before, during and after the exhibition. Before the event, organisations should use LinkedIn to explain: 🔷 Why they are exhibiting 🔷 What they will be doing there 🔷 Why people should visit them As Roy puts it, “The trick is before the event to tell people on LinkedIn what you’re going to do and why they should visit you.” That requires more than a solitary “Come and see us” post. The marketing options include posts from the personal profiles of those exhibiting and from the company page. The organisation could also create a LinkedIn Event, publish an article demonstrating its expertise or feature the exhibition in its company newsletter. People can also be invited through the LinkedIn Event page, but the aim is not simply to increase attendance. Sharing genuinely useful information can position the company as the go-to organisation in its industry. That content might answer questions attendees are likely to have, share insights connected with the event theme or give people a compelling reason to seek the team out once they arrive. During the exhibition, personal profiles and the company page can continue working together to share expertise, conversations and insights from the event. Afterwards, LinkedIn can extend the relationships and visibility created, instead of allowing the entire investment to end with a celebratory photograph and a “What a great event” post. There may also be an AI discoverability benefit. When personal profiles, company pages and published content clearly associate people and organisations with an event and its subject matter, they create evidence of that involvement and expertise. That could increase the likelihood of those people or organisations being surfaced when someone asks AI about the event, its exhibitors or the specialist topics it covers. But this requires a coherent body of evidence created before, during and after the event. We explored this and more during the panel discussion which you can watch at the @LinkAbilityNZ YouTube channel. #LinkedInStrategy #EventMarketing #AIDiscoverability

Here's a simple event landing page template. After auditing 5 event landing pages LIVE with Goldcast and 200+ marketers last week, one thing was clear: Most teams are close to getting it right. They just need a solid structure to work from. So here's a simple event landing page framework to make sure your page gives attendees everything they need, without the guesswork. 1) The Hero: - Use an anchored nav to other sections  - Use an eyebrow for type of event + who for  - Put start AND end times along with dates  - Imagery - ones of past events are nice  - No forms right away - it's a waste of space  - Summarized description with the highlights  - No vague titles. Be clear about what it is. Example: “How Top B2B Marketers Are Cutting CAC by 30%” instead of vague phrases like “The Future of Marketing” A title that makes them say "DANG, I can't miss this". 2) Event Details - why should they care? - Deeper on details  - The largest takeaways  - The agenda with speakers 3) About the Speakers If you have all internal speakers, it will immediately make attendees think it's a sales pitch. A mix of external SMEs and internal is perfect. You want to include: - Speaker information  - A little speaker background for credibility 4) Testimonials People were like "huh??? for an event's page??" Yes, show feedback from their peers from past event attendees, about the amazing insights they took away, or people they met, etc. 5) FAQs Especially if this is an in-person event, you will want to include FAQs about logistics: - How much does it cost?  - What's the parking situation?  - Will I be provided food, drink, and merriment? They are committing their time, their effort. Lower the risk for them. 6) Sponsors If you have MANY sponsors, don't make it a wall of 20 logos. Have a single line of logos in a carousel format that users can control. 7) The CTA section Yes, all the way in the bottom. Don't worry, you have the CTA in the nav AND sprinkled every couple of blocks. They will find it if they want to earlier, I promise. But it's in the bottom because: You've given them the information  You've told them what they'll learn  You have amazing speakers  You've taken care of the logistics  You have proof your events are da bomb And NOW you can make the ask. (not with a 15-field form though) Just ask for the information you need to sign them up. Get all your other information later. Tell them what to expect if they do sign up. Ex. an email with an invite shortly That's it. Small tweaks with big impact.  Attendee-first content.  A storied, sequential layout. You got the rest, boo. I do this for a living. If you want help with your landing pages, reach out to me here: https://lnkd.in/ewys5rwC

Here's how most people promote webinars 👇 1.) Send out an email to your email list 2.) Promote via paid social (LI and FB) 3.) Run the webinar 4.) Send out the webinar to your email list 5.) Put webinar on your website and gate This is where your content goes to 💀⚰️ Then you go back to the team and start brainstorming ideas for the next piece of content. When the reality is: 1.) 90% + of your ICP didn't even see the webinar 2.) It probably is still relevant months after you promoted it 3.) Many people won't ever take the time to watch the whole webinar Here's how you extend reach, increase consumption, and drive more registrants post webinar. 1.) Use Descript AI to identify 3-5 short clips from the webinar 2.) Use Descript or LLM to write some quick post text 3.) Add captions, but keep branding light, don't start with 5 sec brand logo 4.) Go to channel where you ICP hangs out and post there organically 5.) Then promote via paid directly to your ICP We did this with another SaaS brand and were were able to get 11,497 people to watch 100% of one of the clips for around $3k. Pre-webinar launch, they only had 67 registrants and 27 people live. Post-webinar launch, 11.4k people saw a portion of it and almost 100 more registered for on-demand webinar. For this brand, webinar attendance was a big part of the buying journey as many that requested demo had previously attended a webinar. You worked hard on creating content for the webinar, don't forget to continue distributing even after the event has ended. Ensure you have a budget for promotion and REDISTRIBUTION.

We’ve managed $100k+ ad budgets promoting online and in-person events and here’s what we’ve learned: 1. Timing matters. The majority of ticket sales or registrations happen in the weeks leading up to the event. We account for this by allocating the majority of the spend closer to the day of the event. 2. Social proof converts. For one client, we searched LinkedIn for anyone who posted about the event after the fact and ranked them by engagement. We then promoted those posts as thought leader ads in anticipation of the next event. 3. Promote transparency. If you are at liberty to do so, why not give away the attendee list? If you have a high value audience and have your targeting dialed in, try a campaign where you gate the attendee list. We’ve seen this tactic promote great conversations that directly lead to ticket sales. 4. Ads that feature as many speakers as possible tend to perform the best. Generally we see ads with faces perform well, so try combining all the speakers into one post. You can then split those ads up into individual speaker ads, use them in carousels, etc. Above all, we’ve learned that preparation is key to promoting these events. For one client, we put together a schedule of ads that would go out as we got closer to the day of the event. This included “countdown” ads where we’d say “the event is 1 month out!” etc. as we built a sense of urgency. Because we put together this plan we were able to get creative requests to our designers early. We had all the creatives ready to go months out from the event and had all the campaigns built and scheduled so that they would pause and activate as the countdown got closer. We’re always testing new strategies to promote these events and it’s impossible to fit all of our experiments into one post. For example, LinkedIn has built in event ads which allow people to register for a LinkedIn event directly from the ad. The key to improving performance for that ad unit is to build up as many organic registrations as possible. Since you can see how many people registered directly on the ad, we’ve seen that a higher number of organic registrations directly impacts the conversion rate on the paid side. Interested in hearing more about how we promote events via ads? Feel free to reach out. We have a ton more ideas we’re looking to test. 🧑🔬

Top-performing organizations don’t just deliver experiences. They build anticipation months before the event occurs. Why this matters: anticipation is a performance lever. When employees and clients can visualize what they are working toward, discretionary effort increases without additional managerial pressure. Forward-thinking partnership teams are now designing multi-phase engagement strategies: Phase 1: Early qualification visibility Phase 2: Leaderboard storytelling Phase 3: VIP reveal moments Phase 4: Post-event legacy content The experience begins long before kickoff and continues long after the final whistle. Strategic Insight: If your program starts at arrival, you’ve already started too late. Architect the journey, not just the destination.